WhatMoji.com on HackerShow

Languages and libraries

emoji reference

SHOW HN2016

I couldn't figure out what an Emoji meant, so I made WhatMoji.com

Shown by nk- on May 24, 2016. Click the card to turn it over.

143points

76comments

#239of 2,264 in 2016

Top 11%of 2016 by points

How HN took it

CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments

6 positive, 20 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 13 critical, out of 39 comments about the project. Thread score -0.18.

Idea: 2 for, 5 againstDocs: 0 for, 6 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 0 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

Simple and does what it promises.
From 1 comment
- I like it. It's simple & elegant and does exactly what it promises to do. :)
  imakesoft on HN
Useful for learning emoji meanings.
From 1 comment
- A bank would be useful for general learning. i.e. when I went to the site just now, I didn't have a specific emoji that I needed to identify, but if there had been a 'bank of…
  23andwalnut on HN

Gives only the Unicode name, not the cultural or slang meaning.
From 3 comments
- It still doesn't really tell you what it means, just the name/annotation.
  LukeB_UK on HN
- Except so many of them are culturally specific, like the horn emoji on the front page has roots in postal systems (both in Japan and Europe). This page doesn't tell you that.…
  azinman2 on HN
- Cool but you definitely need to include "alternative" meanings. Consider doing something like Urban Dictionary so people can find out what the eggplant really means.
  callmeed on HN
Emojipedia offers more context.
From 2 comments
- I feel like http://emojipedia.org/ is a better website with more information. I've been regularly using it since Emoji have become a thing. It gives more context about the…
  gtk40 on HN
- This looks very similar to http://emojipedia.org/
  mentalbastille on HN
Some emoji render blank on some systems.
From 1 comment
- I'm not really up on how text rendering works; what's it mean if I can see some of those, but not others? e.g. I have Rocket but not Helicopter; not Steam Locomotive but Railway…
  viewer5 on HN

Add user-generated or community cultural meanings.
From 3 comments
- It would be cool if you could allow for user commenting/voting so that people could add and build up cultural context for them rather than just having the spec definition. If you…
  TJTorola on HN
- It would be more interesting if the emoji descriptions were user-generated, because individual subgroups often use the same emojis to mean different things (or an emoji just…
  qq66 on HN
- Cool but you definitely need to include "alternative" meanings. Consider doing something like Urban Dictionary so people can find out what the eggplant really means.
  callmeed on HN
Support text shortcodes like :poop:.
From 1 comment
- It would be nice if it supported the ASCII text shortcuts like :poop: (see http://www.emoji-cheat-sheet.com/). You could also make the URL route based on the ascii shortcut as…
  agentgt on HN
Include a browsable bank of emoji.
From 2 comments
- Would be nice if you provided a bank of emojis so I wouldn't have to go to another source in order to copy and paste them in.
  bpatel576 on HN
- A bank would be useful for general learning. i.e. when I went to the site just now, I didn't have a specific emoji that I needed to identify, but if there had been a 'bank of…
  23andwalnut on HN

Does it store user input?
From 1 comment
- It seems to permanently (?) store all of the input text. Why? http://whatmoji.com/?i=da510f5876a15885fa89de8abe731d3c EDIT: OK, so it stores only the emojis. The actual text is…
  jstanley on HN

Emojipedia
From 2 comments
- I feel like http://emojipedia.org/ is a better website with more information. I've been regularly using it since Emoji have become a thing. It gives more context about the…
  gtk40 on HN
- This looks very similar to http://emojipedia.org/
  mentalbastille on HN
UrbanEmojipedia / Urban Dictionary
From 2 comments
- UrbanEmojipedia?
  placeybordeaux on HN
- It would be cool if you could allow for user commenting/voting so that people could add and build up cultural context for them rather than just having the spec definition. If you…
  TJTorola on HN
Unicode Debian package unicode
From 1 comment
- I installed the Debian package "unicode", which will accept an emoji as an argument and print the Unicode description. It also searches the descriptions, if given a word as an…
  Symbiote on HN