Emojis

GitLab supports native Emojis through the tanuki_emoji gem.

How to update Emojis

1. Update the tanuki_emoji gem.
2. Update EMOJI_VERSION in lib/gitlab/emoji.rb
3. Update EMOJI_VERSION in app/assets/javascripts/emoji/index.js
4. Use the tanuki_emoji gem’s Rake tasks to update aliases, fallback images, digests, and sprites. Run in the following order:

   1. bundle exec rake tanuki_emoji:aliases - updates fixtures/emojis/aliases.json

   2. bundle exec rake tanuki_emoji:import - imports all the images into public/-/emojis directory

   3. bundle exec rake tanuki_emoji:digests - updates public/-/emojis/VERSION/emojis.json and fixtures/emojis/digests.json

   4. bundle exec rake tanuki_emoji:sprite - creates new sprite sheets

      If new emoji are added, the sprite sheet may change size. To compensate for such changes, first generate the app/assets/images/emoji.png sprite sheet with the above Rake task, then check the dimensions of the new sprite sheet and update the SPRITESHEET_WIDTH and SPRITESHEET_HEIGHT constants in lib/tasks/tanuki_emoji.rake accordingly. Then re-run the task.

      • Use ImageOptim or similar program to optimize the images for size
5. Ensure new sprite sheets were generated for 1x and 2x
   • app/assets/images/emoji.png
   • app/assets/images/emoji@2x.png
6. Update fixtures/emojis/intents.json with any new emoji that we would like to highlight as having positive or negative intent.
   • Positive intent should be set to 0.5.
   • Neutral intent can be set to 1. This is applied to all emoji automatically so there is no need to set this explicitly.
   • Negative intent should be set to 1.5.
7. Ensure you see new individual images copied into app/assets/images/emoji/
8. Ensure you can see the new emojis and their aliases in the GitLab Flavored Markdown (GLFM) Autocomplete
9. Ensure you can see the new emojis and their aliases in the emoji reactions menu
10. You might need to add new emoji Unicode support checks and rules for platforms that do not support a certain emoji and we need to fallback to an image. See app/assets/javascripts/emoji/support/is_emoji_unicode_supported.js and app/assets/javascripts/emoji/support/unicode_support_map.js
    • if a new version of Unicode emojis is being added, update the list in app/assets/javascripts/emoji/support/unicode_support_map.js
11. Ensure you use the version of emoji-regex that corresponds to the version of Unicode that is being supported. This should be updated in package.json. Used for filtering emojis in app/assets/javascripts/emoji/index.js.
12. Have there been any changes to the category names? If so then app/assets/javascripts/emoji/constants.js will need to be updated
13. See an example MR