Recent emojis don't update reliably

Bugs or Unexpected Behavior
1

Describe the bug
The recent emojis feature often doesn't work properly, failing to actually show recently used emojis. Some times the recents list clears out completely, other times it doesn't show a complete list of recent emojis.

Hand emojis are very far down the list so it becomes very noticeable when you use thumbs up a lot but it doesn't show up in the recents area.

Affected input device (e.g. MacBook Trackpad, Magic Mouse/Trackpad, Touch Bar, etc.): Touch Bar

Device information:

  • Type of Mac: MBP 15" 2018
  • macOS version: 10.14.5
  • BetterTouchTool version: 2.754

Additional information (e.g. StackTraces, related issues, screenshots, workarounds, etc.): This report actually comes from a user of GC-BTT I know in-person who specifically complained to me about the emoji picker. I've definitely experienced this myself, but have just never reported the issue.

As a feedback item, it would also be useful if the recent emojis area was separated from the main emoji list somehow, either by a spacer or actual divider element.

2

unfortunately this only gets the information from MacOS emoji service, which only records the official Apple widget usage.

I recommend to use the favorite emoji option instead

3

I don’t think the favorite option is a suitable workaround, since users don’t exactly know what emojis they’re going to type in advance besides thumbs up. Plus, since it has to be manually set by the user to work at all, that means the vast majority of users won’t do it, so as far as GC-BTT is concerned the favorites feature may as well not exist. I could set the favorites myself through the preset using a list of most common emoji, but I don’t think this would provide an acceptable experience for long, and for users who don’t conform to my selection it would actually get in the way.

I think additional functionality is required to make the recent emojis feature work the way that it should. It seems like the issue is that it only catches emojis when you use them through the system emoji pickers, but not through the BTT one. But could you record which emojis are pressed through the BTT widget and combine that information with the system recent emoji list to get the full picture?

Feel free to move this thread to feature requests, but I’d consider it a UX bug.

4

I only get an ordered list from the system, thus it's not really possible to combine that in a meaningful way. ;-(
I could make it BTT only, which is also not optimal.

5

BTT only would actually be a better experience, I think, since at least it makes logical sense that the BTT emoji picker could only show recents picked from BTT. There's no indication that it picks from the system emoji picker, and I pretty much ignore that because it's not universally available.

So I'd say you could make it BTT-only and it would be a noticeable improvement.

In the meantime, I did a little bit of research into top emojis on iOS and Twitter, and came up with this list of favorites that should do for a little while:

:joy::heart::sob::heart_eyes::kissing_heart::weary::thinking::blush::+1:

So that'll be added to the next experimental version of my preset. :slight_smile:

6

Add :man_shrugging:t2: to the list - it happens -too- often to me that I don't know stuff :thinking::rofl:

1 Like
7

Yes that's the only one I have on my favorite list :man_shrugging:

2 Likes
8

I would, but I think it's better to avoid the gendered emoji for the built-in favorites list :slight_smile: could it be motivation to improve the recents functionality? :wink: