How to disable Firefox's new emoji picker
emsh.cat
emsh.cat
Actually, on most distros, the default keyboard shortcut for the emoji picker on GNOME/GTK is ctrl-. (same as the Firefox shortcut). This only works on apps that support it. Older Firefox versions did not support GNOME's emoji picker at all, but Firefox 150 supports GNOME's emoji picker using the expected keyboard shortcut.
Hmm, I wonder how new that is? Could be possible that my GNOME installation is old enough to predate that, and they didn't overwrite the config like Firefox did? Because I've been using Firefox + 1Password + GNOME for years, and for as long as I can remember, `ctrl + .` has opened 1Password dialogue in Firefox, and I'm not sure I've ever seen an Emoji picker in GNOME, although I know it exists somewhere.
For me, "Ctrl + ." was being used by two different extensions: Raindrop and Mult-account containers.
I deleted both of these shortcuts since neither were useful for me. I'd much rather have the Firefox emoji picker respond to "Ctrl + ." in the same way as other Gnome apps.
Proceeds to use an emoji as favicon :D
Why would I want text input in one app to have a feature that text input in other apps lacks?
I use both macOS and Pop!OS. The latter doesn't include an emoji picker by default, so I'm precluded from using a 3rd-party picker?
There is no issue as long as a 3rd-party app doesn't override built-in functionality. If you don't want it, it is easy to disable.
If every app brings its own emoji picker, then you end up with a different interface everywhere.
As I said, as long as 3rd parties aren't overriding the built-in functionality by default (e.g., using the same keyboard shortcuts), there's no problem. 99% of FF users will probably never even know it has its own picker.
It is of course great for third parties to add features, they should just work system wide. If text entry looks different in every app, that sucks.
You aren't required to use anything that you don't like. The fact that you are complaining about a non-problem is odd.
Lastly, incremental improvements generally come from outside the OS. If FF ends up adding something novel/interesting to their emoji picker, the major OS's will probably adopt it at some point. That would never happen in your world, where only the biggest companies get to innovate.
This whole post is about someone being upset that Firefox finally did support the system level interface and shortcut. And you're upset about that while asking for consistent interfaces. Some people can just never be happy I guess.
I shared it as a blog post as I've already had two people asking me privately if I know how to get rid of it, as I'm the reason they use 1Password in the first place, not because "I got so upset I couldn't contain it" or something like that. Surely there are more wondering it then.
I also don't think parent seem upset either, but I won't attempt to speak for them. But arguing for/against a position doesn't mean they aren't happy or that they are upset, conflicting views and perspectives is normal, even within the same person sometimes :)
On the other hand, I am not sure I can agree with "OS-level feature".
An emoji is essentially something simple, right? I am thinking of an "Unicode symbol" here. So to me, I would like to use any emoji or unicode as-is, anywhere, when it comes to user input - copy/paste, perhaps even converting it to a real image. You mentioned that "browsers should respect if emojis are forbidden by the OS", in essence, and I am not sure I agree with that. If an OS does not allow me to use an emoji, then I would not want to use that OS (well, I use Linux, so that does not matter anyway; and I avoid GNOME since it is too opinionated - I want to decide what I can do, I don't want remote developers decide what to do; this is also why I stopped using KDE, after the donation-daemon was added by Nate not so long ago).
> Why would I want text input in one app to have a feature that text input in other apps lacks?
That is a valid question but would I want to give up on emojis because "the OS does not support it"? I'd much rather use emojis, even IF an OS does not support it. I really don't want to be limited like that by an OS.
Perhaps this simply refers to different assumptions. I think we can agree that Mozilla invests their resources in a strange way though.
On macOS, it still opens the multi-account container panel, and the emoji picker is still brought up by tapping Fn.
I think up until version 150 it was nothing, as 1Password had `ctrl + .` as the default shortcut for opening up their autocomplete thing, and feels like they wouldn't have chosen that shortcut years ago if Firefox was already using it for something, but maybe I misremember.
I thought Firefox was adding its own Emoji-picker UI.
You're almost there :) Firefox now opens the system-level picker for that shortcut, regardless of what global keyboard shortcut you might have configured system-level. So system-level, I have nothing done on "CTRL + .", in Firefox, I have 1Password browser extension triggered by "CTRL + ." so when Firefox version 150 was launched, instead of seeing 1Password when I did the shortcut, it instead showed my system-level emoji picker (which I have no shortcut for), triggered by Firefox.
Why can’t Firefox respect system-level custom keyboard shortcuts? This has been a bug on Mac for like 15 years and they don’t seem to care about it at all, which IMO is ridiculous, it’s core system functionality.
This is an "OS"-feature, where OS means the GUI-Framework that Firefox is using to integrate with the DE.
> If the OS doesn’t provide the feature, then that is the OS’s decision to make, and the browser should respect it.
That's a very strange claim. Nearly everything in any app is something the OS is not providing; that's why apps exist in the first place, to enhance the environment.
> Why would I want text input in one app to have a feature that text input in other apps lacks?
Why should they cripple themselves willingly; just to align with others? Especially as this is a web browser, which has become the main way of interaction with a big part of the world.
Why ? Every program shall be free to implement its own Emoji picker. For example systemd or bash or even iptables.
"Mozilla needs to attract new users!!"
Mozilla proceeds to add new features which new users might like
"No! Not like that"
Like, what do you actually want? A browser with a UI that hasn't changed since Stallman was in nappies? Things have to change in order to grow. Not everything is going to be right for you and that's OK.
Is it? What website can you not view in Firefox today? I almost exclusively use Firefox on my computer (Safari on mobile), and can't remember the last time I encountered a website that wasn't viewable in Firefox. Even my bank, which tends to be whiny about what browser you use, works 100% in Firefox too, even with all the warnings.
Seriously? Have a few concrete examples to back that up?
Yes, this is exactly right, some things won't be for everyone. The best part of Firefox (for me, besides being able to have vertical tree-style tabs) is that more times than not, you can disable and/or hide the change you don't like, as demonstrated by the blog post.
Sure, I might not agree with every change they make to default choices but they at least let us power users configure the browser so it ends up just like how we want it to be, and for that I'm very grateful, as it tends to be uncommon in this day and age.
Same as WebUSB - heaven forbid that a website can become more useful by flashing firmware to a device!!
The web is a platform. It will grow and mature into something we can't possibly imagine. It's OK for browsers to try new things to see what sticks.
I assume that Mozilla have done some research showing people like typing emoji but don't know how to use their system emoji picker. Even in an ultra-purist world where a browser does nothing other than render HTML (death to JS!!!) surely people will want to type into boxen and POST text somewhere?
Similarly, there were people who complained about forms and buttons at roughly the same time and, a few years later, img maps, frames, layers (okay, with good reason), and CSS.
They (or their spiritual heirs) always pop up on Firefox threads, for some reason. For those people, I want to point out that Lynx is right here and is as usable as it's ever been: https://github.com/ThomasDickey/lynx-snapshots
Useful for whom ? The CIA ?
The alternative would have been booting to Windows, downloading some dodgy .exe from an advert infested site, and running untrusted code which inexplicably required my admin password.
I'm pleased the Web is able to put a stop to nonsense like that.
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.[1]
Nobody is saying the feature should be removed or scolding Mozilla for adding it, they're just explaining how to get rid of it if it annoys you.
Same as the AI integrations. There's obviously a market for them so FF has done some fairly sensible work to add them. And then people here explode like Mozilla has kicked their puppy.
But in all seriousness, it seems to me that firefox has relatively more opinionated users, or users who are very specific/strict about their setup and what they want, and many are often fast and vocal in expressing opinions compared to the other browsers. I don't think we see posts around with people complaining about features in other major browsers in the same way (of course I could just miss them because I would pay less attention to other browsers).
I am pretty sure somebody must have complained about the ff quantum update too, back in the days.
You're right, a bunch of extensions weren't working initially, large parts of the community were upset about that. Eventually, as more extensions were supported and new alternatives emerged, it eventually died out and was almost completely forgotten about, until you reminded me of it just now.
Honestly, I'm still sad about that. It caused a hit to the usability and functionality of Firefox. Some of that has since been compensated for, but parity has not yet been achieved and probably never will.
But even with the functionality reduction, Firefox is still better than the alternatives for me, so I continue to use it regardless. Perhaps, eventually, something better will come along.
so does cancer.
The only modern Firefox feature I like is the omnibar and the "bangs" - * for bookmarks, % for tabs, ^ - for history, @ for named search engines etc. But we have lost far more features then we have gotten. We don't even have configurable search engines from the settings anymore.
Emojis always felt juvenile to me, call me a boomer (not really a boomer in age), but they are an eyesore for me.
My ideal Firefox build would regain classic chrome from pre-Australis days with integrated omnibar. The UI would never change. Along this I would like some plugins that were only possible with XUL. But I know we will never get this unless someone actually makes these classic forks as secure and performant as modern Firefox.
If it weren't for prefs and userChome.css I would have long since abandoned Firefox. Those are the only things that makes it still worth using.
It's annoying, but you can still toggle `browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh` to true and it will restore the add/edit/remove buttons for search engines.
So this sounds like not working as expected I guess.
That `ctrl + .` now opens the emoji picker on Linux seems to very much be intended, judging by this release post: https://www.firefox.com/en-US/firefox/150.0/releasenotes/
> Added support for the GTK emoji picker on Linux, allowing users to insert emoji using the system shortcut (typically Ctrl+.).
> Linux [...] system shortcut
So it makes sense that they do not get the emoji picker, as they are in windows. I use macos and I also get the multiacccount container. On macos the emoji system-wide shortcut is ctrl+cmd+space.
If in most linux distributions ctrl+. opens the emoji pickers, it is not weird that they implemented it there, and not in other OSes where it would not make sense.
Is there some kind of Linux standard for this? Something that stores shortcuts in a single plain text file, so they're all visible and easily manageable?
In hindsight, I probably should have made it clear that this change is for Firefox 150 on Linux specifically.
Mozilla is really focusing on how to break the Google monopoly.
With the POWER of the Emoji, Mozilla will succeed here. I ... suppose?
Ladybird browser can't come soon enough.
The list of things I don't want in a browser is growing.
Perhaps they need to consider a "basic" version