Unicode emojis shown as tofu

[pidgin at alexoren.com]

Doesn't Pidgin on Linux use a version that supports Emoji?  Why not achieve parity?

Also, what "new version" of GTK is needed?  I was trying the latest version of 2.x, my attempts at using 3.x failed completely.

I have no experience of working with GTK, and frankly this experience feels like going to the doctor with a stomach ache and being told to manually remove my own appendix.

Using the themes is hardly a solution since I doubt they have all of the unicode emojis that people use.  That said, can you suggest one that is reasonable extensive?

Thank you,
Alex.


On 2019-08-28 8:15 PM, Eion Robb wrote:
> Hi Alex,
> 
> The plugins might not load due to a bad version of libjson-glib that I built. It was built in such a way that it won't work on newer versions of gtk/glib. I've got a rebuilt json-glib dll that works with newer GTKs that you're welcome to try and see if it works. I'll send through the link shortly when I'm back at my computer
> 
> We're talking about whether or not to include a newer GTK in the next Pidgin, but there are some downsides such as increased memory usage and more leaking GDI handles. Emoji support is a key proponent of updating though.
> 
> Another option you can use is one of the unicode-emoji smiley themes, which convert unicode emoji characters into a png image.
> 
> Cheers,
> Eion
> 
> On Thu., 29 Aug. 2019, 12:04 , <pidgin at alexoren.com <mailto:pidgin at alexoren.com>> wrote:
> 
>     I mentioned the issue on the purple-discord github, and was told that the reason was that Pidgin on Windows uses an old version of GTK that doesn't support emoji.
> 
>     The suggestion was to manually upgrade the version of GTK but after spending hours trying to make it work, I gave up.
> 
>     I started from the GTK download page, which says:
>     "Note: These instructions are intended for developers wanting to create Windows applications based on GTK, not for end-users. On Windows, GTK applications are typically bundled with GTK already, so end-users do not need to worry about how to install GTK itself."
> 
>     Nevertheless, I tried following the directions and ended up with the whole MINGW -- all 1.3GB of binaries.  Replaced like-named DLLs in the GTP directory, chased DLL dependencies to find which additional ones need to be copied, replaced DLLs in the main Pidgin directory...  After many hours I got to the point that Pidgin loaded but all the plug-ins failed to load.  At that point I gave up and reverted.
> 
>     Can anyone help?
> 
>     If it's just a question of building Pidgin with a newer version, why won't the development team (for the lack of a better term) do it?
> 
>     Thank you.
> 
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