Automatically add a space before the emoji if the user is typing Chinese and uses emoji picker

feature
9

We have a few options here:

  1. Allow 呵:t_rex: so :t_rex: is an emoji. The problem though is that it is very expensive to detect Chinese per https://github.com/alsotang/is-chinese/blob/master/ischinese.js so this would add a bunch of extra slowness to the MD engine.

  2. Fix it so autocomplete behaves consistently with the way the engine interprets it. Meaning 呵:t should not pop open an emoji window.

  3. @schungx suggestion where after autocomplete is done we insert a space prior to emoji if needed.

  4. Add a “special mode” into Markdown where it requires no special punctuation between emoji and then a:t_rex:a would render a :t_rex: a.

I feel like the best way forward here is (2) and (4) combined. So:

  • Out-of-the-box autocomplete is not doing any funny business where it pretends to add an emoji and does not

  • In Chinese forums where words are just joined we would set SiteSetting.require_punct_before_emoji = false (and have autocomplete respect this)

@misaka4e21 / @tgxworld what are your thoughts here?

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