Please consider installing fonts-noto-color-emoji by default

[Jeremy Bícha]

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS includes support for color emoji. But you need a color emoji font installed. Ubuntu and most desktop flavors are including fonts-noto-color-emoji (as a Recommends) by default. That is the emoji font used by stock Android devices like the Google Pixel.

Note that Qt apps don't generally support color emoji yet. For that you probably want fonts-symbola which will at least provide decent black and white coverage, if great Qt support is an important consideration for you. (xubuntu-core and xubuntu-desktop already recommend fonts-symbola.)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

Has the status of color emoji in Qt changed? I've asked around and seen some rumblings about it, but when testing in 19.10 it looks like color emoji is still unsupported.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

I don't think Qt has full support for color emoji yet. Most Ubuntu users are using some GTK apps like a web browser (especially Xubuntu!) so installing a color emoji font is useful.

[Stephen Michael Kellat (skellat)]

reverse-depends fonts-noto-color-emoji
Reverse-Recommends
==================
* dino-im
* fonts-noto
* gajim
* gnome-characters
* kubuntu-desktop [amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el]
* kubuntu-full [amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el]
* python3-sqt [amd64 arm64 ppc64el]
* ubuntu-budgie-desktop [amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el]
* ubuntu-desktop [amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el]
* ubuntu-desktop-minimal [amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el]
* ubuntu-mate-core
* ubuntu-mate-desktop
* ubuntu-unity-desktop [amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el]
* ubuntukylin-desktop
* ubuntustudio-desktop

Packages without architectures listed are reverse-dependencies in: amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x

reverse-depends -b fonts-noto-color-emoji
No reverse dependencies found

Lubuntu isn't carrying it in their seed as well, it seems.

[Nick Stone (nickstone8)]

In a default fresh install of XUbuntu 20.04, Qt based applications, eg Featherpad and Qt-Creator, will not display certain unicode characers, eg, U+1F9C0 CHEESE WEDGE 🧀 (a white rectangle is shown instead). Non Qt apps, eg geany or gnome-terminal, show the cheese successfully. If Noto fonts are manually uninstalled, then the problem is fixed; Featherpad does display the cheese correctly. Conjecture: the Noto fonts were providing a colour version of the cheese wedge; the Qt apps could not display that but can display grey versions

[Nick Stone (nickstone8)]

Just an addendum to my comment above. I would describe this as a serious problem with a default install of XUbuntu. I spent two days trying to work out why my Qt based app was not displaying certain unicode characters (eg cheese wedge). It was just showing the white rectangle. Other apps, eg Geany, gnome-console, were showing the cheese just fine; so I thought I had a bug. I didn't know that Qt apps could not display colour emojis. If they cannot display colour unicode characters, then they should display the grey equivalent instead of just displaying a white rectangle. As I say, I spent two days trying to understand why my app was not displaying certain characters when I knew that the font it was using did support that character.

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

@nickstone8, Are you sure this is a problem with the default Xubuntu install?

[Nick Stone (nickstone8-v)]

Yes. Original problem was with XUbuntu. I have now changed systems but problem still present in XFCE Mint 20.1

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

@nickstone8-v Thanks for following up. I've confirmed the issue that you're seeing and created a separate issue here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fonts-noto/+bug/1930695

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

QT apps still don't support color emoji, so I'm going to go ahead and close this issue out. In case there's future interest in color emoji on Xubuntu, please create a new issue instead.

[Nick Stone (nickstone8)]

Thanks. I hope it gets acted on! Its not a problem for me anymore, but
it did cost me a lot of time (trying to figure out why my Qt based app
wouldn't display the cheese whereas Geany would!).
Whilst the problem persists, there is a danger that other people will
lose a similar amount of time.
Cheers.

On 03/06/2021 11:21, Sean Davis wrote:
> @nickstone8-v Thanks for following up. I've confirmed the issue that
> you're seeing and created a separate issue here:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fonts-noto/+bug/1930695
>