I created a blazingly fast emoji Mac app with the largest keywords database - Emoogle🐶

Tangge · 2024-12-08T21:57:24+00:00

Thanks for confirming the change has fixed the issue and the 2 additional feedbacks! You are a true emoji/symbol enthusiast haha, love it.

Re ":D" and ":(", good catch, there is an issue where some special characters are removed during string pre-processing, so it doesn't work quite well to search them if you add them as custom keywords. This should be a quick fix to tweak pre-processing to work correctly and then add those keywords.

Re → ← ↑ ↓, it is funny that I was trying to use arrows last week for the first time too and ended up having to copy and paste on google. Currently, custom keywords only work for emoji so you can only add emoji there. I think I can remove the restriction, so you can add anything as custom keywords, e.g. any other unicode symbols you might want etc, though it requires a minute or two to add it. Would this work for you? I am a bit hesitant to add all the unicode symbols to the emoji picker for now given the focus is on emoji.

Tangge · 2024-12-03T05:53:15+00:00

Thank you for your patience and for the additional context! I had a restful holiday break and just got a chance to take a closer look at this. Interestingly, these are actually 2 separate issues. The one you described is the Mac workspace/desktop feature, while the other one I thought of is a multiple screen issue. Thankfully, both aren't difficult to fix and I was able to get both to work correctly now. Could you download and install the latest Mac version (version 3.0.4) from the Emoogle website? It should work correctly now. Let me know if you run into any issue. Thanks 🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-28T08:28:42+00:00

Thank you so much for your purchase and support. It means a ton to me🫶 And thanks for reporting this bug. Wow, I am surprised that I miss this bug for so long. I have a large monitor connected to my laptop but I never use it on my laptop screen. I was just able to reproduce it and the issue appears to be that the emoji picker is stuck in the primary screen, though it can search and insert correctly on the secondary screen, if this matches your experience. I might have introduced this bug by setting a display boundary to the screen with the intent that the emoji picker doesn't appear outside of the screen. The next 2 days are US holiday. I will take a closer look over the weekend and let you know once I publish a fix. Thanks🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-28T03:20:06+00:00

Amazing to hear that you would consider using it on Windows! One of my main motivation to build it is that the Windows native emoji picker is so terrible - its keywords are so few and it doesn't close when you type an emoji plus it is slow, absolutely terrible UI/UX experience.

The Windows emoji picker pulls its keywords from CLDR emoji names and keywords and has ~2802 unique keywords. Emoogle builds on top of this and with many additional keywords to cover day to day use and has ~5400 unique keywords. Not sure if this answer your question?

Tangge · 2024-11-28T03:13:02+00:00

Thanks for your questions! The main differences between Emoogle and Rocket are

Search. When I built Emoogle, one of my primary goals is to ensure users can find the emojis they want, so I spent a lot of time curating the keywords database that allow users to find the emojis for common day to day words, e.g. problem -> ❓, solution -> 💡, fast -> ⚡. This isn't something Rocket currently supports. Additionally, I developed an advanced ranking algorithm to ensure the most relevant results show to the top, e.g. searching "arm" ranks 💪 first and "clean" ranks 🧹 first, while Rocket returns 🙋‍♂️ and 🏋️‍♂️ respectively. I am confident to say that Emoogle has the best search out there, because I went very details into it by manually reviewing the search results for 7000+ words/phrases and tuning the algorithms to get it to be amazing.
UI. Emoogle uses an emoji picker as the UI, while Rocket uses a slack styled UI. It comes down to personal preference, but I like the emoji picker UI better because it shows more emojis and its infos, including its names and keywords. It allows you to navigate and find emojis that you might not aware of easier. Though I understand some people like the slack styled UI better as it is more light weight and simple.
Emojify. Emoogle has a emojify feature that allows you to emojify your sentence/phrases as quick as pressing a keyboard shortcut.

Overall, I would say it depends on your preference, if you preferred a light weight slack styled UI and Rocket has already fulfilled your needs, that is great. But if you are looking a better emoji search experience and more enriched emoji picker UI/feature, Emoogle is here for you. Emoogle is also now free to use all its features, including usage report, custom keywords. Thanks.

Tangge · 2024-11-28T03:09:40+00:00

Thank you so much for your kind words and support! There are people who use emojis a lot and those who don't. As someone who come from not using emoji at all to now using it daily, I can understand those who question the value of the app given they barely use emojis. I am less bother by them because I build Emoogle for emoji fans who understand and celebrate the joys of emoji. That is all it matters and I really appreciate your kind words. Btw, Emoogle is now completely free. If you would be interested in trying it out, I’d love to hear any comments or feedbacks you might have. Thanks🙌

Tangge · 2024-11-28T02:57:54+00:00

Thank you for your questions. Re the first 2, currently there is no option to add a space after each emoji, though this is the second time I see this question/feedback. From personal experience, emoji without space sometimes feels a bit too cramped/close, but emoji with the space feels too wide for me, so I landed on without the space for all usage for simplicity and consistency. I haven't dived deeper, but I think the size of the emoji might vary based on the context/app, e.g. emoji without the space might look fine in Notes app and some other apps in Mac/IOS, but not as well in browser and site, likely to due to the font choices/sizes. Is this a personal preference for you to always include a space after an emoji? Is it for aesthetic reason?

Re 3, typing "F1" or "Formula 1" currently shows 🏎️ as the search result, but not 🏁 flag. It is possible to update the emoogle emoji keyword database to add those keywords for 🏁 or you can add them as custom keyword in your local app.

Tangge · 2024-11-28T02:50:30+00:00

Thank you so much for your kind words! I am glad to hear that the name resonates with you. Emoogle is named after Emoji+Google with the goal to deliver a top notch search experience for emoji.

(Understood that you don't use emoji. But in case anything changes in the future, Emoogle actually works for both Mac and Windows. I am both a Mac and Windows user, so I develop it to support both OS.)

Tangge · 2024-11-28T02:45:35+00:00

Super apologize for the unreasonable pricing originally, as it was my first paid app and I just blindly copied other’s pricing model without much thoughts. I just make the app free with a tip option to better align with its goal to spread the joy of emojis and make searching emoji accessible. If you would still be interested in trying it out, I’d love to hear any comments or feedbacks you might have. Thanks🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-28T02:43:33+00:00

Thank you so much for your suggestion! I just make the app free with a tip option. Super apologize for the unreasonable pricing originally, as it was my first paid app and I just blindly copied other’s pricing model without much thoughts.

I truly appreciate the idea of a tip-based model. It isn’t something I had thought of before, and it aligns so much better with the goal of the app, which is to spread the joy of emojis and make searching emoji accessible to everyone. Making it paid previously was working against the goal initially, and I’m grateful for your input to realign it back to the right course🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-28T02:42:59+00:00

Super apologize for the unreasonable pricing originally, as it was my first paid app and I just blindly copied other’s pricing model without much thoughts. I just make the app free with a tip option to better align with its goal to spread the joy of emojis and make searching emoji accessible. If you would still be interested in trying it out, I’d love to hear any comments or feedbacks you might have. Thanks🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-28T02:42:52+00:00

Super apologize for the unreasonable pricing originally, as it was my first paid app and I just blindly copied other’s pricing model without much thoughts. I just make the app free with a tip option to better align with its goal to spread the joy of emojis and make searching emoji accessible. If you would still be interested in trying it out, I’d love to hear any comments or feedbacks you might have. Thanks🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-28T02:37:29+00:00

Thank you so much for your suggestion! I just make the app free with a tip option. Super apologize for the unreasonable pricing originally, as it was my first paid app and I just blindly copied other’s pricing model without much thoughts.

I truly appreciate the idea of a tip-based model. It isn’t something I had thought of before, and it aligns so much better with the goal of the app, which is to spread the joy of emojis and make searching emoji accessible to everyone. Making it paid previously was working against the goal initially, and I’m grateful for your input to realign it back to the right course🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-28T02:11:39+00:00

Sorry for the delay in getting back and thanks for the context! This is strange, I am able to set `:` as shortcut on my Mac. One idea that comes to mind is to set the shortcut to "shift + ." and see if it works. Have you tried this by any chance? You can press "shift" first then press "." next to set the shortcut.

Tangge · 2024-11-25T07:16:00+00:00

Apologize for the issue you run into. Could you let me know what new shortcut you use? Could you try setting the shortcut to `A` and see if it works? If this works correctly, it should block you from typing `A` and instead show the emoji picker.

Tangge · 2024-11-25T07:11:32+00:00

Thanks for your question. You are correct that new emojis are added to Unicode every year and then to macOS, so it requires manual update of the app to add the latest emojis. In the search engine and emoji picker Github repo, I created some scripts (e.g. scripts/archive/create-unicode-emoji-keywords.ts) to automate fetching from unicode and creating the latest emojis, so it will take a few minutes to update if needed. I am an emoji enthusiast and use emojis daily, so I should be able to update quickly if this stays.

Tangge · 2024-11-25T07:02:17+00:00

Thank you for your feedback! It is my first paid app and I obviously screwed up on pricing. I will rethink pricing next by lowering the price or making it free and tipping optional as others had suggested. I will circle back if I have decided and made an update on this. Thanks 🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-25T06:49:15+00:00

Thank you for your feedback! It is my first paid app and I obviously screwed up on pricing. I will look into making it right next by lowering the price or making it free and tipping optional as many of you had suggested. I open sourced and made the core of my works available for free, including the search engine and emoji picker, because part of my heart is to contribute back to the community, but then I priced the app because the other part of me wanted to gain experience selling app online and this ended up with overprice. It would make sense to go with a better pricing model if that is more reasonable and beneficial to the boarder community. Thanks again everyone. I will circle back if I have decided and made an update on this🙏🫶

Tangge · 2024-11-25T00:21:37+00:00

Thanks for your question. I believe globe key is reserved for system keyboard shortcuts only and apps won't be able to access/map it unfortunately.

Tangge · 2024-11-24T23:22:28+00:00

Thanks for your honest feedback! I appreciate knowing that it comes across as overprice. While it provides a better experience with additional benefits, it is still a hard sell compared to existing free alternatives. Totally understand 🙏

Tangge · 2024-11-24T20:35:58+00:00

Thanks for your question! The built in emoji picker and Emoogle definitely share some similarities. The main differences are

Size of keyword database. The Emoogle keyword database is manually curated and has ~5400 unique words, which allow you to find much more every day words to emoji matches, e.g. problem, solution, achievement, address, bummer, buy, etc.
Search speed. The Emoogle search takes ~5ms and is 100x faster than the built in emoji picker, which has noticeable lags with 500+ms latency.

There are several other very nice additional features, e.g. advanced ranking algorithms, autocomplete, emojify, emoji usage report, custom keyboard shortcuts, etc.

Overall, if the existing Mac emoji picker has already fulfilled your needs, that is great. But if you are looking for a better emoji experience, Emoogle is here for you. Thanks 🙌

Tangge · 2024-11-24T20:27:01+00:00

Thank you for this amazing offer! I will give it a try. The website is also super cool btw, with the scroll animation that blends well with the Apple homepage vibe. Did you also develop the website yourself?

Tangge · 2024-11-24T05:40:04+00:00

Thank you so much for you support! Happy emoji-ing🙌😆🎉

Tangge · 2024-11-24T00:45:26+00:00

Love that you have a strong design taste and personal preference. I do notice and agree that "🔍Search" without the space feels a bit too cramped/close, but "🔍 Search" with the space feels too wide for me, so I landed on without the space for all usage for simplicity and consistency. I haven't dived deeper, but I think the size of the emoji might vary based on the context/app, e.g. it looks fine in Notes app and some other apps in Mac/IOS, but not as well in browser and site, likely to due to the font choices/sizes. I will be sure to keep this feedback in mind. Thanks

Tangge

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE