wezm/wezm.net
1
0
Fork 1
mirror of https://github.com/wezm/wezm.net.git synced 2024-12-18 18:29:54 +00:00
Code Issues Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity

Add github-emoji-linux post

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
Wesley Moore 2020-06-19 18:07:41 +10:00
parent b7208e08d1
commit 35f7d3568f
No known key found for this signature in database
GPG key ID: BF67766C0BC2D0EE
2 changed files with 40 additions and 0 deletions
Show stats Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

BIN
v2/content/posts/2020/github-emoji-linux/github-emoji-before-after.png Normal file
View file

Binary file not shown.
Side by side

After

Width:  |  Height:  |  Size: 75 KiB

40
v2/content/posts/2020/github-emoji-linux/index.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+++
title = "Working Around GitHub Browser Sniffing to Get Better Emoji on Linux"
date = 2020-06-19T18:03:43+10:00
# [extra]
# updated = 2020-06-19T09:30:00+10:00
+++
I have my system configured[^1] to use [JoyPixels] for emoji, which I consider
vastly more attractive than Noto Color Emoji. Sadly GitHub uses browser
sniffing to detect Linux user-agents and replaces emoji with (badly aligned)
images of Noto Color Emoji. They don't do this on macOS and Windows. In this
post I explain how I worked around this.
<!-- more -->
<div class="text-center">
<img src="github-emoji-before-after.png" style="max-width: 530px; max-width: min(530px, 100% - 32px); border: 1px solid #e1e4e8; padding: 0 16px; background-color: white;" alt="Screenshot of GitHub showing two comments, one with emoji set in the Noto Color Emoji font, the other in the JoyPixels Font.">
</div>
The solution is simple: make GitHub think you're using a Mac or Windows PC.
There are various ways to change the User-Agent string of Firefox. The easiest
is via `about:config` bit I didn't want it to be a global change — I
want sites to know that I'm using Linux in logs/privacy respecting analytics (I
block most trackers).
I ended up using the [User-Agent Switcher and Manager] browser add-on. I
configured its allow list to only include `github.com`, and use the
`User-Agent` string for Firefox on macOS. The end result? JoyPixels, just like
I wanted.
**P.S.** If anyone from GitHub sees this. Please stop browser sniffing Linux
visitors. Linux desktops and browsers have had working emoji support for years
now.
[^1]: I use the term, "configured", loosely here as all I really did was install the
[ttf-joypixels](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/any/ttf-joypixels/) package.
[JoyPixels]: https://www.joypixels.com/
[User-Agent Switcher and Manager]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-string-switcher/