[Feature Request] Support classic markup for emojis

[brendomaciel]

Description

This extension uses markdown-it and it could take advantage of its markdown-it-emoji plugin for adding support for the classic markup (i.e. :wink:, :cry:, :laughing:, :yum: etc).

Since some markdown-it plugins are being used already, I'm wondering if the emoji one was intentionally not used. If that's the case, would you mind sharing the reason?

Thank you for the work you've been doing on it 🙂

[cyanzhong]

Thanks for the feedback. To me, this is a rather odd idea. There are two aspects to it.

First, this conversion is not standardized. While some apps support it, even common sequences like :) being automatically converted into a smiley can still produce unexpected results for some users. Being "magical" isn't always a good thing. I generally prefer predictable behavior.

Second, even if this conversion is a widely recognized convention, I don't think it belongs in the rendering layer (which is what this extension does). A better approach would be to implement it as a separate extension that transforms user input as they type, while still allowing users to revert back to the original ASCII characters if they want.

This keeps rendering deterministic and avoids introducing unexpected output, resulting in more consistent behavior overall.

Personally, I'm not interested in adding this feature, especially not by directly integrating the plugin you mentioned.

On macOS, the built-in emoji panel already provides a complete solution, and in macOS Golden Gate the emoji search experience has become significantly better.