Better/additional insert emoji "keybinding"

[pinusc]

Right now there is a (customizable) keybind to insert emoji: Ctrl-S. Upon selection, it enters the text :emoji:, e.g. :upside_down_face:.

I can never remember the shortcut and have to look it up every time. I think the following would be a lot more intuitive:

typing :<tab> brings up the emoji menu

This mirrors Whatsapp Web's functionality (as well as discord's, and, I'm sure, others), and it's much easier to remember since I know that emojis are encoded as :emoji:, whereas there is no mnemonic for ctrl-s or whatever.

P.S. In GUIs such as Whatsapp Web, it actually shows an upside-down completion menu as soon as I press :something, with no need to hit tab, it doesn't open a separate window; although this would be achievable in a TUI, it would likely require more extensive changes. Simply opening the menu on :<tab> would be plenty, especially since terminal users are used to tab being used for completion.

P.P.S.
Ideally this would actually trigger as a completion, e.g. :ups<tab> would bring up the emoji menu with ups already input as text, so I can start typing an emoji's name and then decide to complete it afterwards. This I think would be the most intuitive UX. Implementation shouldn't be too hard, either: when <tab> is pressed, read the input text, and if the cursor is at the end of a word starting with :, then bring up the emoji menu. Not sure how easy it would be to pre-fill the menu's input box...

[d99kris]

Thanks for suggesting a new functionality! It sounds like a good UI improvement. Will try find time to look into this.

Eventually a similar shortcut could be used for mentioning other users in a group chat; @<tab> or @Kri<tab>.