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No accessible way to enter emojis in macOS Ventura, emoji picker is practically unusable with keyboard?

My problem is about entering emojis using a keyboard (the native keyboard of my Macbook, problem is not particularly related to external keyboards).


I know of two ways to do that in basic apps such as iMessage (also applies to any other native text input though).


1) I just learned about the shortcut Control+Command+Space to open the global symbols and emoji picker in any text field.

2) This does the same thing that previously was the default action of a long-press of the Fn key on my MBP 2021 (M1 Pro, 14"). However, I had to disable this long-press action because I need the default function keys more often than brightness and volume controls.


Both shortcuts open this window:


However, the behavior is extremely strange, to the point of making this unusable for me.


1) The window is not initially focused

2) The window breaks CTRL-Tab to switch between apps

3) The window breaks other global shortcuts such as CTRL+Space for Spotlight search

4) Even when focusing the window using the touchpad or a mouse, it still is not navigable using a keyboard. Inserting an emoji by pressing ENTER is not possible. Navigating the emoji list is impossible, only the search field works.


Am I doing something wrong, is this for historical reasons, or is this app just very bug-ridden?


The behavior as present on my device - in my opinion - violates basic accessibility principles and excludes keyboard-only users.


I know there are workarounds such as this one https://github.com/nathanmsmith/macos-emoji-snippets/blob/main/emoji.plist


But in my opinion, this is not what I'd expect of an expensive laptop with an otherwise good user experience.


Keyboard use is important, especially for people who have a motor impairment, injury or for people who just want to type quickly.


There seems to be no other way to enter emojis using the keyboard in e.g. iMessage (like in other apps such as Slack, Mattermost and the like, which use keyboard shortcuts starting with a colon, that are confirmed using the TAB key), this leaves me without any usable way to enter emojis using a keyboard.


Would appreciate any help or comment.


Currently, inserting a simple emoji requires jumping through several hoops and forces me to leave the keyboard, whereas in other apps with their own features for keyboard input on top (even WhatsApp Web!), I only need to enter a colon followed by a couple of letters and the TAB key.

MacBook Pro 14″

Posted on Mar 9, 2023 1:21 PM

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You can click on the icon at the top right corner of the Emoji Picker next to the search field to reduce it to the compact size.


This should then allow you to navigate the emojis using the arrow keys, and entering an emoji into a text field by hitting the enter key when the emoji you want is selected. If the emoji has sub options you can navigate those too with the arrow keys. You can exit the sub options with the escape key. Using the compact view, also lets you exit the Emoji picker with the escape key.



It does not work in the expanded view however.


Once you select the compact view, it should open in that format the next time you invoke it and every time after that.

Posted on Mar 9, 2023 2:06 PM

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Mar 9, 2023 1:48 PM in response to moritz116

  1. MacOS does not do mouse or keyboard auto-focus on these character panels when launched from an application. There is no changing that fact, and keyboard focus remains on the originating application.
  2. It is cmd+Tab to switch between applications. That does not direct you to the characters panel however.
  3. Spotlight is control+space and it works even when a character panel is already open.
  4. The panel was not designed to be navigable with the keyboard.


Tested: macOS Ventura 13.2.1


Since we are fellow users and the Apple product teams are embargoed from public site participation, you should send direct feedback to the macOS product team. They probably won't respond, but may consider your input for future operating system releases.

Question marked as Best answer

Mar 9, 2023 2:06 PM in response to moritz116

You can click on the icon at the top right corner of the Emoji Picker next to the search field to reduce it to the compact size.


This should then allow you to navigate the emojis using the arrow keys, and entering an emoji into a text field by hitting the enter key when the emoji you want is selected. If the emoji has sub options you can navigate those too with the arrow keys. You can exit the sub options with the escape key. Using the compact view, also lets you exit the Emoji picker with the escape key.



It does not work in the expanded view however.


Once you select the compact view, it should open in that format the next time you invoke it and every time after that.

Mar 9, 2023 11:39 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thank you very much for your response!


Before leaving my feedback with the product team, I want to make sure to have cleared all misunderstandings.


Regarding

  1. I'm curious what is the reasoning behind that? I can't see how this could make sense?
  2. You are of course correct, I mistyped and cmd+Tab was what I meant all along. Thanks for clearing up, I'm coming from Linux + PC keyboard and still sometimes confuse the key names. I use and I meant cmd+Tab for switching applications. The problem here is the combination of 1. and 2. – it seems impossible to bring focus to the emoji picker using the keyboard alone.
  3. Same for Spotlight search, I meant cmd+Space. Again, I can't understand why this stops working as soon as the picker is open.
  4. That's my complaint, I can't see why that is. All other applications that I use which provide their own picker work better.

Mar 9, 2023 11:48 PM in response to Phil0124

Thank you very much, this is a useful workaround for me.


The only problem remaining for me is that emoji search demands I know German names for emojis as German is my input language. This is kind of weird, e.g. searching for "heart", "smiling" or "rocket" does not work.


I'll try to add English as a secondary input language in hope of resolving this.


Edit: This does resolve the problem, so I now have a useful experience.

Thank you very much for taking time to answer.

Mar 10, 2023 4:52 AM in response to moritz116

moritz116 wrote:

The problems I described occur in all applications for me, including Messages. In fact, that app was the main reason for posting, because inserting emojis into a message is a pain without being able to use exclusively the keyboard to do it.

But the workaround provided by Phil0124 seems to solve my problem for this situation.

You may still want to let Apple know about improvements you would like to see in accessibility in this area, via


http://www.apple.com/feedback


Include a link to this discussion so they can see your photos and all the comments.


No accessible way to enter emojis in macOS Ventura, emoji picker is practically unusable with keyboard?

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