As any Mac owner knows, using emoji in Apple’s operating system is a bit of a faff. The quickest way to send someone a burrito or let them know you’re throwing shade is to bring up the character viewer by pressing Ctrl+Cmd+Space and then selecting the emoji you want to use. Now, though, one GitHub user has made the whole process a darn sight simpler.
User Warpling made use of OS X Mountain Lion’s text-substitution feature to create a list of emoji shortcuts based on Slack’s clever substitution system. Simply type the name of your desired emoji between two colons, and voila your aubergine can materialise as quickly as any good dick joke does.
If you’re not familiar with Slack, don’t worry, the system uses simple language to describe what it is you want. Type :clap: for a clapping hands emoji, or :running: for the running man one. It’s less clear how Warpling has handled multiple skin-tone emoji, but it’s simple enough to add emoji the long way if you’re not satisfied with the default yellow hands.
Installing Warpling’s shortcut is also incredibly simple.
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Download Warpling’s emoji substitutions.plist (right-click and then click “Save link as”).
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Open System Preferences and go to Keyboard | Text.
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Drag the emoji substitutions file from your Downloads and add it into the list of substitutions.
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That’s it, you’re done! Just type an emoji of choice such as :snake: and hit space to see your emoji will appear before your eyes.
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