🎊

Emoji favicon generator

Aka favicons-as-a-service

  • MVP: emoji.games/🦈 ⇒ https://twemoji.maxcdn.com/v/13.0.2/72x72/1f988.png
    • What's the value add over getting it from Twemoji directly? Hm....
      • Easier to remember!
      • Supports shortcodes
      • Other icon packs besides Twemoji
      • Simple backgrounds
  • Website UI for showing what works
    • Dynamically updates its own favicon, obv
    • Random emoji button
    • Generate Twemoji link for maxcdn, if you trust them instead
  • API:
    • /🦈
    • /🦈.png
    • /🦈.svg
    • /🦈.black.svg
    • /🦈.text.svg
      • text = actually embedded SVG? ala https://css-tricks.com/emojis-as-favicons/
        • Warning: sizing/padding problems
    • Or should these be url params?
  • Why emoji are important: Look at a typical browser tab! It's all like, random junk, but the favicons are how you actually figure out where to go
    • But the emoji is always visible.
  • v0: Just link to twemojis
  • v1: Different emoji sets?
  • v2: Generate svgs. Background color,
    • Actually maybe this isn't that hard! Embedded twemoji inside SVG
  • v3: Animated? Generated? Customized?
    • Rotate? Flip? Once every so often... or maybe as JS library
    • Loading indicator?

How to build it:

  1. Actually just host the static images on Netlify CDN
    • Try this first! It's super easy
      • Q: Do files without extension work on the browser
  2. Name shortening service == map one thing to another

Questions:

  • Do I need a server? What kind of server?
  • What server language have I wanted to learn? Go (esbuild, etc)? Rust? Node JS again?
  • How are CDNs created? How do I build one?
  • How are things routed?
  • Self host emojis vs link to existing CDN
    • Self host = can do nice weird tricks like 🦈.black.round.svg

Project names

  • emoji.oneword.games
    • Pros:
  • emoji.camp, emoji.band
  • emoji.is
    • Short, but uglyish
  • emoji.sh - taken, sad. But .ish in the future
    • Also emoj.is
  • favicon.to ? $40...
    • Maybe this one
  • emoj.ink - $7 on Namecheap

Capturing value

  • Sponsor this project.
    • At $20/month, we'll host a custom emoji for you, to let you + others use!
      • Hm, does anyone actually want others to use their own emoji?
      • Oh, but different versions (eg background colors) — quickly show status
        • Eg Streamlit docs vs sites vs main
        • For testing: https://css-tricks.com/different-favicon-for-development/

Credits:

  • TheSephist for inspiration from micro og stuff

Usage @November 17, 2021

  • super.so renders emoji differently than Notion
    • Notion uses Twemoji on Windows and Mac emoji on Mac
    • super.so always uses local OS emoji
    • Would like to completely replace
      • Easy path: write a script to inject into the super.so site, maybe based directly off of Embed GitHubEmbed GitHub