Subject: Re: bug#72268: 31.0.50; Color emoji rendering

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2024 18:02:46 +0300

> From: Manuel Giraud <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked],  Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>,  [email-masked]
> Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2024 15:36:33 +0200
> 
> I've search about this issue and found the following link:
> https://old.reddit.com/r/openbsd/comments/1atanzd/color_emoji_not_shown/
> 
> When I apply the recipe describe by sthen@ here, I can make color emoji
> to work in Emacs (and probably other applications).  Therefore, I
> propose that we add the following patch to etc/PROBLEMS.  WDYT?

Thanks, see some comments below.

> +** On OpenBSD, color Emoji are not supported.
> +
> +The system's FreeType library is not built with libpng support, so it
> +can't display compressed colour emoji.  This is due to the fact that, on
> +OpenBSD, libpng is provided through ports and that a base component
> +cannot depend on that.

First, we use US English spelling, so it should be "color", not
"colour".

More importantly, I don't think I understand the user-level meaning of
this.  You say "compressed color Emoji", but what does that mean in
practice?  Does it mean no font which supports color Emoji display
will ever work on OpenBSD unless the FreeType library is rebuilt with
PNG support?  If so (but then why say "compressed" above?), I think we
should say so and include a bit more details about rebuilding FreeType
on OpenBSD, like that Reddit discussion mentions.  OTOH, if some Emoji
fonts can be used on OpenBSD, we should say that as well, and perhaps
mention those fonts, if they are free.

IOW, PROBLEMS is supposed to describe the problems and their solutions
or workarounds in user-understandable terms, because that file is for
Emacs users, not for Emacs developers.