Feedback and assistance required: Emoji Menu add-on (version 1.1)

[Mister Kayne]

Dear NVDA Community,

 

I recently downloaded and installed the emoji_menu-1.1.nvda-addon, as I found the concept of a dedicated emoji picker very promising. I have been testing it across various platforms, including WhatsApp and standard text editors, but I am encountering a couple of hurdles I was hoping the community or the developer could help me with.

 

Firstly, regarding the search functionality: when I trigger the menu and search for specific terms, the results seem a bit limited. For example, searching for "dancing" does not bring up the expected variations like the man or woman dancing emojis. Is the search index based on specific keywords that I should be using instead?

Secondly, and more importantly, I am struggling to actually insert the emojis. While I can bring up the menu, search, and navigate to an emoji, hitting Enter on the selection does not seem to add the character into the edit field. I have tried this in the WhatsApp edit field and other text editors without success.

 

Am I missing a specific configuration step, or is there a particular way the focus needs to be handled for the insertion to trigger correctly?

I am running NVDA 2025.3.1 on a Windows 11 Pro (64-bit) machine.

 

Any advice or workarounds would be greatly appreciated.

 

Warm regards,

 

Mister Kayne
Author: The Somebody, Nobody, Anybody & Everybody Blog!

Mail: writ...@mister-kayne.com

Sent from Outlook® for Windows 11

 

[Gene Asner]

I'm not sure how to use the add-on. The instructions say the following:
Use NVDA + ; to open the emoji menu, Choose the category, And press
enter on an emoji to copy it to the clipboard.

I find no emoji menu. If I open the NVDA provided emoji dialog, it is
exactly the same as it was and works the same. So just how is the
add-on to be used? I've looked in the main menu, in tools and in
preferences and see no additional emoji access method.

Gene

On 3/22/2026 6:48 AM, Mister Kayne wrote:
> Dear NVDA Community,
>
> I recently downloaded and installed the emoji_menu-1.1.nvda-addon

> <https://github.com/diamondStar35/emoji_menu/releases/tag/v1.1>, as I

> found the concept of a dedicated emoji picker very promising. I have
> been testing it across various platforms, including WhatsApp and
> standard text editors, but I am encountering a couple of hurdles I was
> hoping the community or the developer could help me with.
>
> Firstly, regarding the search functionality: when I trigger the menu and
> search for specific terms, the results seem a bit limited. For example,
> searching for "dancing" does not bring up the expected variations like
> the man or woman dancing emojis. Is the search index based on specific
> keywords that I should be using instead?
>
> Secondly, and more importantly, I am struggling to actually insert the
> emojis. While I can bring up the menu, search, and navigate to an emoji,
> hitting Enter on the selection does not seem to add the character into
> the edit field. I have tried this in the WhatsApp edit field and other
> text editors without success.
>
> Am I missing a specific configuration step, or is there a particular way
> the focus needs to be handled for the insertion to trigger correctly?
>
> I am running NVDA 2025.3.1 on a Windows 11 Pro (64-bit) machine.
>
> Any advice or workarounds would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Mister Kayne
> Author: The Somebody, Nobody, Anybody & Everybody Blog!

> <https://www.mister-kayne.com/>
>
> Mail: writ...@mister-kayne.com <mailto:writ...@mister-kayne.com>

>
> Sent from Outlook® for Windows 11
>

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[joseph....@gmail.com]

Hi,
You can use the built-in emoji picker provided by Windows (Windows+period).
Cheers,
Joseph

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[Mister Kayne]

Hi Gene,

To answer your question on how the add-on is used: when you use the input gesture NVDA + ;, your focus should land directly in the "Search for emoji" box.
From there, the intended workflow is:

1. Type a few letters of the emoji you want (e.g., type "smile").
2. Tab to get to the Categories tab.
3. Tab again to reach the list of search results.
4. Use your arrow keys to scroll through the list.
5. Once you find the one you need, hitting Enter should ideally insert it into your text.

However, this is exactly where I am having a challenge as well. On my end, even when following these steps, the search doesn't return results for most common emojis, and hitting Enter does not actually insert the emoji into the field.

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda-...@nvaccess.org <nvda-...@nvaccess.org> On Behalf Of Gene Asner
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2026 5:57 PM
To: nvda-...@nvaccess.org
Subject: Re: [NVDA] Feedback and assistance required: Emoji Menu add-on (version 1.1)

> https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/TYZPR02MB9
> 17172776EABBAA838CC9DAA9D4AA%40TYZPR02MB9171.apcprd02.prod.outlook.com
> <https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/TYZPR02MB917172776EABBAA838CC9DAA9D4AA%40TYZPR02MB9171.apcprd02.prod.outlook.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

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[Mister Kayne]

Hi Joseph,

Thank you for that tip, for the sake of productivity I did not want to use that emoji picker because after hitting enter it does insert the emoji but the dialogue box does not close and I have to hit ESC to close it to get back to the message. You are free to call me lazy...

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[Gene Asner]

I have punctuation turned off and I may have missed the semicolon in the
description. I tried the command and it opens the list but I don't know
where the list is gotten from. Maybe it comes from the Microsoft
provided emoji list. I almost never have looked at it and I don't
recall how. Wherever the add-on get's the list, It is nowhere near the
size of the list found in the pronunciation/symbol pronunciation dialog
provided by NVDA. It may satisfy your needs and others but it appears
very limited. Just man dancing as the only result for the word dancing
is hardly representative of the emoji after emoji of dancing. When I
looked for dancing, I found only one result, man dancing. Pressing
enter when on the result placed it on the clipboard. I am pasting it
here.🕺

I can tell you how to add an emoji to the clipboard using the
pronunciation/symbol pronunciation dialog NVDA provides if you want.
You will get a much, much larger selection.
The method won't work when using the add-on.

Gene

[Mister Kayne]

Thanks Gene, the purpose that the person made the add-on for is purposeful but unfortunately it does lack functionality. I will write them a thank you mail with my feedback; as for now, I am going back to the Windows Emoji picker as Joseph suggested 😊

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[Gene Asner]

You are using the add-on incorrectly.  You search for the emoji. Then
when you find it, you press enter on the emoji itself.  It is added to
the clipboard.  You then paste it where you want it in whatever you are
writing in, just as you do when pasting text from one place to another.


I tried the specific search woman dancing to see if it found anything
and it found nothing.  In a properly designed search, the word dancing
should find everything with the word dancing in it. I have no reason to
believe there are more items than man dancing.  I also tried dancing
girl and found nothing.


Gene

[Gene Asner]

The Microsoft emoji panel doesn't copy the emoji to the clipboard. If
you press enter on it, it places it where the cursor is in the edit
field of the application you are working in.

The add-on, on the other hand, places the emoji in the clipboard. You
can confirm this with the command NVDA key c, which reads the contents
of the clipboard unless it is larger than a certain amount.

If it is on the clipboard, you must paste it yourself, as with anything
on the clipboard.

Gene

[Mister Kayne]

I am switching back to the Microsoft emoji panel.

Warm regards,

 

Mister Kayne
Author: The Somebody, Nobody, Anybody & Everybody Blog!

Mail: writ...@mister-kayne.com

Sent from iPhone®

On 22 Mar 2026, at 7:17 PM, Gene Asner <gsa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Microsoft emoji panel

[Noelia]

Hello:

Also, you may be interested in trying the emoticons add-on.

The primary author is Chris Leo, which created regular expressions to add support for emoticons composed by punctuation symbols.

This add-on was improved by Mesar Hameed, the creator of a system used by NVDA for translations, among other things, and Francisco Javier Estrada, who improved a dialog to insert emoticons or emojis. The add-on is maintained by me.

It has a dialog to add symbols that can be searched. But for me, more interesting than that dialog is the ability to assign keystrokes to copy to the clipboard, or directly insert symbols or emojis to the text from the input gestures dialog.

Symbols can be searched in your language. For example, in Spanish I see more than 4000 symbols, including emojis, available. The add-on is in the store, and a beta version is compatible with NVDA 2026.1.

Cheers,

Noelia

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[Mister Kayne]

Hi Noelia,

 

Thank you very much for the suggestion! It sounds like a powerful add-on, especially with the ability to assign custom keystrokes and the extensive symbol support. I will surely give it a try when I have some more time to explore the configuration.

 

As of now, however, I am reverting to using the Windows Emoji panel/shortcut. I find that it already offers a wide range of emojis and is very easy to call up whenever I need it across different applications.

 

I appreciate you sharing those details and for all the work you do maintaining the add-on!

 

From: nvda-...@nvaccess.org <nvda-...@nvaccess.org> On Behalf Of Noelia
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2026 11:27 PM
To: nvda-...@nvaccess.org
Subject: Re: [NVDA] Feedback and assistance required: Emoji Menu add-on (version 1.1)

 

Hello:

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[Noelia]

Thank you, Mister Kayne. I use wondows+dot to search for emojis.

Anyway, I wanted to let you now about the emoticons add-on, in case you want to try it.

Kind regards,

Noelia

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