The new Emoji picker is a wonderful tool that enriches the user experience. However, the fact it needs input from a mouse to search for an emoji and to navigate through the categories is a rather serious flaw. I hope that in a future version, it will be possible (though not mandatory, of course) to fully control it using a keyboard: for example, simply starting to type the name of an emoji should automatically search for it (without having to first click on the button "search"), and there should be an ability to navigate through the categories of emojis (on the sidebar) using the keyboard (perhaps the default keys could be Page Up and Page Down).

Great work so far!

I've thought about same things.

It would be nice somewhat like this,

https://gfycat.com/youngignorantilladopsis

That popups from fcitx input method package.

1. trigger hotkey.
2. search by input search term or navigate by arrows and page up/down etc.
3. enter for paste at current input.

I use input method - fcitx - for Korean input. Actually Korean don't need that kind of selection popup for normal typing. But Chinese and Japanese are need those interface.

Or simply borrow from Klipper's history selection popup window.

Couple of days ago I'd installed GNOME for testing firefox nightly with wayland.

What I've learned is KDE's one is far more better than GNOME's emoji picker. 🤫 But there is GNOME extension for emoji picking. That was quite good.

Now that the search is automatic, this is almost a perfect tool for picking emojis.

Now, if only there would be an option to automatically close the program after copying the emoji to clipboard...

My Ideal workflow would be

Windows Key + .
Ise arrow keys to navigate and search words.
Press enter on Emoji which then enters the emoji straight in to the text input which I had selected when I used the keyboard hotkey, then press Esc to then close the emoji picker. Now I have my emoji's in the text input, no pasting required.

Of course toggle this behaviour as some may find having it copy to clipboard a better solution for them, then pasting themselves.