[JDEV] Emoticons & Genicons

Wed Apr 24 15:09:55 CDT 2002

Well, I suppose the line between regular images and emoticon images may
be a little blurry (maybe because there _is_ no such line - an image is
an image is an image).  As for simplicity's sake, I'm sure simplicity
would rather have us use plain ordinary XML tags to embed image requests,
and let the receiving client decide whether it has its own images to fill
the requests, or whether it should go to the Web to fetch some from its
favorite repository.

Either way, I don't think "standardizing" the hack approach to emoticons
is a good idea.  If emoticons are ready for their own standard, they're
ready for a _real_ standard, and telling client writers that hacking the
<body> element of a message is the "standard" is not acceptable for an
XML-based protocol.

 - Dave

Adam Theo wrote:
> 
> Hi, all. As part of my Jabber Client Guidelines 
> [http://www.theoretic.com/?Jabber_Client_Guidelines], I am working on a 
> JEP for emoticons in Jabber IM clients. This JEP will only attempt to 
> standardize the simple textstring-based method, not XHTML or Jabber's X 
> tags. This is for simplicity's sake. However, it is not exclusive, and 
> allows for future standards using those other methods when Jabber is 
> ready to handle such full-blown mechanisms.
> 
> My only question right now is whether I should separate "emoticons" 
> (those emotive-based graphics) from "genicons" (my own term for 
> non-emotive, generic graphics of beer mugs, mail envelopes, house keys, 
> moons, and such). I think I should, since I don't want to clutter the 
> "emoticon space". But, if I do separate them, should I include them in 
> the same JEP, or two different JEPs?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> -- 
>      /\  Adam Theo, Age 22, Tallahassee FL USA
>     //\\   Email & Jabber: theo at theoretic.com
>    //  \\  (Boycotting AOL, therefore no AIM or ICQ)
> =//====\\=  Theoretic Solutions: http://www.theoretic.com
> //  ||  \\     "Bringing Ideas Together"
>      ||      Jabber Protocol: http://www.jabber.org
>      ||         "The Coolest IM on the Planet"
>      ||  "A Free-Market Socialist Patriotic American
>      ||      Buddhist Political Philosopher."
> 
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