Emoticons - Leap 42.3

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#1

I’ve just installed Leap 42.3 and now find emails (Kmail) with points introduced by “(a)” “(b)” etc. are changed to completely irrelevant pictures of beer mugs, etc.

I’m unable to delete, modify or otherwise change the KDE emoticons “feature” although this is alleged to be possible. For example, double-clicking on the Breeze beer mug graphic in system-settings and changinig “(b)” to “(b))” then clicking Apply doesn’t become permanent. Is there a bug here and, if so, when will it be fixed? Why isn’t it possible to simply disable emoticons altogether?

Is this the ultimate descent of OpenSuSE / KDE into triviality?

David L.

#2

If you think you found a bug, you should report it on bugs.kde.org so that the developers become aware of it.
Otherwise it probably won’t be fixed.

Why isn’t it possible to simply disable emoticons altogether?

It should be possible to disable this in kmail’s settings, IIRC.

Is this the ultimate descent of OpenSuSE / KDE into triviality?

I don’t understand this question.

This feature is not at all new, but exists since years (decades?).

#3

The default Leap 42.3 KDE Emoticons are installed with the package “libKF5Emoticons5”.

The KF5 Emoticons are managed via “System Settings”, section “Appearance”, item “Icons (Icons, Emoticons)”: <https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/kde-workspace/kcontrol/emoticons/index.html> KDE Doc: Module: kde-workspace.

Unfortunately, I cannot find any method to change the behaviour of Emoticons installed via the “libKF5Emoticons5” package – KF5 KMail simply uses the installed system emoticons.

So, yes, please raise a KDE Change Request.

#4

Sure, but IIANM kmail does have an option to disable the use of emoticons completely.

#5

PS: it’s in the “View” menu…

#6

Found it!!!

With the Leap 42.3 kmail2 version 5.5.2, the setting to change the Emoticons behaviour is “View” -->> “disable Emoticons”.

#7

Many thanks wolfi323 and dcurtisfra!! That fixes a very annoying problem which I’ve seen reported elsewhere.

I’ll check again whether it still seems impossible to disable emoticons at the system-settings level and, if so, raise a bug report. It would be nice to know the scope of usage, for example are they only used by PIM applications?

Whatever the case, I suggest PIM (or KDE) is too ambitious and beginning to look bloated; perhaps it should become more modular. It would be nice to have one place where “features” like emoticons, baloo indexing, KDE Connect, and specific PIM applications could be enabled / disabled and optionally uninstalled.

Thanks again…

DavidL

#8

But believe it or not, that setting (View > Disable Emoticon) is volatile, so it doesn’t survive a Kmail restart.

Does anyone know where this might be enabled in a config file?

DavidL.

#9

Pardon my replying to my own quote, but on second thoughts that Kmail problem and the emoticon problem I mentioned in my opening post * may be just one bug. Kmail calls the emoticon program to disable them (only for Kmail, or for all KDE applications?) but it isn’t written into the configuration.

How do bugs like this ever get past testing? For that matter, is there any specification of what its supposed to do?

DavidL.*

#10

The KDE folks have been discussing the pros and cons of the SUSE/openSUSE OpenQA and, they’ll have to adopt it anyway for SUSE/openSUSE conformance.

You’re correct: the “disable Emoticons” is volatile; if there ain’t a KDE Change Request then, there will be one, soon.

#11

There definitely was a permanent option in kmail’s settings in the past, but that seems to have got “lost” at some point. (at least I cannot find it anymore)

Does anyone know where this might be enabled in a config file?

In KMail 4.14 it was this option in kmail2rc:

ShowEmoticons=false

in the “[Reader]” section.

So try to add that to the file ~/config/kmail2rc, but I don’t know whether it would still be respected.

Have you tried to create a new emoticons theme without any entries, and set that as default?
The problem may just be that it is impossible to modify system-wide installed themes, as you’d need root privileges for that.
(would still be a bug though, it should modify it for the user at least)

Kmail calls the emoticon program to disable them (only for Kmail, or for all KDE applications?) but it isn’t written into the configuration.

I’m not aware of any “emoticon program” that would be called, in particular not by kmail when you change that option.
It’s just kmail that doesn’t remember the option…

Regarding your earlier question, according to the docs, the “emoticons” framework seems to be used by konversation and kopete as well.

How do bugs like this ever get past testing? For that matter, is there any specification of what its supposed to do?

Well, KDE is a community project, mostly driven by volunteers.
Everybody is entitled to do the testing, so feel free to try out Beta versions and report problems you find.

Even openQA can only test things somebody wrote a test case for.

they’ll have to adopt it anyway for SUSE/openSUSE conformance.

What?
That’s non-sense.

openSUSE does test KDE software (including Plasma and kmail) in openQA, but cannot test everything either (and definitely not every single option in every single application).

You’re correct: the “disable Emoticons” is volatile; if there ain’t a KDE Change Request then, there will be one, soon.

And so you did:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=389592

But if the “Emoticons” systemsettings module (which is part of Plasma) doesn’t save changes, it’s a different bug, in that module.*

#12

KMail’s maintainer, Laurent Montel, has submitted a code change addressing this issue, which will be released with KMail version 5.8.0: <https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=389592>.

#13

That fix will be in Tumbleweed much earlier. :wink:

And there will also be an update for Leap 42.3 to fix it, unless maintenance refuses it (which I don’t expect anyway):
https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/577509