pingmote

A cross-platform Python global emote picker to quickly insert custom images/gifs

Motivation: Poor Man's Discord Nitro

Demo

How It Works

• Since Discord autoembeds images, we can paste in links to custom emotes
• The emote picker is written in Python with PySimpleGUI, with global hotkeys for activation (using keyboard)

Getting Started

• Clone this repo: git clone https://github.com/dchen327/pingmote.git or download as a zip and extract
• Change into the pingmote directory (make sure you can see pingmote.py)
• Run pip install -r requirements.txt to install dependencies (pip3 if needed)

Usage

• Running python3 pingmote.py (Mac and Linux: sudo python3 pingmote.py) starts the script, and when you hit the hotkey at the top of config.py (default ctrl+q), the emote picker will show up, allowing you to click an emote to insert
• Hit the hotkey again to toggle the GUI, and drag the GUI somewhere convenient

Configs

• Check config.py for configs

Adding Your Own Emotes

• Sorry for this being a bit complicated, I'm working on simplifying the workflow
• Drop files in assets/original, then run image_resizer.py which will resize all the images (ignoring gifs) and drop them in assets/resized
• Gif resizing (disabled by default) requires gifsicle, but a website like ezgif also works
• Resize gifs to 64x64 and drop them in assets/original (they'll be ignored when the resizer is run)
• Upload files from assets/resized to an image hoster (I like postimages). Copy the direct image links (ending in file extension) and paste in links.txt
• A simpler alternative using GitHub: fork this repo and push your images, then drop your forked repo's URL in config.py (GITHUB_URL). This method doesn't require alternate hosting or links.txt
• Note: Imgur doesn't work currently, since Imgur links don't contain the original filename
• Some emote sources (right click > save image): discordmojis.com, emoji.gg, discord.st

Notes

• Since this program relies on autoembedding, we can't use inline emotes or reacts
• Pretty much only Discord works (Facebook Messenger and Slack make embeds ugly)
• On Windows, renaming the file extension to pingmote.pyw allows for running the script in the background, and then it can be dropped into shell:startup
• Windows should work out of the box, Mac and Linux may require jumping through some hoops
• The Apple M1 chip is currently unsupported (bus error)
• On Linux, if you get the error KeyError: 'XDG_SESSION_TYPE', set the environment variable by running

  sudo XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11 python3 pingmote.py

TODOs

• Better ordering of emotes (categorization, etc.)
• Simplify install process
• Simplify the process for adding new emotes
• Emote deletion in GUI
• Ensure gif thumbnail isn't blank (not fully sure how to do this)
• Search emotes by keyword (would require files to be named, since most of my files now are just a bunch of numbers)

Reasons you should still buy Discord Nitro

• Support Discord!
• Inline emotes/gifs, keyboard shortcuts by name (ex: :emote_name:)
• React with emotes
• Other nitro benefits!

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to Luke Tong for cross-platform GUI and clipboard testing
• Thanks to Stephane Morel for Windows testing
• Thanks to Brazil-0034 for adding support for non-destructive pasting
• Thanks to PySimpleGUI for major feature additions (incl. GitHub repo storage and a system tray) and debugging

Progress Timeline

• Initial method (50 lines): xclip for copying local images, xdotool for pasting and keyboard commands
• Switched to PyAutoGUI for keyboard simulation, xdotool no longer needed
• Wrote image_resizer.py for locally resizing images
• Uploaded images to postimages; simplified copy pasting of links only and not image data (removed all subprocess calls)
• Added frequents section for favorite emotes
• Added feature to open the GUI near the mouse cursor
• Cleaned up links for better file to link mapping
• Switched to pynput for cross-platform global hotkey mapping, fully removed PyAutoGUI dependencies
• Added section labels and ability to separate images and gifs
• Switched to keyboard from pynput to fix hotkey blocking behavior (after 3 weeks of zero progress)
• Cleaned up image_resizer.py
• Shifted configs to separate file
• Added tray icon (from PySimpleGUI's psgtray)

License

MIT License