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Bring Emoji to Your Delphi Apps with Delphi Emoji

· 3 min read

Delphi has always been synonymous with productivity, expressiveness, and speed in developing desktop, mobile, and web applications. But if you’ve ever tried using emojis in your Delphi projects, you’ve likely realized that integration isn’t exactly straightforward. That’s why Delphi Emoji was born—an open-source project designed to make using emojis in Delphi simple, modern, and elegant.

What is Delphi Emoji?

Delphi Emoji is a Delphi unit, automatically generated, that gives you access to all modern emojis (specifically, those Recommended for General Interchange—RGI) as type-safe constants, ready to use in your Delphi code. The project also includes helper utilities for searching emojis by name and retrieving full emoji lists for dynamic scenarios.

The best part? You don’t need special fonts or third-party libraries: if your Delphi version supports Unicode (XE2+), you’re ready to go.

What is it useful for?

It may seem like a “gadget,” but using emojis in your UI can significantly improve usability and communication. Here are a few practical use cases:

  • Show instant visual feedback (green check, red cross, smiley faces…)
  • Represent statuses (waiting ⏳, completed ✅, error ❌)
  • Add a modern, friendly touch to interfaces
  • Provide a familiar UX in mobile apps
  • Represent categories (food 🍟, sports ⚽, weather ☀️, etc.)

Emojis are a universal language—and Delphi Emoji lets you use them without the hassle.

How does it work?

The core of the project is a Python script (generate_emoji.py) that:

  1. Downloads the latest emoji specification files from unicode.org

  2. Parses Unicode emoji data (like emoji-test.txt)

  3. Automatically generates a Delphi file (UnicodeEmoji.pas) with:

    • A TEmoji record containing one constant for each emoji
    • Utility functions to look up emojis by name or retrieve full lists

Simple but powerful structure:

ShowMessage('Welcome ' + TEmoji.WAVING_HAND + '!');
Memo1.Lines.Add('Weather today: ' + TEmoji.SUN_WITH_FACE);

Looking up an emoji by name?

ShowMessage('Heart: ' + FindEmojiByName('red heart'));

Want to retrieve all emojis?

for var Emoji in GetAllEmoji do
  Memo1.Lines.Add(Emoji);

Why use a generator approach?

Maintaining a static emoji list is inefficient and quickly becomes outdated. Delphi Emoji solves this at its core:

  • ✅ Automatic updates: run the script to regenerate the unit with the latest emoji set
  • 🚀 Future-proof: each new Unicode emoji standard is immediately supported
  • 🚌 Fewer errors: automation avoids manual mistakes and inconsistencies
  • ⚙️ Automatable: can be integrated in CI/CD pipelines

Requirements

  • Delphi XE2 or newer (Unicode string support)
  • Python 3.6+
  • Internet connection to fetch data from unicode.org

How to use it?

  1. Clone or download the project: https://github.com/danieleteti/delphiemoji
  2. Run the script:
python generate_emoji_unit.py
  1. Add UnicodeEmoji.pas to your Delphi project
  2. Use TEmoji, FindEmojiByName, and GetAllEmoji in your code

Complete Example (GUI)

procedure TForm1.btnShowClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
  lblResult.Caption := FindEmojiByName(edtEmojiName.Text);
end;

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  Caption := 'Delphi Emoji Demo ' + TEmoji.SMILING_FACE_WITH_HEARTS;
end;

Or to show a weather report:

Writeln('Forecast:');
Writeln('Morning: ' + TEmoji.SUN_WITH_FACE);
Writeln('Afternoon: ' + TEmoji.CLOUD_WITH_RAIN);
Writeln('Evening: ' + TEmoji.CRESCENT_MOON);

Business use cases

In a business application, emojis can help:

  • Reduce verbosity in interfaces
  • Communicate across languages (essential in international contexts)
  • Enable visual customizations in reports, alerts, and messages
  • Offer a more modern “visual identity”

A desktop ERP app with an emoji-based status bar is much clearer and more intuitive than one filled with cryptic text labels or non-standard icons.

Future plans & contributions

This is an open-source project and community contributions are welcome:

  • 🔍 Improve the parser or add category filtering
  • ✍️ Add usage examples in real apps (GUI, FireMonkey, VCL, mobile)
  • 📢 Help with documentation and project promotion

Conclusion

Delphi Emoji bridges the gap between Delphi and the modern visual language of emoji. With a simple, automatic, and scalable approach, it empowers Delphi developers to embrace emoji integration in a clean and reliable way.

Emoji and Delphi have never been closer.

Happy coding with 😊!

Delphi Emoji is available on GitHub: https://github.com/danieleteti/delphiemoji

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