topic Re: Emoji + TextBox()? in Discussions

Emoji + TextBox()?

hogi — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 14:46:25 GMT

The Icons which are available in JPM are very limited.

The idea: “Use emojis as icons — there’s one for almost anything!”
just seahorse is missing ...

The problem: how can I use Emojis in JMP - e.g. in TextBox()?

With

New Window("Emoji Example",
    Text Box("🔴🟡🟢") 
);

I expect:

... but JPM generates:

not helpful in this context: the creativity of Learnbot

New Window("Emoji Example",
    Text Box(Char(128512)) // Unicode for 😀
);

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

MikeD_Anderson — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 18:31:01 GMT

The unicode character set requires some specialized syntax. The examples here https://www.jmp.com/support/help/ko/18.2/index.shtml#page/jmp/unicode-characters.shtml show how to do it. You then just need to look up the unicode for the different emoji. You can find that information on Emojiedia under the technical information tab: https://emojipedia.org/upside-down-face#technical. It's the code points value.

Best,

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

hogi — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 23:11:03 GMT

Hi Mike, what is the benefit of using the unicode notation compared to directly writing the Emoji?

Can you please share a code which generates a text with instead of ?

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

MikeD_Anderson — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:33:47 GMT

Benefit - it works... ;)

Here's the code:

New Window( "Stoplight Example",
	V List Box(
		Text Box( "\!UD83D\!UDD34 \!UD83D\!UDFE1 \!UD83D\!UDFE2", Set Font( "Segoe UI Emoji" ) )
	)
);

A note - I needed to use the UTF-16 versions of the codes. Note that each emoji can have a single code or a pair of codes (called a surrogate pair). The stop lights you want are in the surrogate pair set of emoji. Those can be a little hard to find... but this website does a better job than either emojipedia or the unicode site in showing them: http://xahlee.info/comp/unicode_index.html

Best,

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

MikeD_Anderson — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:32:11 GMT

BTW - that text snippet the LLM provided is completely wrong on how to approach this problem.

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

hogi — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:01:18 GMT

Hm, how do I have to adjust the settings on my system to get this beautiful result?

When I run your code on my system: Win11, JMP 19.0.4,
I get:

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

MikeD_Anderson — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:22:57 GMT

It's likely down to the font... I think Win11 got rid of the Segoe font... so it might be doing a bad substitution for it. Maybe get rid of that font assignment in the JSL and let the system font take over?

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

hogi — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:46:33 GMT

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

MikeD_Anderson — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 22:22:31 GMT

I did some poking around on this while I was traveling today. It looks like the grey coloration is a known issue with that font and some applications. I'm guessing that JMP fits into that list.

"Emojis from Microsoft are supported on PCs and tablets running Windows 11, Windows 10, as well as Xbox. They were also available on Windows phones prior to them being discontinued. These were provided by the Segoe UI Emoji font, although some applications continue to show black and white emojis from an earlier release.”

https://emojipedia.org/microsoft

I'm thinking then that the best path would be to try some of the other fonts installed with windows to see if they behave better.

Best,

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

hogi — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 07:42:57 GMT

Hi Mike,

thanks for the update.
So, is there a good chance this issue will be fixed in one of the next JMP releases?

How do the Column Tags work? Which font is used there?

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

MikeD_Anderson — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 13:09:37 GMT

Hey! Those would be questions for the support team.

Best,

M

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

hogi — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 14:06:01 GMT

you are right. -> TS-00275926
I will keep you updated if I get new insights from there ...

I also submitted a wish to the wish list:

enabling emoji support for windows systems could be an easy shortcut.
Just imagine how easy GUI development would be if emojis could fill the gap whenever suitable icons are missing in the BuiltIn set!

I have to admit I'm a bit jealous of the users who have a Mac license.

Still, you could argue that it doesn’t help them much either, since those GUIs aren’t portable across platforms anyway.

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

PatrickGiuliano — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 20:25:56 GMT

From a synthesis of @hogi's questioning and internal dialog with JMP development, the bottom line is that Windows rendering engine that JMP currently uses for this implementation (as of the release of JMP 19.x) is not able to render color emoji.

We will consider making changes based on 360 customer feedback in future JMP releases. Please feel free to engage the JMP Wish List and @hogi's Wishlist Item.Expand the Built‑in Icon Library for Modern GUI Development

For customer's interested in bypass workarounds (none of these directly address this limitation), you might be interested in the approaches shared below. --JMP Technical Support (Re: Case 00275926)

//approach 1: Use Graph Box with Colored Circles, Instead of relying on emoji, draw actual colored circles using Graph Box:
New Window( "Stoplight Example",
    V List Box(
        Graph Box(
            FrameSize( 150, 50 ),
            Y Scale( 0, 1 ),
            X Scale( 0, 3 ),
            // Red circle
            Fill Color( "Red" );
            Oval( 0.25, 0.25, 0.75, 0.75, 1 );
            // Yellow circle
            Fill Color( "Yellow" );
            Oval( 1.25, 0.25, 1.75, 0.75, 1 );
            // Green circle
            Fill Color( "Green" );
            Oval( 2.25, 0.25, 2.75, 0.75, 1 );
        )
    )
);

//approach 2: Use HTML Markup in Text Box, JMP supports limited HTML markup in Text Box, including color formatting:
New Window( "Stoplight Example",
    V List Box(
        Text Box(
            "<font color='red'>●</font> <font color='#FFD700'>●</font> <font color='green'>●</font>",
            <<Set Font( "Segoe UI Emoji", 20 ),
            <<Markup
        )
    )
);


//approach 3: Use Text Color Message,  Set text color directly on Text Box elements:

New Window( "Stoplight Example",
    H List Box(
        tb1 = Text Box( "●", <<Set Font( "Segoe UI Emoji", 24 ) ),
        tb2 = Text Box( "●", <<Set Font( "Segoe UI Emoji", 24 ) ),
        tb3 = Text Box( "●", <<Set Font( "Segoe UI Emoji", 24 ) )
    )
);
tb1 << Text Color( "Red" );
tb2 << Text Color( "Yellow" );
tb3 << Text Color( "Green" );

Re: Emoji + TextBox()?

hogi — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 09:05:45 GMT

Hi @PatrickGiuliano , thanks a lot for investigation the root cause and for providing some workarounds for the special case of the traffic lights.