emoji-markers

Read more about the article Emoticon Map Markers in Emoji Heatmapper App

Emoticon Map Markers in Emoji Heatmapper App

As I’ve been exploring and trying to learn what’s possible in the maps of OpenLayers 3 using LokLak API, I wondered about map markers. The markers which i used earlier seem to be so dull on the map, and as I am working on Emoji Heatmapper I couldn’t help but think about 🍩,  😻, 🍦 and 🔮. And sure, the more practical 🏡 , 🏢, ☕ and 🌆.

Emojis as map markers? I had to give it a try.

I didn’t know how one acquires the emoji trove, so I searched around Github. Sure enough, I found many solutions on GitHub. I sifted through all of them until Emoji-picker caught my attention. So i tried giving a dropdown using the emoji-picker as searching would be lot more easier for the user.

Emoji-picker will convert an emoji keyword to the image internally. That is why when you hover over an emoji in the drop-down menu, it shows the corresponding keyword. For instance, the image 🚀 when hovered on it, it displays :rocket: .

 

All the emojis are saved as data URIs, so I don’t need to worry about lugging around hundreds of images. All I need is emoji-picker.js, and few more *.js files  hooked up on my page, and a little JavaScript to get everything working accordingly.

Armed with hundreds of emojis, my next step was to swap markers with emoji keywords. After a few clicks around emoji-picker documentation, I landed on data-emoji-input=”unicode” . It allows you to replace the traditional marker with a unicode emojis so the search outputs data. You can add a class to that lead emoji-picker-container and data-emoji-input=”unicode” for the HTML option.

Style the Open Layers 3 map:

var style = new ol.style.Style({
    stroke: new ol.style.Stroke({
        color: [64, 200, 200, 0.5],
        width: 5
    }),
    text: new ol.style.Text({
        font: '30px sans-serif',
        text: document.getElementById('searchField').value !== '' ? document.getElementById('searchField').value : '',
        fill: new ol.style.Fill({
            color: [64, 64, 64, 0.75]
        })
    })
});

 

and 🎇 I have an emoji map marker.

Resources:

Continue ReadingEmoticon Map Markers in Emoji Heatmapper App