EasyMoji: making texting with emojis easier

Table of Contents

1. About
2. Demo
3. Moji Language Specification

About

Easymoji was made by Jocelyn Tseng and Maxine Lui as the final project for the class Programming Language Pragmatics (17-363 at CMU) that took we took in our fall 2022 semester. We designed the programming language, Moji, built a compiler for it in OCaml, and created the web app Easymoji in Javascript and HTML + CSS that puts it all together!

Moji's compiler, consisting of a lexer, parser, and code generator, mirrors the structure of the micro-Typescript compiler we built over the course of the semester. The lexer turns Moji code into tokens, the parser turns tokens into an abstract syntax tree representation of the code, and the code generator turns the AST into Javascript code.

We chose to generate Javascript code because it can easily be run in the backend of the Easymoji website. After the dune compiler is run on the compiler, the code generated Javascript can be natively run in the website's JS code. Then the console output is replicated onto the frontend of the website to be displayed to the user!

How to use

1. Clone this github repository
2. Use your terminal to travel to the folder Easymoji/website/resources
3. In your terminal, run "node app.js" to start the local server
4. In your browser, head to the link "localhost:3000"
5. Write easymoji code in the editor (see the Moji specification below!)
6. Press compile
7. Copy the output of your desired text!

Demo

easymoji.mov

Moji Language Specification

Syntax

All strings must be enclosed in double quotations, and each line must be ended with a semicolon.

Texting

The start of a text is denoted by the arrow "=>" and the end with a semicolon. After the arrow, you may write your text inside a pair of double quotations.

=> "Writing my text here";

Defining Macros

You may define any string–just characters, just emojis, or a mix of both– as a macro using the let keyword. Macros can be used in texts that are anywhere after their definition. For example, the following code will define a macro, "bday", as a string of the three emojis. You will be able to use macros using their name in the same way as predefined emojis.

let bday = "🥳🎂🎉";

Using Pre-defined Emojis or User-defined Macros

Our system has a couple predefined emojis (we are planning to add more!) that you can use in your texts. They can be found in the glossary below. To use them, place its name in a pair of colons within your text string.

=> "Texting with emojis! :bee: and :poop:.";

This will output as

Texting with emojis! 🐝 and 💩.

Using Emoticons

Our system also has built in emoticons that you can use in your texts! To use them, place the series of punctuation within a pair of square brackets within your text string.

=> "[:)]";

will turn into

🙂

Spamming Emojis

Last but not least, we have the emoji spamming feature. Simply place a pound sign followed by a number before using an emoji to spam it.

=> "#5 :bee:";

will turn into

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Comments

Users can define comments using a double backslash. They will be ignored by our compiler.

Example Input and Output

Input

let bday = "🥳🎂🎉";
// this is a comment: text for jasmine
=> "Text goes here. It may consist of words or emoticons [:)], references to the macros, :bday:, or built in emojis such as :angry: or :eyes:!!! And #5 :meditate: lol";

=> "And you can have multiple inputs at once! #3 :party:";

=> "#8 :bee:";

Output

Text goes here. It may consist of words or emoticons 🙂, references to the macros, 🥳🎂🎉, or built in emojis such as 😡 or 👀!!! And 🧘‍♂️🧘‍♂️🧘‍♂️🧘‍♂️🧘‍♂️ lol
And you can have multiple inputs at once! 🎉🎉🎉
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Glossary

We currently have the following emojis built in:

• angry 😡
• meditate 🧘‍♂️
• party 🎉
• eyes 👀
• poop 💩
• bee 🐝

and the following emoticons:

• :) 🙂
• :D 😃
• :( 🙁
• :'( 😥
• <3 ❤️
• :P 😛
• ;) 😉