Let's get Emojis in Color into InfoQube

Submitted by Chris.C on 2026/08/10 22:07

One of the things I love about InfoQube is the information density it offers. It makes it convenient to have a lot of info visible on the screen. To that end, I have developed a system of using emojis to signify a variety of meaningful attributes and ways I can filter, or just visually search for needed info. It seems our brains are much quicker at catching colored shapes, even complex ones, than putting letters together and getting the meaning of the words they spell as we scan a page. So emojis work better for how our visual brains pick out connections to what's on the page before us.

My UX with Emoji in IQ:

Currently, IQ only displays emojis in the font color, typically black. This means we lose the eye-catching impact of colored emojis. This has become foundational to how I work with the many apps that support colored emojis. All modern apps support colored emojis, not just in certain conditions but anywhere and everywhere. Having this available in IQ would be a game-changer and would update it so it has greater usability in today's world. I would much prefer to use InfoQube over the other apps that are well packaged and offer some benefits. But they are just not InfoQube.😁 

Windows 11 has a shortcut for entering emojis in all Windows apps that accept them. I set up FastKeys shortcuts to enter emojis. Neither option works in InfoQube (it just shows two question marks). I can copy and paste them from another app into IQ, but they appear only in the font color. 

Why It Matters to Me:

Because of how far I have taken the development of my emoji-infused system, IQ does not support the most important work I would otherwise use it for. I want InfoQube to be my go-to for the demanding work I expect it to handle. Pierre, you have made a robust and potent tool for us to benefit from. What can be done, hopefully soon, to have InfoQube show the rest of the world what it can do, with colored emojis included? 

This Is Not About Cosmetics:

Please don't think of emojis as dressing up documents to make them cute or pretty. I have found they uplevel my ability to be effective and productive with my time and energy in a profound way. For me, colored emojis have fundamentally changed how effectively I can process and manage information. They allow me to recognize patterns, identify categories, and find what I need with far less cognitive effort. That directly translates into greater productivity and better use of my time and attention.

I would love to see InfoQube support this.

Could colored emoji support be added to InfoQube?

I have no idea what it takes to make this happen in IQ. I hope it's easy. If it isn't, I will push harder to find a way to motivate Pierre so we can benefit from this feature, which is taken for granted in other modern apps.  

What do the rest of you think?

What do you other IQ Jockeys have to say about this idea? Can we leverage some influence to get Pierre to include this much-needed upgrade to IQ? What do you all say? 

And, thanks, Pierre, for continuing to give us such a powerful tool to work with.

Thanks for your consideration. 

Cheers!

To recap:

Full-color emoji support would:

   Make visual scanning dramatically more effective for users who rely on emoji as metadata.

   Preserve the visual distinctions that emojis were designed to provide.

   Bring InfoQube in line with the behavior users now expect from modern Windows applications.

   Allow Windows 11's emoji input and tools such as FastKeys to work as intended.

   Make it possible to build richer visual systems for organizing and interpreting dense information.

   Potentially open up entirely new ways for IQ users to leverage visual cues within their grids and documents.

 

 

Comments

Full emoji support would be great, but I'm just posting this comment to endorse what you said about "information density". I think that phrase hits upon something very important. I agree that is a great feature of IQ. I often want information density in the apps that I use.  And in so many apps the ability to get a dense information view has been sacrificed in favor of "aesthetics".

Thanks for flagging this, Jim. I don't know whose aesthetics these modern apps are designed for. They may look good, but their use of screen space is, in my view, severely lacking. To me, being able to use emojis is part of my vision of functional information density. When I use these modern info managers and emojis, I still get frustrated by the wasted space that could be put to use. It will be so good to have colored emojis in InfoQube! I hope others agree. 

Hi Chris and Jim,

I 100% agree with you w.r.t. information density and how other apps don't consider it in their design choices.

As to color emoji, my initial testing isn't very promising. I'll keep working on it during my spare time, but don't get your hopes too high !

Have you considered using the already available icon list ? Do you know that you add your own too ? AFAICR, it is supported in grids and in the item editor...

HTH !

Pierre_Admin
IQ Designer

Hi Pierre, 
 
Thanks much for alerting me to the possibility of using the icon system in InfoQube. I got very excited about it and was encouraged by my initial testing. 
 
I translated a bunch of the emojis that I want to use in InfoQube into GIF icons. I like them at the 32 by 32 size in InfoQube. That worked well yesterday. I ran into a few challenges though, and I hope you can resolve them. I feel strongly that InfoQube will be my tool of choice if I can use custom icons, for the info management projects I have coming. 
 

Here’s what I found:

If I edit the text in a cell with Icons, the icons are removed. 
If I edit a cell with icons and copy some of the icons, they are removed. 
If I hit 'undo' right away, the icons are restored.
Sometimes closing and opening the app removes Icons. 
It is inconsistent and so is mysterious to me. 
It makes me hopeful that something can be done about icon removal. 🤞
There is also inconsistency in what it leaves and what it removes. 
On average, it seems we're in the ballpark of 95% of the GIFs being removed on some (but not all) relaunches of the app.
When I relaunched this morning, all of the icons were removed but one. When I relaunched the app again, all were removed.
Yesterday, the 32x32 icons worked well in the app, even after I added more icons and relaunched 3-5 times. I was building confidence that the system would work for me. 
Then this morning all icons were removed. I added more through the Item Editor; they were all 16x16, which I could maybe live with, but they don't work visually as well as the 32x32 icons I had yesterday.
I just tried adding icons from the context menu. The icons get placed in the cell, now as 32x32, but disappear as soon as I leave the cell. Darn. When I try again a few hours later, it works sometimes, but some icons still disappear when I leave the cell. 
 

Positive results in the Doc Pane:

I had good results pasting icons into the Doc pane as images. I open the ‘Insert Image’ dialog and drop the GIF from the IQ Icon Folder into the dialog box. This feels cumbersome, but at least they are not removed in any of the ways that happen in the grid window. 
 

Can I help you resolve this:

It feels so within reach to me. The app can use the custom icons well (as GIF files) much of the time. Keeping them in place is the challenge. Can you see a way to fix it so they are not removed? I’ve got my fingers crossed.  Is there a way I can support you, Pierre, to resolve this glitch? I'm happy to get on a web screen sharing call with you to show you what happens. 
Cheers,
Chris

Hello Pierre, 

Update Mon17Aug26

I have continued investing my time in checking out InfoQube for use with icons. I keep hoping we'll find a way to keep Icons from disappearing. It is, of course, a no-go if information is lost or degraded somehow. I have seen the icon file names continue to be listed in the Info window, even after they have disappeared from the Grid.  To see this, click on "Info" at the bottom of the context menu when you right-click on a cell in the grid. 

Yes, I have put the icons in the InfoQube Icon folder. I have the various icon sizes stashed in different folders and swap the different sizes out for testing.

All the options to get icons into cells in the grid are great to use. Esp. Item Edit with the right click. 👍

Disappearing Icons:
 
This is an example of icon loss. I entered these icons this morning.
 
image.png
 
   2 icons (1st & 5th from left) were lost when I closed and restarted the program
 
Here's an example of icon loss with 16x16 icons from today. There's got to be a bug in there somewhere. 

   The 6th icon in the Item column and the icon in the next column were both lost. 
 
As I said above, I have seen the icon file names continue to appear in the Info window even after they disappear from the Grid. 

 

Icon Size:

24x24 icons show enough detail to make a distinction, unlike the small, blob-filled 16x16 icons.

As an example, here's one in 16x16

 
And here is the same in 24x24:
 
 
32x32 has even more detail, which I would prefer if it can be made to work. 
 
 
24x24 is the minimum acceptable icon size to be visually eye-catching. This is important to those of us who need the visual cues. This is what the modern apps offer. Easy visual cues at a size that is eye-catching. The 16x16 size offers no benefit for visual cues. They are all but lost in the text.
 
All three icon sizes are 8-bit color depth. 
 
The manual states that image files added to the icon folder must be 16x16 GIF files (8-bit color depth or less). 
I have seen 24x24 and 32x32 GIF files show up and seem functional (before they disappear). This gives me confidence you can get the program to accommodate them without them disappearing. As even 16x16 files are disappearing. 
 
Edit vs Display mode:
 
With 24x24 & 32x32 icons, when in edit mode in the Grid, icons show as their actual size. However, in non-edit mode they show as 16x16. Is there a way to make them all show as 24x24 always? I.e., when not in edit mode? And possibly even with 32x32 icons?
 
Icon placement with text:
 
With 24x24 & 32x32 icons, they are always above the baseline of the text (similar to a superscript type height). This is true in the cells in a grid or in the Doc Pane. 
 
image.png
Is there a way to get them on the same baseline as the text?
 
 
Icons I have put into the InfoQube Icon folder:
 
Here are a couple of the icons I am using from the InfoQube Icon folder for you to check out and approve. Both are 24x24, 8-bit.
 

Admin Icon.GIFMeditate Icon.GIF

Filtering using Icons:
 
I remember I had Filtering (by icons) working for me yesterday. I may need some guidance on how to get that working. 
 
My Hopes:
 
I am good to go with InfoQube using icons as soon as the loss of icons is no longer a concern. I hope this is an easy issue to fix. Please let me know if working with you can be helpful. I can show you what happens for me if that helps you ID what’s happening. I so hope to be able to use InfoQube in this way. 🙏
I want to work this out in the biggest way. I will do whatever I can on my end to make it work. Let me know how I can help. 

 

Recap:
 
· Disappearing Icons is the issue that is the crux of whether or not InfoQube can be used with custom icons. 
· 24x24 is the minimum acceptable icon size to be visually eye-catching. I can try using 16x16 for a time, but I really want to hold out for bigger icons. 
· Edit vs. Display mode, I'm hoping the larger icon sizes will work and wish for them to always be displayed in their actual size. 
· Icon placement with text: the vertical placement is an issue with 24x24 & 32x32 icons only. This can be lived with, but preference is for all letters and icons on the same line. 
· Please try out the icons I have put into the InfoQube Icon folder to see if they cause any issues. 
· Filtering using Icons: I may need your guidance with this.
 
Thank you, Pierre, for looking into this. With the icons disappearing as they are, more testing will be good. I have found that more disappear when I shut down at night and reboot in the a.m. than when I unload and restart the app. 
I am doing my best to wait patiently while you look into this. My fingers remain crossed. 🤞
 
Cheers,
Chris
 

Hi Chris,

We'll find the cause of the icon issue, no doubt.

  1. If you right-click on the column > Show HTML Codes, you'll see that behind the scenes, an icon is just a <img>IconName</img>
  2. Can you check when you no longer see the icon, report back the text with codes

2 cases possible:

  1. Text is correct but icon is not shown: could there be 2 icons with the same name? Can you share your \icons folder with me?
  2. Text is incorrect. Something / someone must've made a change to the text and this should happen for regular text too, not just icons

Indeed, the manual is incorrect, GIF files do not need to be 16x16, other sizes should work just fine

re alignment, in my tests, it shows centered:

fdf

Hi Pierre, 

Thanks for keeping the conversation going. 

One of the things that's happened, I realize, is that I have changed my file naming scheme, and so file names have changed. This is the culprit in several of my tests. But even when I correct them as indicated in the HTML codes, I still get confusing results. In the screenshot below, you can see the icons in row 21 that I am editing. The editing window shows the icons. The cell does not. 

Same result when clicking on the cell to edit it. These file names are correct, for sure. 

 

I don't see how to send you the file through the forum here. Here is the file list pasted as it is now. 

I am encouraged to hear you're confident we can get through this. Thanks again. 

Cheers,

Chris

 

Thanks for the information,

  1. I"ll contact you by email so you can send a zip of your icons folder
  2. Icons are read when IQ starts. Is it possible that changes were made? That can explain why the grid doesn't see the icons when you aren't editing (when editing, the editor loads the image files from the \icons folder)

Hi Pierre,

I am confident I relaunched IQ each time I made changes to the icons folder and wanted to see the changes. 

For the last couple of days, I have taken screenshots of the IQ window with the test icons I have input (and checked that the referenced image files are correct) before shutting down my PC for the night. On rebooting in the morning, I have compared the screenshot to what's in the freshly opened app, and everything checks out okay. The icons are good. 

I still want them to show in the size I have chosen: 24x24 or 32x32. In display mode, they show up as 16x16. Is there a way to have them show as 24x24 or 32x32 without editing? 

Thanks, Pierre. 

Cheers,

Chris

I still want them to show in the size I have chosen: 24x24 or 32x32. In display mode, they show up as 16x16. Is there a way to have them show as 24x24 or 32x32 without editing? 

I see the 32x32 icon in display and edit modes, as shown in the previous post. So it is definitely possible. Not sure why it isn't working for you.

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