The Art of the Bodge: How I Made The Emoji Keyboard

Tom Scott4 HN recommenders · 2018–2024
3.5M views · talk · evergreen · Uploaded 2015-09-24

Tom Scott explains how he built his emoji keyboard, which turned out to be a series of bodged-together tools including AutoHotkey and LuaMacros. He tells stories about the value of quick-and-dirty solutions.

HN links it as a charming defense of bodging and of AutoHotkey, and as the go-to example when custom keyboards or hotkey hacks come up.

Watch on YouTube

8 comments from Hacker News

@Kagerjay2018 · in “Setting up a second keyboard for more shortcuts in Emacs”

With lua + autohotkey scripts in windows this is definitely possible the last time I checked. You run a luascript on another keyboard mapped to a generic key, luascript inputs that as the proper text-based language There's a tomscott video on it [VIDEO] Checkout Teran van Hemert (linustechtips editor) for some potential ideas too. He's got crazy macro schemas, I've used a couple of his and there great. All windows based as well though. [LINK] Mac, I can only assume its something you would write in applescript. But maybe you find some interesting ideas there. I found something called " [LINK] that might be of interest to you

@modernerd2018 · in “How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)”

Yes, there is the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which is a compatibility layer for running Linux binaries natively on Windows: [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] I haven't switched to Windows 10 full-time yet, but WSL works remarkably well whenever I've tried it. Cmder ( [LINK] ) and ConEmu ( [LINK] ) are pretty decent terminal emulators and Terminus ( [LINK] ) looks promising too. (It's hard to beat iTerm, though.) My other concern with Windows 10 was security and viruses. Last time I used Windows every day (~1999!) that was a huge concern, but it seems to be less of one now. Most seem to consider using the standard Windows-supplied virus checker just fine if you're not torrenting dodgy stuff and opening strange email attachments. The following guide (from the @SwiftOnSecurity twitter author) was helpful: [LINK] It contains much the same advice for Windows that you'd expect to see for keeping macOS secure too — keep stuff up-to-date, encrypt your drives, don't try to disable User Account Control or Device Guard (like Gatekeeper on Mac). I've found that chocolatey ( [LINK] ) is a great replacement for brew, Laragon ( [LINK] ) is a good alternative to Valet, and Autohotkey ( [LINK] ) is unrivaled for general system automation. (See Tom Scott waxing lyrical about Windows and AHK here: [VIDEO] ).

@modernerd2020 · in “In Praise of AutoHotKey”

AutoHotKey (in addition to WSL and VS Code) was enough to make me Windows-curious and eventually try a Windows laptop again after 10+ years on Mac. I first found out about AHK via Tom Scott's similar ode here: [VIDEO] He describes it as “a bodge that helps you make other bodges”, which is beautifully put. [For those outside the UK, a “bodge” is a clumsy hack or repair.]

RecommendsView on HN
@jedimastert2020 · in “In Praise of AutoHotKey”

Fun AutoHotKey abuse: Tom Scott's emoji keyboard[0]. It's every single emoji (at the time of recording) on 14 full keyboards with 1,000s of hand-placed bespoke stickers. He goes into more detail here[1], but it's beautiful. [0]: [LINK] [1]: [VIDEO]

RecommendsView on HN
@dijit2020 · in “Jira Is a Microcosm of What’s Broken in Software Development”

Never underestimate the art of the bodge, it's quite literally keeping the world ticking over, perfection has a place but it is rare and fleeting. I saw a good talk on it from Tom Scott some time ago[0] which I think is relevant. [0]: [VIDEO]

RecommendsView on HN
@jedimastert2021 · in “Windows Terminal Quake Mode”

Auto Hotkey is surprisingly powerful Here's Tom Scott talking about how he used AHK and Lua to make a keyboard for every emoji [VIDEO]

@lcnPylGDnU4H9OF2022 · in “Software I’m thankful for (2021)”

I can't disagree, even if I would prefer something else. Easily the most compelling argument I've heard for Windows is Tom Scott's: [VIDEO] .

RecommendsView on HN
@avidseeker2024 · in “Emotional about X11: I'm creating a pure X11 “emoji keyboard””

Reminds me of Tom Scott's "Art of Bodge up" video where he attempts to make an emoji keyboard on Windows. [VIDEO] It's funny at the end he says "and don't ever suggest me I use Linux, just don't." I felt he expected it to be really hard project on Linux, while iterally his project is a single keyboard layout file.