@gwuensch note added, thank you.

Thanks for the update @dmlls, appreciate it! To make it easier for users who want to continue forcing the font, one could mention how to symlink the config in the install hook, for example like the official ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols package:

post_install() {
  cat << EOF

Note: For ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols-mono, use the "Symbols Nerd Font Mono" family
in your font config.

Symlink /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/10-nerd-font-symbols.conf to
/etc/fonts/conf.d/, or see \`man 5 fonts-conf\` for other options.
EOF
}

post_remove() {
  cat << EOF
Remove Symbols Nerd Font from your font configuration files, eg.
\`rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-nerd-font-symbols.conf\`.
EOF
}

For anyone who does not like this package forcing Apple Emojis (and breaking some websites in the process), remove the conflicts array and make sure the config is not installed to /etc/font/conf.d/ by default:

diff --git a/PKGBUILD b/PKGBUILD
index 7d716e7..5e001ff 100644
--- a/PKGBUILD
+++ b/PKGBUILD
@@ -11,13 +11,6 @@ url='https://github.com/samuelngs/apple-emoji-linux'
 license=('custom')
 provides=(emoji-font)
 depends=()
-conflicts=(
-    'noto-fonts-emoji'
-    'ttf-symbola'
-    'ttf-joypixels'
-    'ttf-twemoji-color'
-    'ttf-whatsapp-emoji'
-)
 source=(
     "AppleColorEmoji-$pkgver.ttf::$url/releases/download/v$pkgver/AppleColorEmoji.ttf"
     "75-apple-color-emoji.conf"
@@ -30,7 +23,5 @@ package() {
     install -Dm644 "$srcdir/AppleColorEmoji-$pkgver.ttf" \
       "${pkgdir}/usr/share/fonts/apple-color-emoji/apple-color-emoji.ttf"
     install -Dm644 -t "$pkgdir/usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail" "$srcdir/75-apple-color-emoji.conf"
-    install -d "${pkgdir}/etc/fonts/conf.d"
-    ln -s "/usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/75-apple-color-emoji.conf" "${pkgdir}/etc/fonts/conf.d/"
 }

The config file that forces Apple Emojis over other fonts will still be installed to conf.avail, so it's available if you want to create a symlink manually or copy and modify it to your liking.

@aeiedamo the problem is that this package explicitly conflicts with noto-fonts-emoji (as well as a few other fonts).

The current maintainer thinks that this is the correct approach and does not want to change this, despite repeated requests to do so. I also think this is stupid, not everyone wants to use Apple Emojis exclusively (and no font package from the official repos does this).

This package shouldn't provide emoji-font because it will conflict with noto-fonts-emoji.

Hey,

I also have an issue with Apple Color Emoji being prioritized over other fonts. I've read your comment below and understand that it's hard to find the right balance between flexibility and consistency. I just have one request:

On my system Apple Color Emoji is prioritized over Source Code Pro, when matching for Source Code Pro. This causes some websites to render incorrectly, when they request font-family: "Source Code Pro", e.g. https://adventofcode.com/

$ fc-match -s "Source Code Pro"
apple-color-emoji.ttf: "Apple Color Emoji" "Regular"
SourceCodePro-Regular.otf: "Source Code Pro" "Regular"
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"
[...]

I assume that this is an issue with this package, but please correct me if I'm wrong. If this is indeed an issue of this package, is there a way to fix it?

Thanks in advance!

@Suuuuper Reddit requests the following fonts: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', sans-serif. That means that if any of the fonts that come before 'Apple Color Emoji' is not installed on your system, Apple Emoji will be used to render every character, causing the incorrect kerning. This can be easily fixed by installing any of those fonts (e.g., ttf-roboto). You can find further fonts at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/fonts.

@gregthwuen I understand where you are coming from, and I'm also not a fan of forcing anything on the user. However, in this case, it's hard to find common ground between two (exclusive) ends within the same package: flexibility vs. consistency. Furthermore, programs/DEs frequently make use of Noto Emoji by default (taking higher precedence), which means that the Apple Emoji wouldn't be shown in all these cases. I don't think users would want this either, but I'm always open for discussion (although perhaps it's better to do so at https://github.com/samuelngs/apple-emoji-linux/discussions to not pollute the comments section here).

In any case, users with more special use cases can still fetch the font upstream and manually install it without any fontconfig/their own fontconfig.

Sadly with this font I have spaces between words on Firefox, but only on Reddit. I'm too tired to debug it. But I guess one should look up which font Reddit requests and match it in the 75 config ? I don't know, I need some sleep.

I had to comment out lines 115-118 in 75-apple-color-emoji.conf, it replaced spaces and numbers in Firefox v124 with emoji font.

    <!-- <match target="pattern">
        <test qual="any" name="family"><string>Noto Color Emoji</string></test>
        <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same"><string>Apple Color Emoji</string></edit>
    </match> -->

@XcroatoanX of course you can use them simultaneously. For example, different websites could prefer different emoji fonts. Also, when designing stuff creatively, you might want to have a choice of more than one variant. So please just let the user choose how many fonts they want to install.

Same is actually true for the provided .config. I appreciate that it is there when users want to use Apple's emojis exclusively, but it shouldn't be symlinked by default imo.