One of many frustrations of organising a brand new pc is downloading, putting in, and logging into all the varied functions I exploit day by day. However every time I arrange a brand new Mac, I’m completely happy to obtain and set up Rocket—the primary app I set up on any new Mac. In actual fact, it’s one of many utilities I miss most when I’ve to make use of a Home windows PC.
Rocket is a easy, free utility from Matthew Palmer that provides Slack-style emoji typing all through your system. That’s it, that’s all it does.
If you happen to spend all day on Slack like I do, you understand how quick and simple it’s so as to add emojis. Kind a colon (:) adopted instantly by a search time period, and a bit pop-up emoji picker exhibits related emojis. You’ll be able to decide one from the record (with the mouse or arrow keys) or hold typing to slender it down and simply press Enter.

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It makes utilizing emoji, which I exploit quite a bit, an intuitive a part of the typing course of as an alternative of a separate exercise. Rocket merely makes that very same emoji typing expertise accessible system-wide. There are a number of welcome choices, reminiscent of the flexibility to disable Rocket when utilizing sure apps through which it interferes, or when on sure web sites. You’ll be able to select a customized pores and skin one for related emojis, too.
There’s a $10 Rocket Professional improve that provides the flexibility to construct a library of customized GIFs or photographs you could summon the identical manner, together with some stats and textual content expander snippets. I’m completely happy to pay, however I by no means use any of these options.
If I needed to make a request, it might be to permit for a easy manner to take a look at emoji variants within the picker. Many emojis nowadays have a number of variations, and it might be nice to search out one with a number of faucets of the keyboard. The popular default pores and skin tone choice handles a few of them, however you don’t all the time need to change up an entire default simply to get the suitable variant of 1 or two emojis. And never each emoji variation is a pores and skin tone.
However hey, it’s free, it’s light-weight, it’s stored updated, and it makes my Mac extra pleasurable to make use of. It’s exhausting to complain about that.