Use emoji instead of emoticon images

[dwaite]

I would recommend an option to translate outbound text ( like :-) ) to emoji (like 😊 ), to replace traditional emoticon support. You would then remove inbound translation completely.

This allows the sender to be completely responsible for whether they meant to send some text or a graphical character. Things like pasted source code will no longer be corrupted until the receiver tweaks a display option.

In fact, I would recommend leveraging the text replacement/substitutions feature in OS X for this, specifically because that only applies to typed text - things like pasted code will be ignored.

If a theme pack is eventually desired, this could be shared either as a custom font, or an inline replacement of the emoji unicode characters with the chosen graphics.