Non-square custom emoji image is cropped on upload

[i-ky]

I saw this issue being discussed in #6023 and I don't agree that "current solution is great". For slightly-off-square images there is little difference between cropping and resizing, but for way-off-square images cropping may make them unrecognizable.

For background. I manage Zulip organization for a local community of OpenStreetMap users (chat, archive) and we wanted to upload road sign images as custom emojis (discussed around here). Unfortunately, Zulip's decision to crop images makes non-square signs difficult to recognize and sometimes even indistinguishable from each other, e.g. and look identically after upload:

[i-ky]

@zulipbot add "area: emoji" "help wanted" "UX"

[zulipbot]

Hello @zulip/server-emoji members, this issue was labeled with the "area: emoji" label, so you may want to check it out!

[Rish-it]

I can try to tackle this issue out @i-ky

[Ankitsharma991]

@zulipbot claim

[varun-s22]

@zulipbot claim

[zulipbot]

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[Rish-it]

@zulipbot claim

[zulipbot]

@Rish-it This issue cannot be claimed, as someone else is already working on it. Please see our contributor guide for advice on finding an issue to work on. Thanks!

[alya]

@i-ky Thanks for the report!

I think we should discuss the solution in the #design stream in the Zulip development community; while it's clear what's desired in your use case, it's possible there are situations where the current approach works better.

In general, please let maintainers add the "help wanted" label, unless explicitly noted otherwise in prior discussion. We generally want to have some discussion before folks start working on an issue.

[i-ky]

I think we should discuss the solution in the #design stream in the Zulip development community; while it's clear what's desired in your use case, it's possible there are situations where the current approach works better.

Sure, let's discuss. All interested, please join the topic.

In general, please let maintainers add the "help wanted" label, unless explicitly noted otherwise in prior discussion. We generally want to have some discussion before folks start working on an issue.

Sorry about that. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing, but zulipbot didn't prevent me from doing it, so I'll blame the machine.

[alya]

Closing in favor of #24324, which describes a more general solution.