emoji in thunderbird

[james]

recently i received several emails to my pc from keitai containing emoji and thought how it would be nice if i could actually display them instead of just getting these meaningless bars in their place.

a search quickly led me to EmojiPrint

i downloaded the .xpi file and installed it in thunderbird via the following steps:

- saved it locally to my machine (right click, save target as)
- in thunderbird, under "tools" --> "addons", click on "install";
- select the .xpi file from the downloaded location
- restart thunderbird

while thunderbird reports the add-on as being installed and apparently enabled, i still get nothing but bars instead of emoji. i've tried various character encodings etc, to no avail.

has anyone else tried this add-on?

the author does mention:

--
ご注意：

docomoなどのキャリアは、他のキャリアやGmail/Yahooメールを除く携帯以外当てのメールに絵文字が含まれた場合、それを変換してしまいます 。「〓」などに変換されてしまったメールは、表示することができません。どうにかしたいので すが..

which i'm interpreting as:

caution:

when sending emails containing emoji to addresses other than other carriers / Gmail / Yahoo, docomo and other carriers change the emoji. emoji changed to 「〓」 etc can not be displayed. i'd like to do something about this..
--

i'm a little confused by this - if the carriers bork the emoji when sending them to an address outside of the range above, what is the point of making a plugin for thunderbird, which by definition is usually used for pc mail? is he accessing his yahoo / gmail account via thunderbird?