@julian said:
LOL! Can you do it for regular emoji too? Much obliged 
(p.s. Mentions plugins has been updated to use the new textcomplete version too)
Works great! 
didn't test it with :+1:
^^
seems like encoded ULIs get filtered to 404 o_O I guess this needs to be fixed within core...
and one other issue with :+1:
I'll need to fix is that the regex doesn't match any more after typing :+

With "regular emoji" you mean the plugin right? Not :)
, etc. In the first case I'd say the plugin may be taken down and I could remove the 'extended', because the reason for two different plugins has been the mapping of common smileys that now can be removed via settings. In the second case I think it's a bit overheaded because the dropdown would to often.