As of now, the community post/comments/replies can only have likes.
Now, we want to support multiple reactions via emojis.
Evolve the like model to also be able to accommodate other reactions via emojis. The existing likes should be counted for the heart emoji.
See if we need a migration for migrating likes to heart emoji or can we provide backwards compatibility easily. If backward compatibility is hard to pull off, create a migration instead.
Example from a similar community
User experience:
- The user should see an emoji picker right under post/comment/reply (just like today)
- Upon clicking the reaction window, the user should be able to pick a reaction emoji and it should show up on the left side of the emoji picker with a count.
- If instead of clicking the emoji picker, the user clicks on an already existing reaction, its count should increase. The user should be able to toggle their reaction.
- On hovering over the reaction, the reactors' names list should be visible in a popover as shown below

As of now, the community post/comments/replies can only have likes.
Now, we want to support multiple reactions via emojis.
Evolve the like model to also be able to accommodate other reactions via emojis. The existing likes should be counted for the heart emoji.
See if we need a migration for migrating likes to heart emoji or can we provide backwards compatibility easily. If backward compatibility is hard to pull off, create a migration instead.
Example from a similar community
User experience: