Emoticons

[Nicole]

Alan...I've not been able to figure out how to use the 'blankety blank' emoticons. HELP!!!
Love, Nicole
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"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
Carl Sagan

[Alan]

Hello Nicole,

I forgot to add info about using the emoticons (also called smilies, because most of them look like smiling faces).

Firstly, you need to make sure that smilies are enabled for your posts. You can either set them to be enabled automatically in your 'Profile' (which also allows you to alter your settings for the forums). Look for "Always enable Smilies:" and set it to 'Yes'.

Or you can enable smilies by making sure the "Disable Smilies in this post" box is unchecked (unticked) each time you post. It's easier just to make sure smilies are always enabled via your 'Profile' (as above).

Anyway, that's not covering how to actually include smilies in your posts.

There are two ways to include smileys in your post. The first, and easiest is just to click on the emoticon/smiley you want. The emoticons/smileys can be found on the left of the text box where you type your message.

When you click on the smiley, a small text shorthand that represents the smiley will appear automatically in your post.

That is, if you want the yellow smiling emoticon, this will appear in your message when you click on it: :D

That colon plus the uppercase 'D' represents the code for a smiley. Once you submit your message, the forum will interpret that code as the yellow smiling emoticon, and insert it into your post.

Every emoticon has it's own text code, for example the waving emoticon this code: :wave:

If you click on the waving emoticon, then that code will appear in your post. When you then submit that post, that code is then interpreted as the waving emoticon, so that on the forums, the waving emoticon and not the code appears.

You can include as many emoticons as you want in your posts. You can see even more emoticons available to use by clicking on the "View more Emoticons" link underneath the first 20. When you click that link, a small pop-up box appears showing you all the available emoticons. To select any of the emoticons, just click on the graphic as before and the corresponding code will appear inside the text box where you are typing your post. And, as before, once you have submitted your post, the text code will be turned into the emotcon.

You can also test that this has worked before posting by hitting the 'Preview' button (beside the 'Submit' button).

If you make any mistakes, or want to change, just edit your post and try again. You can also go back and add new text or smileys to any of your existing posts by looking for the 'Edit' button at the top right of your posts.

Finally, the second way to include emoticons in your posts is to directly type the code for it. But you need to know the code.

For example:

:D - is the smiling emoticon
;) - is the winking emoticon
:playboy: - is the smaller playboy Rabbit Head logo.
:angel: - is the angel.

Note that the Playboy logo and angel have colons before and after the words, because otherwise, anytime you typed 'playboy' or 'angel' in your posts, the emoticons would be included instead of the word. The colons tell the forum to include the emoticon. If you just type 'playboy' then the word on it's own will appear.

As you can see, it is easier, to just click on the emoticon and have the forum automatically insert the code for the emoticon.

Hope that made sense. It's a lot to take in, but the best way to learn is just to try it out. And as often as you like. You won't damage the forums.
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Alan, Webmaster
Ex Playboy Bunnies

[Nicole]

Alan, I do get the code after clicking on a smiley but when I click on preview the code is still visible in the post but no smiley.
I checked my profile as you suggested and everything is kosher there and in Options the smilies are ON.
I wonder what the problem could be?
Nicole
_________________
"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
Carl Sagan

[Nicole]

HI again Alan :wave:

Please ignore my last post. I've got it. :thumb:

Nicole
_________________
"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
Carl Sagan