How to Add Smilies (Emoticons/Pixies) to Posts About This Page:

[Jennifer Marx]

How to Add Smilies to Your Posts

This tutorial explains how to add smilie graphics to your posts. This is a multi-page tutorial -- use the Contents box above or the page numbers at the bottom to navigate.

Smilies are small graphical icons which you can insert into your messages to convey an emotion or feeling, such as a joke or embarrassment. For example, if you entered a sarcastic comment, rather than type 'that was a joke', you could simply insert the 'wink' smilie, like this:

Show Printable Version of this Tutorial

Here's how to add smilies to your posts:

Turn On Smilies Click the My Home link -- it is on the far left end of the orange bar at the top of every PassPorter Community page, then click Edit Options. Scroll down to the Message Editor Interface, as shown below -- choose Enhanced Interface (our recommendation) or Standard Editor then click Save Changes.

Start a Post Now that your message editor interface is set to show smilies, go to The Driveway (our testing forum) and click New Topic. In the resulting window, look for the Smilies box on the right side of the message editor window, as shown below.

Add Smilies To add a smilie to your post, simply click one of the smilies shown in the Smilie box on the right side. Once you click, the smilie will be inserted into your post as either the graphic (Enhanced Interface) or the code (Standard Editor). Below is our test post with the smilie code inserted. Tip: Click the More link at the bottom of the Smilies box to see many more smilies -- all are clickable.

Submit Your Post Click Submit Your Message and view your post!

For a list of the smilies currently available when making posts, click here.

Troubleshooting Tips

Make sure your Message Editor Interface is set to Standard or Enhanced.

When using the Quick Reply box at the bottom of a thread, you won't see this Smilie box. Look for the Smilie menu instead, as shown in the image below.


[break=Using Smilies From Other Places]
Using Smilies From Other Places

If you are fond of a smilie that is not built in to our message boards, chances are good you can still use it. You simply need to insert it as an image in your post. Here's how to do it:

Get the Smilie's Link Locate the smilie image you want to include in your post and get it's web link. You can do this in several ways -- the easiest is usually to right-click on the image and choose "Open image in new window" from the context menu -- then copy the URL that appears in the new window. Or, even easier, right-clicking may give you a "Copy Image Address" option. Important Note: Be sure that the image you want to use allows you to link to it -- some web sites have restrictions on this (look for rules about "remote linking"). If a site allows you to use a smilie image but does not want you to link to it, you may still download it, upload it to our server as an attached image, and then use it following these same directions. Here is an example of getting the image address of a smiley at MySmiley.net.

Insert Your Smilie Link Into a Post With your image link copied, go to the post in which you want to insert it (or to test, go to The Driveway). In your message editor window, click the Insert Image button (see below), post in your image link, and click OK. Depending whether you're using the Enhanced or Standard interface, you'll either see the graphic or the code appear in your message.

Here is how a post appears in the message editor window with the image code in it:

Complete Your Post Once your post is ready, click Post and check the results.

Troubleshooting Tips

You cannot use smileys from Smiley Central -- they are ad-ware and insert big banner ads, unbeknowst to you, in all posts with their smileys. Thus, we've had to ban their smileys. If you try to insert one, our system recogizes their names and inserts asterisks, causing your links not to work.

You are limited to 10 images per post, which includes smilies.