Because a forum relies on text-based communication, anything that helps someone get their message across is a good thing. That's where smilies come in. They are little graphics that have a variety of faces displaying different emotions.
Smilies are controlled through the control panel. If you click on Smilies in the left-hand menu, then three options will be made available.
Clicking on Smilie Manager will take you to a window where you can edit, move, delete, or view smilie categories. By default, there is one smilie category called Generic Smilies.
If you now click on View, you will be taken to another screen that shows you all the smilies in that category.
You have a number of options when working with smilies. These include editing a smilie, adding a smilie to a category, and uploading a smilie.
Clicking on Edit allows you to change a number of the smilie's parameters. These include:
- Title
This is the title or name of the smilie displayed.
- Text to replace with a smilie
This is the text that, when entered into a post, will be replaced by the smilie. This can be changed to suit. Don't make this a real word as this might cause sentences to have random smilies placed in them. The preferred format is
:name:. - Smilie file path (on server)
This is the path to the smilie image on the server.
- Smilie category
This is the category where the smilie is stored.
- Display order
This is the order in which the smilies are displayed to the end user when previewed. The smilies with lower numbers are displayed before those with higher numbers.
If a smilie is already on the server, then you can add it to one of the categories. To do this, you fill in the details for the smilie and click on Add Smilies. The smilie will then be added to the list available to users.
