Hi all,

Anyone using a reasonably recent browser should now see a smiley face button next to comments. This will now allow you to insert a range of emojis into your comments.

Typing certain sequences of characters will also be autoreplaced with an emoji where appropriate. If you need to turn this off a particular comment, click on the face and disable the option.

Here are a few examples:
:) replaced with ?
:( replaced with ?
:-| replaced with ?
\o/ replaced with ?
:'( replaced with ?
:-p replaced with ?
:-D replaced with ?
<3 replaced with ?

Exactly what you see will depend on how your browser displays certain characters.

These have appeared now because they will also be used in a new chat app that will appear on the site in the hopefully not too distant future. The old one was known to be badly broken and has been removed. The new one will allow live chats with more than two people and have privacy settings so you won't be bothered by chat invitations if you don't want them.

Paul E