Rabid emoticons

[Hezz]

I know I am not the only one to have had rabid emoticons pop up randomly and taking out a couple of letters of text ....... it has only happened to me this morning, but I see others having the same problem. Is there an "antidote" for these rabid viral emoticons?

[OP]

It seems to be that if one uses the combination of characters in the text they will be converted to smilies. It also depends on the mode one is using to create the reply, i.e. Quick Reply or Reply. Another effect is if one is replying using Preview or BBCode.
:)is line is in BBCode and contains colon curved bracket between single apostrophes ''. It has replaced the first two characters with a smilie.

This is also in BBCode and contains the colon and curved bracket but without the apostrophes and shows a smilie in place of the two characters.

If you are still with me, I have now switched to the normal way of posting and will put a smilie right next  . The laughing one.
If I create the post and then edit the post the smilie will be converted back to the colon and capital D.

It seems to be a quirk of Proboards: Depending which mode of replying is being used can result in the effect you see.

[OP]

The answer to your question Hezz is learn all about html coding.
Seriously, if you edit a post after posting it check what the post looks like using the two modes at the bottom left, i.e. 'Preview' and 'BBCode'. If you find the smilies where they shouldn't be you will need to delete the characters and re-insert where you want it to appear.
I know it sounds complicated, but that's only because it is typed out.

[samwiseg]

Wow OP!

I think I got that!

[Marianne Marlow]

Thanks OP. You sure know your onions

[OP]

I just hope it's useful to Hezz as well as anybody else. I sort of grew up with this sort of thing. It is my other hobby,

[birdguhl]

This is not really about rabid emoticons - and is also not a life or death issue - but I don't get the option of the really wide smiley with teeth - purple I think.

[Hezz]

Okay, thanks OP. Just really strange for them to pop up now out of nowhere.

[OP]

To cut a rather long and complicated story short and hopefully understandable, the post that you read on the screen of your computer goes through a lot of script and things called style sheets and so it doesn't take much for the designer to add a 'bug' into the code. However it can take a lot of time and effort to find and remove the bug. I use the word 'bug' loosely. A PIA for the people who are affected but not fatal for the post.
I am not a user of Internet Explorer nor the Windows operating system, but if there is a way for you to view the web page source then just have a look at one. I'm pretty sure your jaw will drop.