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Firefox EmotiConverter, Improves Emoticon, Animated Gif Handling

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:05:02 +0000

I’m not a huge fan of emoticons or animated gifs, but I know a lot of users who are. Just head over to your favorite forum or social messaging site and look at the posts on your wall, it is likely that you will see at least some emoticons or images posted on that wall. Some Internet users like to upload their animated gifs, emoticons and images to free file hosts, or maybe their own web hosting account. This way, they can hotlink those images whenever the need arises.

The only problem with this approach is that the hotlinking url of those images needs to be known. Sure, you can head over to the image host to grab the url whenever you need it, bookmark the images or save the links to a text file; Or, you could install the Firefox add-on EmotiConverter to improve the process.

EmotiConverter turns web images into freely configurable emoticons. New emoticons are added in just a few steps. It begins by copying the image url of the image that you want to turn into an emoticon, before pasting the url into the add-on’s options to create a new custom emoticon. This new text emoticon triggers the display of the image automatically from then on, provided that the web software you are posting it on supports the posting of external images. And in the case that you forget the shortcut, you can simply open the options again to see a list of all configured emoticons

Lets take a closer look at the configuration. Lets say you want to turn the Ghacks logo into an emoticon. You right-click the image on the Ghacks homepage and select Copy Image Location from the available options. This saves the full image url into the clipboard.

The new emoticon is then created with a click on Tools > EmotiConverter > Options.

Paste the image url into the Image Link form. You can do that with a quick Ctrl-V, or with a right-click and the selection of paste. The image should appear in the Emoticon preview.

Click the Shortcut field afterwards and insert a new shortcut for the emoticon. It is suggested to add a special char to the shortcut to avoid that it is accidentally added to a post on the Internet.

A click on Add activates the new shortcut. From that moment on it is possible to add the image to posts on the Internet by writing its text shortcut to the post form.

The extension adds img tags before and after the image, these tags can be changed under the Options tab; Helpful if the favorite forum or site supports a different image tag format.

The add-on developer has created a short demonstration video that visualizes all steps necessary.

EmotiConverter is compatible with all Firefox 3 and 4 versions. It can be directly installed from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Facebook Chat Emoticons Bar

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:17:26 +0000

Chatting on Facebook can be pretty handy at times. I often catch friends on Facebook that I would otherwise have a hard time contacting, especially if they live in a different time zone. It is ok for a quick chat, setting up a meeting and everything else that does not take long explanations. Well, that’s my opinion at least.

Most Facebook users who use the chat stumble upon emoticons by chance, by adding text emoticons to their chat messages that are magically turned into graphics by the chat application on Facebook. There is however no index or toolbar available that shows all the emoticons that are available in the chat.

The userscript Facebook Chat Emoticons Bar adds a toolbar to Facebook’s chat window that displays the available chat emoticons. I’m not a huge fan of emoticons but I know that they are popular.

Lets take a look at the Facebook chat interface once the userscript has been added to the web browser.

All emoticons are added as little images at the top of the Facebook chat bar. You can select them with a click which adds the text emoticon to the chat form at the bottom. The emoticons consist of smileys mainly and several additional options including the option to bold or underline text.

Userscripts are supported by the Firefox web browser if Greasemonkey is installed, by the Google chrome browser and Opera. I have tested the script in Firefox and Google Chrome, and it worked flawlessly in both web browsers. Google Chrome users can install the userscript directly. Opera does not seem to be supported, as only Firefox and Chrome are listed as supported on the userscript profile page.

The Facebook Chat Emoticons Bar can be installed from the userscript website over at userscripts.org. Cautious users may want to read the user comments and take a look at the source code before they install the userscript.

Here are all available text emoticons, handy for those users who do not want to install the userscript, or who use a web browser that does not support those scripts.

:) :( :p :D :o ;) 8) 8| >:( :/ :’( O:) :* <3 ^_^ -_- o.O >:O :v :3 :|] (^^^) :putnam: <(") :42: * _bold_ *

I suggest you enter them all at once in the Facebook chat box to see their effect.

How To Write A Heart And Other Symbols With The Keyboard

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:53:10 +0000

If you are chatting or hanging out on sites like Facebook or MySpace regularly you are often inclined to spice up your messages. Many users make use of so called emoticons like :) to express feelings or their state of mind, some on the other hand would like something special, and that’s where special characters come into play.

The basics are always the same to write a heart or other symbols in chat, text editors and practically any place with text input on the Internet. Hold down the ALT key on the keyboard, press a number on the numeric keypad afterwards and release the ALT key again. Laptop users often need to press Fn instead for the same effect.

Special characters are available on numbers 1 to 31, here is the complete list.

The number in front refers to the keys that need to be pressed to create the special character. Desktop users need to use the numeric keypad for this, laptop users without a numeric keypad need to locate the blue keys on their keyboard which substitute the keypad.

The easiest way to test them is to click in the address bar of the web browser, and start testing the characters in there. To write a heart symbol one would press ALT, then the 3 on the numeric pad before releasing ALT again. The character appears after the ALT key is released.

Pimp your MSN Messenger with HiYo

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:06:24 +0000

I’m not using Instant Messengers and also do not use the Web 2.0 equivalent in the form of Twitter and comparable services. That’s something that stuck with me since I began using the Internet in the early 90′s and I never changed my stance on the subject. Instant Messengers are nevertheless highly popular and Everton came up with a nice addition for MSN Messenger.

One of the reasons why I never bothered to use Instant Messengers was the “spammy” connotation of them. There have been many services on the Internet that offered add-ons, smileys and other gimmicks for Instant Messengers that turned out to infect the user’s computer with malicious software or use the information entered by the user to spam him into oblivion.

HiYo seems to be different. The add-on for MSN Messenger comes without adware, spyware and other malicious software. It adds a new toolbar to the compose window that provides access to new content that can be added to posts like images and animations.

HiYo is loaded with tons of free animated Emoticons
Send the most hilarious Audibles to your friends on MSN Messenger
Find any Emoticon, Wink, Animation, Sound Effect, Audible or Nudge easily
Send HiYo’s crazy Winks to move and shake your buddy’s conversation window
Replace your old Display Pictures with cool animated slideshows

One interesting aspect is that content gets suggested by HiYo which is great for the flow of conversation because it does not usually take ages to find the right image for the current situation.