Goals:
Describe what an emoticon is
Describe how to install it.
Installing emoticons
Emoticons are used by instant messaging clients to show emmotions in a text chat. They start off as simple letter combos but are transformed into a shape(usually a face). By going to the preferences window and clicking on the Apperance tab you can change which emoticons you use by clicking on the Emoticons drop down menu and picking one of the four choices, alternatly you can click on the customize button to the right of the drop down menu and choose individually which emoticons you want to use.
When inside a conversation to use emoticons you can click on the smilly face at the top of the window and click on an emoticon to use. When you click on the emoticon all that will show up in your message bar is a bunch of weird characters but they will get transformed into an emoticon when you press send(or enter). If you memorise these characters you can send emoticons by just typing these characters into the message bar.
Another trick to learn the character combo for an emoticon is by clicking on a emoticon inside the chat window, this will transform the emoticon back into a character combination so you can learn how to send it.
To get new emoticons you can go to http://adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=cats&cat_id=2. On this site you can click on the emoticons that you want on your computer by clicking on the emotico packs name, then on the right side of the next page click on download and it will download to you computer. All you have to do now to add the emoticons into Adium is find the file you just downloaded and double click it.
When inside a conversation to use emoticons you can click on the smilly face at the top of the window and click on an emoticon to use. When you click on the emoticon all that will show up in your message bar is a bunch of weird characters but they will get transformed into an emoticon when you press send(or enter). If you memorise these characters you can send emoticons by just typing these characters into the message bar.
Another trick to learn the character combo for an emoticon is by clicking on a emoticon inside the chat window, this will transform the emoticon back into a character combination so you can learn how to send it.
To get new emoticons you can go to http://adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=cats&cat_id=2. On this site you can click on the emoticons that you want on your computer by clicking on the emotico packs name, then on the right side of the next page click on download and it will download to you computer. All you have to do now to add the emoticons into Adium is find the file you just downloaded and double click it.
wengero, to me this makes sense, but I'm wondering if it does make sense to people who ask this kind of question.
I think an explanation for emoticon should be more in the range of
"an emoticon is a small image shown, that tries to capture an emotion.
Often one image says more than thousand words."
I like the fact that you say that the signs are related to the image, but maybe this can be clearer.
"An emoticon is formed by typing some signs, If you turn your head ninety degrees counterclockwise, with a little imagination you can recognise the emoticon."
And from there you can start off with explaining how it works with the images ("the collums, dashes, dots and other signs will be transformed into an image for you and your correspondent")
how to set images
and very important is saying that it is not because you see it that the other user sees it.
If I use the yahoo smiley pack with messenger contacts, they will not see them.
It might be usefull to recoment users to stick to the normal service smileys.
-- my two cents...
I think an explanation for emoticon should be more in the range of
"an emoticon is a small image shown, that tries to capture an emotion.
Often one image says more than thousand words."
I like the fact that you say that the signs are related to the image, but maybe this can be clearer.
"An emoticon is formed by typing some signs, If you turn your head ninety degrees counterclockwise, with a little imagination you can recognise the emoticon."
And from there you can start off with explaining how it works with the images ("the collums, dashes, dots and other signs will be transformed into an image for you and your correspondent")
how to set images
and very important is saying that it is not because you see it that the other user sees it.
If I use the yahoo smiley pack with messenger contacts, they will not see them.
It might be usefull to recoment users to stick to the normal service smileys.
-- my two cents...
