Update: Due to an update in WordPress 3.8, this plugin broke. Thankfully Ronald Huereca kindly wrote a patch to fix it. Hopefully the original plugin will be updated with the patch shortly. You can grab the patch here.

A subtle but important way you can improve your WordPress site is by upgrading the rather hideously awful similies images which are present in WordPress core 😀 😀 😀

The ugly beastly icons which come with WordPress core

The ugly beastly icons which come with WordPress core

The problem

Jeff Waugh submitted a patch to WordPress core back in 2009 which replaced the old ugly smilies with beautiful new ones from the GNOME and Tango themes. Unfortunately, although the patch was initially committed, it was eventually dropped after numerous complaints 🙄 This has left us with the same hideously ugly default similies that came with early versions of WordPress, and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon 😮

Apparently some crazy people preferred the old ugly ones to these slick clean emoticons. Craziness :!:

Apparently some crazy people preferred the old ugly ones to these slick clean emoticons. Craziness ❗

The solution 🙂

That same patch that Jeff Waugh created all those years ago is also available in his Tango Smilies plugin 😀 The plugins page reports that it hasn’t been updated in over two years, but don’t let that alarm you. It hasn’t been updated simply because it doesn’t need to be updated. It works just fine the way it is 🙂 I have it installed here on geek.ryanhellyer and am very happy with it. There are other plugins available, but the ones I found include extra administration pages (bloat) which I don’t want or need. I just wanted a plugin I could install and have it automatically upgrade my smilies for me 🙂

Possible similies

Smile :) 🙂
Laugh :lol: 😆
Big smile :D 😀
Oops :oops: 😳
Sad :( 🙁
Cry :cry: 😥
Eek :o 😮
Evil :evil: 👿
Shock :shock: 😯
Twisted :twisted: 😈
Question :? 😕
Roll eyes :roll: 🙄
Cool :cool: 😎
Exclamation :!: ❗
Mad :x 😡
Tongue poke :P 😛
Idea :idea: 💡
Neutral :| 😐
Arrow :arrow: ➡
Wink ;) 😉
My Green :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Want to hack up your own smilies?

Thanks to Ipstenu, there is a very handy tutorial on how to setup your own custom smilies, including with SVG images and PNG fallbacks for older browers.