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Welcome to the 'Cool Little Things' section of the h2g2 FAQ. This is where you can find out some cool things you can do with h2g2.

If you want to see a complete list of questions answered by our very own h2g2 FAQ, then check out the h2g2 FAQ Index at any time.

Contents of this Section

• How do I make those nice yellow smiley faces and pictures in Conversation Postings?
• How can I find out who else is online?
• What other cool secret stuff is there?

How do I make those nice yellow smiley faces and pictures in Conversation Postings?

Smileys come in all shapes and sizes and each one is listed on the Smiley Page. In conversation postings (like forums or journal entries), you need to use plain text– this means the forum code is needed (eg <biggrin>). However, when you use GuideML, you must use the GuideML tag instead (eg <SMILEY TYPE="biggrin"/>).

The forum code and the GuideML tag are listed next to your chosen smiley on the Smiley Page.

Pictures, like blobs or graphics, can't be used in plain text as they use a GuideML tag.

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How can I find out who else is online?

The Who's online button can be found on any page and is a brilliant tool for keeping track of your friends on h2g2 but it also shows who's online on other BBC messageboards. If you want to find out who is online on h2g2 and nowhere else, then click here. You can copy and paste the address from the address bar at the top of your screen if you want the link on your personal space.

You can order the who's online list by either User ID or by Nickname by clicking on one of the buttons at the top of the page.

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What other cool secret stuff is there?

• Fun Links
  There are plenty of cool tags used in GuideML that are perfect to muck around with in your personal space and you can find a lot of them in the GuideML Clinic.

• Infinite Improbability Drive

The Infinite Improbability Drive is another fun link and is used a lot in h2g2. Here are the following links to use it:
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/RandomEntry will take you to a randomly selected Guide Entry of any type.
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/RandomNormalEntry will take you to a randomly selected 'normal' Guide Entry (a 'normal' Guide Entry being one that isn't edited or recommended).
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/RandomRecommendedEntry will take you to a randomly selected Recommended Guide Entry (ie one that has been picked from Peer Review by a Scout but which is still in the process of being edited).
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/RandomEditedEntry will take you to a randomly selected Edited Guide Entry.

Going to the URLs will retain the URL in the address bar of your browser so you can keep refreshing the link and visiting random entries every time. To use them in GuideML you can use the tag <LINK HREF="RandomEntry">...</LINK> changing 'RandomEntry' to 'RandomNormalEntry', 'RandomRecommendedEntry' or 'RandomEditedEntry' if desired.

• Skins

Make sure you read about changing skins because they are amazingly cool.

• Forum Parsing

Forum parsing is when you type something in plain text and it transforms into a link. If you type:

• A123456(Only if it is a valid entry)
• U123456
• F123456
• F123456?thread=123456...
• C123456

It will automatically transform known page addresses made of a character and a number into a link when you post it. If you type in a Help page name, like PeerReview and you want to turn it into a link you must put the <./> and </.> tag around the text and then it will be a link when you post it. More names can be found on NamedEntries.

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This help page is an update of the original at A308288.