doc:emojis_and_special_characters [Knowledge Commons]

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//part of the [[start|GtC documentation]]//

====== Emojis and special characters ======

//Try out all these techniques below in the [[playground:playground]].//

----

===== Using the toolbar =====

This is the recommended way of introducing emojis (or emoticons, or smileys) and characters that don't appear on your keyboard.

In the toolbar you will find the icon called "Smileys": {{smileys-icon.png|This is an illustration: don't click here!}}. This gives you a range of emojis (or whatever you call them!) to insert in your page. When you click on one of them (for example, the first one) a text code is placed on the edit page, in this case `8-)`, which shows upon the page as 8-). Likewise for all the others.

Similarly, next to the 'Smileys' icon there is the 'Special Chars' icon: {{special-chars-icon.png}}. Here, you can include all the common accented characters, as well as many other symbols. When you click on any of these, the actual character is put in the editing window. You may have another way on your own device for entering these characters directly without using the toolbar: if so, the result will be exactly the same.


===== DokuWiki syntax =====

You can use the keyboard characters to produce emojis, as appear when you use the toolbar; and there is no need to use the toolbar once you know the character sequence. The standard DokuWiki ones are given in the [syntax documentation](wiki:syntax#text_conversions): please see there for the list, both of emoticons and some obvious arrow characters. 

For example, for an ordinary right-pointing arrow, typing `->` gives ->, etc. You can also get this character from the 'Special Chars' menu →, or just directly if you know how to put it in from your device: →. There is no difference in the end result. This `--` gives an en-dash (--); `---` gives an em-dash (---).

By the way, if you need something that isn't there, if it's a reasonable request, we can configure our DokuWiki to recognise another character string to give an unusual UTF-8 character, or a small graphic.

===== Other syntax =====

What you **cannot** do here is use Unicode codes for emojis or special characters, like
`&#9658;`, `&#767;`, or `&#2400;`. Nor do the similar HTML character entities work, like `&lt;`, `&gt;` and `&amp;`. These just display as they are written: &lt; &gt; and &amp;.

All these work in HTML, MediaWiki, and some versions of Markdown, but not here. So either use the toolbar, or your own way of entering unicode characters directly.