We're about to unleash a new version of the site (hopefully in early November), and here to whet your appetite is a sneak preview of one of the coolest features... new smileys!

The previous set of six smileys:

has proved very popular, but anyone who has had a particularly emotional chat on h2g2 will know that you can never have too many smileys. We'll be adding 86 more to the set, bringing the total up to a whopping 92; we hope this will keep most people happy.

But how on earth is anyone going to remember all these smileys? Easy - we've given all of them an English shortcut, as well as an emoticon for those who have a standard key sequence that everyone will be able to use (you try inventing a sequence for smooching!). Thus, in Conversation Forums, both :-( and <sadface> will produce a sad face.

The following new smileys, for example, are really easy to remember:

Typing <smooch> will give:

Typing <ok> will give:

Typing <devil> will give:

Also, clicking on smileys in postings will take you to a document that describes that smiley, as well as all the others in the new set, so it'll be a doddle to learn the new set.

One word of warning, though. Posting loads and loads of smileys will seriously slow down your pages, so don't overuse them. After all, a smiley isn't just for Christmas, it's for life, so use them wisely.