The SmileyFish™ translates text to Smilish (ready to copy) and Smilish to text.
This program translates back and forth between English and Smilish using the smile characters found on
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2). The results are designed
to be cut and pasted between that site and this one. They serve no useful purpose except to avoid charges of not using
enough smilies in a conversastion.
You can pretty much use all the characters on the keyboard to type your message.
However, due to the shortage of smilies. some special characters will be passed through without being changed.
You should be able to save this page to your computer and run it, even when you are off line. I have no problems with this.
If you do, let me know. Barton Rolsky
Please remember to close the result window before pushing the button for a new translation. The program will not do it for you.
Translate text to Smilish.
Translate Smilish to text.
For now, in order to translate back into text, the process is awkward.
1) On the page with Smilish, highlight the smilies. Use Control-C to copy them.
2) Choose a program that understands HTML. I use Outlook.
3) Open a new document -- In my case, I start a letter with format set to HTML.
4) Paste the smilies into the letter.
5) Find a way to view the source of the document -- I right-click and choose View Source.
6) Copy the source and paste it into this window.
7) Start the translation.
Alternatively, you can view the code on the actual H2G2 page, copy it, and paste it here. Make sure you right-click on the pane that
contains the Smilish. Unfortunately, this will get the whole, huge listing and may crash the program or even your computer (for all I know
at this point -- it hasn't done so on my machine, but it could.)
Note: The actual code has changed from the earliest versions. This means that there is Smilish out there that cannot be translated with
this version of the software. (Think of it as Olde Smilishe. Think of it as a waste of time.) The translation process is now locked and all
future Smilish will be translatable with later versions of the software.
My next major version will allow you to enter the URL of the page and the Post number. Then, the software will translate automatically. No more
seven nasty steps in the Smilish to English process, though they will continue to be an option.
Translate raw Smilish to text.
This section decodes raw smiley codes before they have been transformed
into icons. That is, the raw output of the first section can be fed into here
and will be plain text again.
The SmileyFish™ Machine is based on Hugo the Fish's
Bubblefish™ Translator.
Please note that the editors of H2G2 have expressed a desire that Smilish should not be used on H2G2.
They said in an email to me,
"We are not prepared to spend time attempting to work out which smileys are coded messages and which are
just friendly smileys, as it is a waste of staff resources. We're therefore not prepared to encourage the use of a
tool that we consider to be anti-social in its effect, and which produces Postings that do break the House Rules . . ."
Please honor the request of the editors and do not waste their time by posting Smilish to H2G2. To ensure that
they can determine which collections of smilies are code and which are mere expressions of
exuberance, I will continue to make this software available.
Barton Rolsky.
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