I've installed the emoticon addin but it's not really changed
anything. It does speak the text when I read what I've typed in the
edit windo, so :) is identified as a “smiling smiley” whereas my
dictionary entry used to render that as “smiling face”. But, as soon
as I post it to Facebook it vanishes! The same effect as the example I
placed at the start of this thread.

Another curious thing is that the insert emoticon feature of the addin
doesn't seem to insert anything into FB or a notepad window. I
wouldn't expect it to insert anything but ascii emoticons like the
colon and right parenthesis for a smiley face into notepad, but I
would have expected it to put them into FB.

When other people use emojis in their FB posts FB does attempt to
describe them, such as "heavy black heart" (which always made me think
somebody was sending love on a sad matter, but which a sighted person
tole me is not a black heart at all but some version of a red heart!)
... so even with emoticon addin installed I don't seem to be any
closer to being able to use ascii smiley faces in my FB posts!

Giles