well things that would turn (17:08) into a smiley, imho do it wrong, it should be done in such a way that no false negatives occur and false positives are reduced. For example:
hey there 8) that should make a smiley
hey there 8)! that should make a smiley
hey there (mr8)! that should not.
A smiley token should be defined as "a series of characters consisting of either a line boundary (beginning of text/end of text) and a space on the other side, a space character on both sides, or a punctuation character .?!,;"' on one or more sides. Something like that would signifigantly reduce the problem you describe. Plus as I mentioned in other posts about this, who said there won't be a "disable smiley support" checkbox?
Oh and for the "IRC is text", that has little relevance. The majority of smiley requests don't say "make it so it shows up on other people's screens as well" that is, they don't say there should be a code sent that other clients should display as a smiley, they say LOCALLY it should be displayed as a smiley. If that violates the "IRC is text" motto you seem to believe in, well then why have picture windows? IRC is text, not pictures. The reason is because picture windows (like smileys) won't modify, expand, or rely on the IRC protocol in any way. They will be local features that allow you to display information in the method you determine is best for you.
