NineChime forum

First, the easy part.  Make sure you have enabled smilies, otherwise your customizations will not be recognized.

define ('USE_SMILE_HACK', 0);

Set this to 1 to enable smilies...

define ('USE_SMILE_HACK', 1);

Next, I'll assume the syntax of the hacks.php file is correct, or else you'd have gotten a nasty error. (something about keywords on a specific line number).

The big issue is to make sure that the smiley codes you want are correct.

The format for the smilies is:

'smiley' => 'filename',

Keywords must be in single quotes, filenames must have a file extension and the files must be in the smilies folder, and the comma is required for each entry except the last one.  If a smiley isn't showing up, either the smilies haven't been activated (as shown above), the code conflicts with NiftyToo (which handles custom coloring, font styles, etc.), or the code is wrong.  You can e-mail me your hacks.php file, or just the smilies section of that file, and I'll look it over.