Quotes

Yes that's correct. No smiley images at all. I did wonder why others were posting just a string of words, /forum/smilies/smile_ etc. As well as that, pound signs come out as a pair of question marks.
Could it be that my system is filtering out things it perceives as risky?
Didn't think anything like this was possible, once again I assumed the Forum page was universally benign and not prone to individual variations.
Google Chrome, does that mean anything? maybe, maybe not.

RicF - the answer is simple - go to My Forum under your forum name in the top left of the screen.  

on there you will see a list of Forum Settings (you may need to click the arrow to the left to open it up).  at the bottom is Forum Editor. check Advanced WYSIWYG Editor.

go back to the forum, refresh the page (F5), and you should now see a toolbar at the top of the message box which has everything you're missing.

this used to be crap in Chrome browser but since the changes it works well

fat buddha wrote (see)

RicF - the answer is simple - go to My Forum under your forum name in the top left of the screen.  

on there you will see a list of Forum Settings (you may need to click the arrow to the left to open it up).  at the bottom is Forum Editor. check Advanced WYSIWYG Editor.

go back to the forum, refresh the page (F5), and you should now see a toolbar at the top of the message box which has everything you're missing.

this used to be crap in Chrome browser but since the changes it works well

Thank you fat budda. The results are here to see.