Smilies (or emoticons‎) are small icons that you can insert into your message to convey various emotions & feelings. If smilies are enabled, a list of smilies supported by the forum will be listed above the message box where you type your message. Clicking on a smiley, will insert that smiley into your message.
Common smilies codes (like :-)) will automatically be replaced with their equivalent images. If you do not wish for that to happen, click on the Disable smilies in this message checkbox.
FUDforum ships with a set of default smilies. Nevertheless, one can easily upload additional smilies or remove unwanted ones from the forum's Smiley Manager admin control panel.
A good source of free smilies is http://www.smileys4ever.de/. The site is in German, but all the smilies on it is available free of charge for both personal and commercial use.