Hello All
I have also been having trouble with emoticons, and formatting too, but have only just got round to doing something about it as (I hope) I'm nearing the end of more important fishy related stuff. A quick read through the earlier posts steered me towards Windows Edge / Internet Explorer possibilities.
I'm fairly sure it's only Windows Edge that has the problem not Windows 10 per se. If which case, don't hold your breath for Microsoft to fix it's own c**pware any time soon. They've got more than enough on their hands fixing (or making worse) the gazillions of bugs in W10 as it is.
Using Edge has no effect on either emoticons or formatting for forum posts.
I've written this reply using Internet Explorer running under Windows 10.
shows in my typed text as ": wave :", my quotes and spaces added.
bold text should be started by a b in square braces and terminated by /b, also in square braces bullet points put the word list, enclosed in square braces, in the text. with the list being terminated by /list in square braces.
It all looks a bit weird in the text but, as Sue's mentioned, the preview version shows everything OK.
I've checked out that Safari (in Apple IOS) and Internet (Android) are working as expected. Life's too short to checkout Mozilla, Firefox, Chrome, etc...
So, if you're a W10 user, set your default browser back to Internet Explorer or just open it only to access the forum. Or use another platform. I shan't be using my Android mobile as podgy fingers and ageing eyesight make any sort of length text input too frustrating!
If you only want to use Edge, you'll just have to remember all the codes and insert them in your text yourself. Good luck with that!