Hello there and welcome to Immeritus! Thanks for stopping by!


It appears below your screen name and rank in every post on the lefthand column. You can change this picture in your account. Click on My Account. You will have a new My Account Tools menu on the left hand side with all sorts of account options. Click on My Avatar which will show you your current avatar. If you have a link of the avatar you wish to use (make sure you are not hotlinking off a site that doesn't allow it, like private/personal sites, and places like geocities or lycos) just type/paste it in the box and Save Changes. If you wish to browse our collection of fabulous avatars by some wonderful icon makers that have given us permission to host them here, then click on Show Gallery. There are hundreds of icons to choose from, and you can change as often as you like. Make sure you don't miss that drop down menu at the top that will take you to each icon maker's own avatar gallery. When you find the one you want to use, select the radio button below it, and then press Select Avatar at the very bottom.

JUST ADDED [02.22.06]: You can now upload your avatars to our website, so you no longer have to upload them to some other account, or illegally hotlink from other people's websites (you weren't doing that, were you?)! When you get to the My Avatar page, simply paste the link of the image (if it is on the net), or click the Browse button to find it on your computer. Then simply Save the changes and voila! Please note that uploaded avatars that are no longer in use will be deleted periodically to save space.


Now that you know the how-to, here are the avatar guidelines:
Your avatar can not be larger than 100x100 pixels.
Your avatar can not be larger than 40kb.
Your avatar cannot contain pornography or any material deemed NC-17.
You can use animation.
You can use gif, jpg, or png files.
Immeritus Staff can ask you to remove or change your avatar at any time if we deem it objectionable. It will not be an argument or discussion because if it tries to become one, we will simply disable avatar priveledges for the offending account.


Making your own avatar? Please make sure that it meets the requirements described above. When you are ready to send it online, please upload it to a host that allows you to hotlink, like photobucket or imageshack. They're free and easy to use. Follow the instructions on those sites, but essentially, you will end up with a link that you can then paste into the field in the My Avatar screen, described above.

---

To edit this, go to My Account, the link is on the left, in the User Info box, if you are logged in. Once you go there, you will have a menu at the top left in a box called My Account Tools. In that box, click on My Profile Information and scroll down to the signature box. This is where you paste your signature code. Most people are not comfortable with typing it all out for themselves, so a useful tip is to lay it all out in a post, hitting preview every time, to get your signature just right. This way you will get the tools like colors, sizes, and other helpful things like image and link makers, as well as alignment code. Once you get it looking the way you want it, just copy that text and paste it in the box I told you. Don't forget to Save changes.


Signature Guidelines: You have a newly updated 750 character limit. Please don't include obscenely large images in there either, or a super long/tall string of smaller ones. You can use HTML or BBcodes in your signature. Your signature must be smaller than 600 pixels wide, and 150 pixels tall, total. With the advent of nifty things like MeasureIt for Firefox, I can literally take a ruler to the screen and measure what your whole signature takes up on the screen in a matter of seconds. So please make sure that you are taking the sizes seriously. I have even made a graphic to better illustrate the dimensions for those of us that are more visual in our understanding.


Your signature cannot contain pornography or any material deemed NC-17.
You can use animation.
You can use gif, jpg, or png image files.
Immeritus Staff can ask you to remove or change your signature at any time if we deem it objectionable. It will not be an argument or discussion because if it tries to become one, we will simply disable signature privledges for the offending account.


Making your own signature graphics? Please make sure that it meets the requirements described above. When you are ready to send it online, please upload it to a host that allows you to hotlink, like photobucket or imageshack. They're free and easy to use. Follow the instructions on those sites, but essentially, you will end up with a link that you can then work into your signature.

---

How do you know how big your images are? Well, if you made it, you set the size yourself probably, or can easily see in your program. If you have it up online somewhere, simply right-click on the image and select Properties. Then you can view all sorts of stats about the image, including the height and width.

Are you a graphics guru? Do you want to make your own signatures? Share them with the world (on Immy)? Then here are a few tips and suggestions that will make them more appealing not only to myself, but to those that may use them in the future:

Immeritus staff has now gone to official sizes for all their banners and buttons to make them more pleasing when they are stacked or incorporated with each other. The only thing that hurts me more than broken images in your av's and signatures are images that are arranged in a horriffic manner. And no, I won't name names.

So, if you wish to make them all fit nicely, here are the sizes that we are going with from now til forever.

and

along with
and

As for the random numbers, don't ask. It just happened to work out that way, and I really don't see us changing them in any time soon. The really important thing as far as layout for a sig is concerned is that the heights are the same. So this is why I also made a subset of sizes for little things, like advertising an event or group. Keeps to the standard sizes, they're just chopped in half.

And finally, Tips for arrangements!

When you arrange your signature graphics, don't forget that you have the option to center them. This comes in real handy when you have a bunch of icons that aren't the same size. You can then order them kinda like a triangle, with the small ones at the edges, and the larger ones in the middle.

Don't forget that you can also link images. This will often save you a line of text when you are trying to promote a group or event by linking the actual advertisement instead of having to link it in a word below.

In case you were wondering, those countdown tickers are available here at 420x69 pixels, and here (for expectant mothers) at 400 pixels wide, by 80 pixels tall.

Avatars (which are generally 100x100 pixels) can make great signatures when arranged nicely. If you have a row of them (hey, you can have up to 6 in a row!), you still have 50 pixels on the next line to work with in terms of height. That should give you plenty of room for those standard sized banners!

Good luck with your signatures and avatars! If you have questions or need to test things out, please remember to go to the New Test Your Signature And Get Help - ONLY IN HERE.

Where do you get all of the Immeritus signatures at? Do you just make them yourself or what? Like for example, the Immy Winter Formal, how would one put that on his or her signature? Would you copy and paste it from someone else's signature?

~Sam

The first thread associated with the event or challenge will have the code to put it in your sig. So click on the formal banner and go to my first post there. Just stick around and keep an eye out and you will start to see where all the banners come from.

Just wanted to activate this thread again to remind folks that they need to stick to signature guidelines and if you go on to make your own graphics (which I welcome you to do so), I highly recommend you use the standard sizes.

Thanks.

Maybe I'm not reading carefully enough (I've been accused of that) but I don't see reference to using http addresses in signatures. May I use my "portkey" with my signature... displaying the address of my home (Sirius) site for those curious enough to pay me a visit? It is a PG13 forum...

Oh sure, feel free to do so. Just remember that when you put it in your sig, it should be in BBCode form. Because in the US, a user must be at least 13 years old to register an account at places like forums, PG-13 is perfectly fine.

How do you center the graphics your siggy?


~Pawprint

Pawprint, the code you want is:

Code::

[align=center][/align]

Fabulous Legolas icon, btw!

Thank you!! *giggles* Do I put the code on both sides of an icon? Like if I wanted to put my club member banner first, would I put the code on both sides of it? The same goes for each new row.

Sorry I'm being difficult...


~Pawprint

You're not being difficult at all.

Just put whatever you want to centre in between the two parts of the code. So if you wanted to centre your whole siggy as it is now then you'd do:

Code::

[align=center]"Moony etc etc Noble etc [img]etc etc [url=etc ... titillandus![/align]

You only have to use the align code once and it will centre everything regardless of how many lines/rows you're using.

Does that make sense? It's a bit late here...

Oh! Okay, that should be easy enough!

Thank you again!



~Pawprint

Oh, look!! It worked!! Bless you, Moon!! *claps*

Umm....I have another question. (I'm sorry!!) To change the color of the words in your siggy, do you just surround the phrase with the code you would to do this?


~the questioner, Pawprint =]

Yes, you do. I've often found that it's a good idea to just try these things and see what happens. Just save your original code in another window or in Word just in case something doesn't work out quite right!

Thanks so much, again!


~Pawprint