Help:Wikisig

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[[Category:Help|Signatures]]
 
[[Category:Help|Signatures]]

Revision as of 20:09, 4 April 2009

This explains how to sign your name and leave a timestamp when editing talk pages - and how to make really fancy versions of your signature.

Quick guide to creating an awesome sig

Here is a quick guide for the most common method of creating a custom sig.

  1. Create a page User:Yourname/Sig with the content [[User:Yourname|{{User:Yourname/Sig/name}}]][[User_talk:Yourname|{{User:Yourname/Sig/talk}}]]
  2. Create User:Yourname/Sig/name with the way you want the link to your userpage to appear
  3. Create User:Yourname/Sig/talk with the way you want the link to your talkpage to appear
  4. Go to my preferences at the top
  5. In the box next to Nickname type {{User:Yourname/Sig}}
  6. Make sure the box Raw Signature is checked
  7. Remember to save your preferences

Once you have got this sorted you can start making your sig more advanced, using some of the tricks below. This method has the distinct advantage of not leaving huge amounts of code everytime you sign, which is important if you want to do the random trick.

Contents

Basic

Whenever you edit a talk page, you should enter four tildes (~~~~) in line after your comment. This will create a signature that is your user name, linked to your user page, and time and date stamp your comment.

One step fancier

If you want to leave more than just your user name and link to your user page (many people like to at least create a link to their talk page for people to use), you do this:

  • Go to the my preferences link in the top right of any screen.
  • Check the box that says Raw signatures (without automatic link)
  • In the box labelled Nickname type in your preferred signature format.

Let's say your user name is RWuser, but you want the signature to read "RatWikian", and you want a link to your talk page that says "Talk to me". If you can fill in the blanks, use this:

[[User:RWuser|RatWikian]][[User_Talk:RWian|<sup>Talk to me</sup>]]

The tags that say <sup> and </sup> are often used to raise (and shrink) that part of the text. No one knows why, but lots of people do it.

  • Click save at the lower left and you are done. It's a good idea to test your new signature on your own talk page or user page to make sure that it works and looks like what you want. Note: on those pages, the link to that page itself will be "dead", due to the way the software works. For a full test, try it on someone else's talk page.

Your username is case sensitive, and it's a good idea to replace spaces in user name with 'underscore' ( _ )

Getting carried away

Many users, once they are settled in, like to develop signatures that are, well, let's say a bit "creative".

People use strange characters, some or lots of colors, and even randomized phrases or words for part or all of their signature.

Since this takes up a lot of space on talk pages, it is good form to use templates to build such signatures.

First, you need to understand the concept of templates and transclusion. In the MediaWiki software, if a filename is enclosed in braces like this: {{filename}} on another page, first, it looks for a file called "template:filename". If it doesn't find one, it looks for "filename" in the mainspace, or a few other closely related spaces.

If it finds it, everything from "filename" is included directly into the page where {{filename}} is placed every time the page is loaded. (There are exceptions, but they don't matter in signatures)

If you also add SUBST: before the filename, for example like this: {{SUBST:filename}}, the contents of "filename" will be copied into the source of the page when you save the page. This has some consequences explained below.

The first step

The first thing to do is to create a subpage of your user page. For illustration, from now on I will use human's stuff, since he can't stop me.

A subpage of user human's page looks like this: User:Human/sig. If you create one of your own (just type User:Yourname/sig into the search box & click "Go", or click here), it will appear as a red link or ask you if you want to create it. (The answer is "yes")

In that subpage, put all the junk that makes up your current signature.

Then enter this into your preferences under "nickname": {{SUBST:User:Human/sig}} -- but don't use Human's as that will confuse everyone. One of him is enough.

When you sign pages, the result will be the same as when you had a bunch of wikicode in the nickname box.

Note that if you enter {{User:Human/sig}}, the software will automatically add SUBST:, and there is no way of preventing that. This means that any changes you make to your sig template will not be visible in places you signed previously. It also means that if your sig template contains a lot of code, it will all be dumped into the page where you sign.

To solve these problems, continue to Stage 2 - nitrous and a chip.

Going over the edge

If you have anything you want to do that will take up a lot of space, you should put it in yet another sub page and include that subpage in your /sig page.

Since Human thought it would somehow be cool to have the link to his talk page be chosen at random from a bunch of phrases he (and only he) thought were cool, he created User:Human/sigtalk.

So his /sig page does the silly purple color for his user page link, but then transcludes the /sigtalk page to get the random talk link thing. What appears when he signs talk pages is this:

'''[[user:human|<font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human</font>]]'''{{User:Human/sigtalk}}

Not too bad, it only takes up about a line of text, and yet that {{User:Human/sigtalk}} is about 15-20 lines of gibberish.

Going one step further, for the ultimate in signature cleanliness and versatility, if he put all of his signature code in the "second" subpage, and then made his "first" subpage simply a translusion of it, all that will appear on talk page sources is {{User:Human/sigtalk}}. What a relief that would be. Any changes he then makes to /sigtalk will appear wherever he ever signed his name anywhere!

Rumor has it that the reason he didn't go all the way with this is that, once upon a time, his talk page was the most linked to page on RationalWiki. Too bad, joker, goat passed you a month or so ago and is gaining fast.

How the random thing works

It's easiest to go look at that fool Human's sigtalk page linked above, but once Bohdan succeeds in taking over RationalWiki, it might not be there anymore. So you do this:

<choose> <option weight=10>stuff</option> <option weight=1>and</option> <option weight=1>nonsense'</option> </choose>

This will return "stuff" ten times as often as either "and" or "nonsense".

Any formatting, colors, or linking needs to be done inside the option tags - it doesn't work if you try to do it outside them. So that gets a bit repetitive, but you can simply copy and paste once you get what you like.

Pretty colors

Some people also have "issues" with color. They may have a favorite one or two, or one they want to use to make other people miserable. Or twelve. You may be one of those people who wants to code your signature in eyewatering colours.

Colors are manipulated with the "font" tag, like these examples:

  • <font color="red">RED TEXT</font>
  • <font color="#FF0000">RED TEXT</font>

If you can speak hexadecimal: Internet colors are described by a six digit "hexadecimal", or base-16 (0,1,2,3 ... 9,a,b,c,d,e,f) number. This yields that 16 million color figure you've always heard about (166). The first two are for how much red is in the color, the third and fourth denote how much green, and the fifth and sixth denote how much blue there is (memnonic: RGB). Also, the color is additive - that is to say that 'ffffff' (full red, full green, full blue) is white, while '000000' is black. Any color where each of the three pairs of numbers is equal will be a shade of grey.

If you can't: a load of colour names are supported (red, blue, green, black, yellow, etc.) and you might find one or more that makes you happy.

Please keep in mind that a certain degree of readability goes a long way to making friends.

So, this: <font color="#ffee66">This text is nigh-unreadable and really hard on the eyes.</font>

produces this: This text is nigh-unreadable and really hard on the eyes.

And might not be a desireable color choice.

If you decide to build a signature with lots of "font color" tags, please put in a double template as described above, so it doesn't use an entire screen on talk page sources for people to scroll past.

Here is an example of how to add colors to your signature:

[[User:Anon|<font color="#0022ff">'''anon'''</font>]][[User_talk:Anon|<font color="#ff5500"><sup>''who?''</sup></font>]]

Yields: anonwho?

This is a breakdown of each section in the above example:

Actual username Desired color (rrggbb) Display nickname Actual talk page Desired color (rrggbb) up Talk link text Close tags Result
[[User:Anon| <font color="#0022ff"> anon</font>]] [[User_talk:Anon| <font color="#ff5500"> <sup> who? </sup></font>]] anonwho?

Note: rather than using HTML, it is recommended that CSS format be used:

<span style="color:#2266AA;"> blah blah</span>, producing: blah blah

Here are the first sixteen colors you can use by "name" rather than by "number":

Color Hexadecimal Color Hexadecimal Color Hexadecimal Color Hexadecimal
Background Text Background Text Background Text Background Text
aqua #00FFFF Sample text black #000000 Sample text blue #0000FF Sample text fuchsia #FF00FF Sample text
gray #808080 Sample text green #008000 Sample text lime #00FF00 Sample text maroon #800000 Sample text
navy #000080 Sample text olive #808000 Sample text purple #800080 Sample text red #FF0000 Sample text
silver #C0C0C0 Sample text teal #008080 Sample text white #FFFFFF Sample text yellow #FFFF00 Sample text

And here is how to use them: [[User:Anon|<font color="red">'''anon'''</font>]][[User_talk:Anon|<font color="blue"><sup>''who?''</sup></font>]]

yields: anonwho?

See here, here and here for more about colours.

A note about fonts

If you are using an unusual font, it is very important to remember that people will only see your signature the way you want it if they have the same font installed on their own computer. If they do not, they will see your signature in Arial (the same font that this text is written in), which is the default font for MediaWiki software.

For example, look at the following signature, created using the form <font color=navy face="Hurry Up">My Signature</font>

My Signature

If you have the font "Hurry Up" installed on your system (e.g. on most copies of Windows Vista), you will see the signature above looking like this:

SigSampleHurryUp.jpg

However, if you don't have the "Hurry Up" font, you will see the signature in Arial, like this:

My Signature

There are some fonts (listed here) which are common to virtually all operating systems, such as Comic Sans MS, Lucida Console, and Times New Roman. So you could choose one of these, although it does confine you to a narrow and slightly boring range.

Alternatively, go with whatever font you like, but accept that many other people on the site will not be able to see your signature the way it looks to you. If you do choose an unusual font, please take a look at your signature without the font as well, so that you know what other people are seeing. Do this by temporarily taking out the "font face" part of your signature code, while leaving in anything else like changes to the size or color, and previewing the results.

This issue becomes more problematic if you are using a font which has significantly smaller text than Arial. For example, the following signature (created using the form <font color=purple face="Blackadder ITC">My Signature</font>) uses an unusual font called "Blackadder ITC":

SigSampleBlackadder1.jpg

An image is used here to show what the text looks like in Blackadder ITC. It's tiny and almost unreadable, so you might be tempted to enlarge it like this:

SigSampleBlackadder4.jpg

This was done using the code <font color=purple size=4 face="Blackadder ITC">My Signature</font>

However, anybody who does not have "Blackadder ITC" installed, will now see the signature in Arial at size 4, like this:

My Signature

It looks big and shouty, and other people may find it irritating on talk pages. It gets worse if your signature contains a long line of text like this:

SigSampleBlackadderText.jpg

Other people will be seeing this:

My SignatureLong piece of random text linking to my talk page


This is very obtrusive on talk pages and debates. So please don't enlarge the text in your signature, at least not more than once. Try to find a font with text size equivalent to Arial, so that you will not need to enlarge it. Similarly, avoid writing all in capitals in your signature. This may look good in some fonts, but can be quite ugly in Arial, which is what many people will see, especially if you have a long user name or signature.

Lastly, if anybody does object to your signature being too large or excessive, please take them seriously, discuss it, and see what you can do to resolve the problem.

Imagelinks

Imagelinks are a bit of CSS wizardry that, as the name suggests, allow you to link to pages in the wiki from an image. It is useful if you want to use an obscure font in your sig, as in the above section. To use it,

  1. Concoct the sig that you want, using the methods above. For example, "''<small><font color="#007500" face="Zapfino">Phantom Hoover</font></small>''", which produces "PHsig.jpg" on a computer with Zapfino installed, but otherwise "Phantom Hoover".
  2. Take a screenshot of your sig, the method for which varies depending on which OS you're using; to find out how, use Google. For example, Phantom Hoover sig.jpg
  3. Crop your sig so that it doesn't have any whitespace. For example: PHsig.jpg
  4. Upload the image as [Your name]sig.[format, probably jpg]
  5. Follow the instructions on Template:Imagelink to use it as your sig.

Note that you will have to do each link in your sig separately, so you will need to upload different images for your userpage link and your sig link.

See also

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