New forum feature: Customizable profile styling

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

It is with some trepidation that we announce a new feature to the Discussion Community, enabled today: Customizable profile styling. This allows you to customise your member profile with your own style preferences -- colours, fonts, images, backgrounds, etc. (see an example of default preference styling (http://www.monachos.net/forum/member.php?u=1), and compare it with a customised profile style (http://www.monachos.net/forum/member.php?u=1254)). This feature has been added to allow members additional means to share a bit of their personality with other members, by editing not only the contents, but also the look and feel of their profile pages.

To customise your profile styling, click the My Account menu at the top of Discussion Community pages, then select All Settings (http://www.monachos.net/forum/usercp.php). From your User Control Panel, select Customize Profile (http://www.monachos.net/forum/profile.php?do=customize) in the left-hand menu bar, and then adjust the settings to your heart's content.

(If you wish to use custom background images, you'll need to create an Album in your Albums, which you configure as a Profile Album. Images in this album will be visible only to you, and you can use them for backgrounds in your profile styling.)

I said at the beginning that it is with some trepidation that we release this feature: this is due to the potential for it to be misused to create garish, blinky, pink-and-yellow rotating-font monstrosities that cause distress to the calm sensibilities of our normal members. A risk! But there is also the opportunity for pleasant further customisation and community feel, so we feel it worth testing. We shall see how it goes, and give it a bit of a 'beta run' for the time being.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Paul Cowan]

Fr. Dcn,

I am having a cosmetic challenge with my background. I am using one of my album pictures, but as you can see on my profile (http://www.monachos.net/forum/member.php?u=7653) at the bottom of the page of very gaudy colors I chose is my picture (or a part thereof) cut into 4 pieces. It looks like the image is not able to adapt to the size of the avalable space for it.

Don't worry, the colors won't last long. They are already messing with my eyes. How did you get the texture on your profile? All I can see to choose from are flat paints not textures. Thanks

Paul

[Effie Ganatsios]

Fr. Dcn,

I am having a cosmetic challenge with my background. I am using one of my album pictures, but as you can see on my profile (http://www.monachos.net/forum/member.php?u=7653) at the bottom of the page of very gaudy colors I chose is my picture (or a part thereof) cut into 4 pieces. It looks like the image is not able to adapt to the size of the avalable space for it.

Don't worry, the colors won't last long. They are already messing with my eyes. How did you get the texture on your profile? All I can see to choose from are flat paints not textures. Thanks

Paul

Paul, I am really glad you're thinking of changing the colours on your profile page..............:) My eyes were protesting a little.

How did you insert the photo that is used as a border at the bottom of the page?

Effie

[Paul Cowan]

Paul, I am really glad you're thinking of changing the colours on your profile page..............:) My eyes were protesting a little.

How did you insert the photo that is used as a border at the bottom of the page?

Effie

In the first block of color choices right above the preview tab is a background image key. This image has to be from your album. This is what I am hoping to get help with. No matter which of my album pics I insert, they are quartered as the background.

I though if I got a photo with a similar top and bottom of the photo itself, there would not be too much notice of the quartering. I don't have such a photo.

Paul

[Michael Stickles]

I am having a cosmetic challenge with my background. I am using one of my album pictures, but as you can see on my profile (http://www.monachos.net/forum/member.php?u=7653) at the bottom of the page of very gaudy colors I chose is my picture (or a part thereof) cut into 4 pieces. It looks like the image is not able to adapt to the size of the avalable space for it.

Don't worry, the colors won't last long. They are already messing with my eyes. How did you get the texture on your profile? All I can see to choose from are flat paints not textures. Thanks

Paul

Paul,

After playing around with mine, it looks like the default setting for a background image's "repeat" is "both", even if you leave it blank. It doesn't look like you can get a picture to "stretch" to fill the area.

I would imagine that Fr Matthew's background texture is a textured image, repeated. That's how I've done the same thing on websites I've worked on.

Mike

[Paul Cowan]

Thanks Mike,

I tried to fiddle with it too. The preview pane at the bottom looks ok, but when I view profile it is quartered again. Maybe I'll just stick to no background and leave my psychodelique colors up. At least one more day just to mess with Effie's eyes. ;)

Paul

[Effie Ganatsios]

Thanks Mike,

I tried to fiddle with it too. The preview pane at the bottom looks ok, but when I view profile it is quartered again. Maybe I'll just stick to no background and leave my psychodelique colors up. At least one more day just to mess with Effie's eyes. ;)

Paul

Paul, the turquoise you used for your texts shimmers.... perhaps my eyes are to blame and I'm going blind or something??



I experimented with the colours quite a lot myself Paul, and then decided to just keep to the basics. All my efforts to produce a cool and relaxing greenish atmosphere were in vain, so back to blue.................... Adventurous, that's me!:D

The photo I used as a background worked well I think, the gold in the mosaic contrasts well with the blue.

[Michael Stickles]

Thanks Mike,

I tried to fiddle with it too. The preview pane at the bottom looks ok, but when I view profile it is quartered again. Maybe I'll just stick to no background and leave my psychodelique colors up. At least one more day just to mess with Effie's eyes. ;)

Paul

The only other thing I can think of is to experiment with stretching the image you want to use until it's the right size to fill your background exactly and not repeat at the bottom. It looks like yours would need to be stretched to about 225% of original size vertically, and around 175% horizontally, to exactly fill the background. I tried doing that to your picture in Windows Paint, and it seemed to come out OK.

Of course, then if you do anything that changes the size of your profile box, it'll be "off" again...

Mike

[Paul Cowan]

Oh swell. Stretching a picture? windows paint? I got fussed at by my father for putting paint on the windows when I was a kid. My wife will kill me now if I put paint on her monitor. Maybe I will just follow Effie's fine example and go back to blue.

I am not much on figuring things out. I would rather just play my 8 track player (old comfortable friend) than learn what the letters DVD stand for. what do they stand for anyway?

Paul

[Michael Stickles]

I am not much on figuring things out. I would rather just play my 8 track player (old comfortable friend) than learn what the letters DVD stand for. what do they stand for anyway?

Digital Video Disk originally, then Digital Versatile Disk when they started being used for data also. I rather like figuring things out, but then I get plenty of practice in my job ("Mike, we need to add functionality X to this program, but no one has time to explain to you how it works, so you'll have to figure it out yourself.").

Anything techno-wise that I can't figure out, I just ask my 17-year old and he explains it to me. In return, I explain quaint expressions that he can't figure out ("Son, you sound like a broken record." "Dad, what's a record?").

Mike

[Effie Ganatsios]

Old dogs, new tricks.

I am hopeless. I went into a photography studio a couple of days ago because I wanted some of the photos in my digital camera (if that's what it's called) to be made into "real photos" that I could send via post office mail to family and friends.

The conversation was hilarious with me trying to learn how to transfer the photos from the computer to that "gadget" that goes into the side of that big box under the computer. I got a lot of amused answers - very funny...... I am now going to try and transfer them to that Kingston "thing" I have. I can't remember what he called it. And who cares, by next week they will have invented another gadget that I don't know the name of either. As I mentioned, I am totally hopeless.