User:Darkhavans/How To Make Custom Signatures
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What is a Signature?
A signature is your name, timestamp, or a combination of both if you prefer. It is common wiki etiquette to sign all posts on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). It will show up similar to this: DARKHAVANS < talk • contrib > 04:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Why is your Signature so crazy?
It's a custom signature I formatted myself. A normal signature will just be basic text that you see on every wiki page that links to your userpage. Anyone can format a custom signature to display in place of their normal signature. You can even add extra links to it! (As long as they are very small and out of the way. I'm setting this rule now, we don't need 3 line signatures... there are ways you can move text around anywhere, not just using space, tab, etc. This is more advanced formatting though, and will not be explained in this guide.)
How do I get a custom signature?
It's pretty easy. I'll break it down in steps.
- 1. First, you'll want to make a new page. This should be User:YOURNAME/Sig. In this page, format your signature! What displays on this page, will be what shows up in your signature. Remember to keep it small. The timestamp cannot be adjusted, by the way; just the name.
- 2. Once you have the /Sig page formatted to your liking, make a new page called User:YOURNAME/SigX. (Note: These should be subpages of your userpage, as you probably picked up on.) In /SigX put this in: {{User:YOURNAME/Sig}}. That's all that needs to go into /SigX. Save the page and we're ready to move on.
- 3. Go into your Special:Preferences and go to the User Profile tab.
- 4. Tick Raw Signature under the Nickname box, and then put {{SUBST:User:YOURNAME/SigX}} into the nickname box. Remember to replace all the YOURNAMEs, with, well, your name!
Save your preferences and now whenever you sign pages with ~~~~, you will see your custom signature!
The possibilities for custom signatures are endless. You can use special characters, Japanese characters, and tons of other things. So go crazy!
Potential Hazards
Following the method above, a template will be included on every page that you sign. After many signs and edits, your signature template may be included on hundreds of pages. This large amount of inclusion may potentially slow down the wiki, especially if you decide to edit the template. Please avoid editing your signature frequently.
One solution for changing it is to create a new sig on [[User:YOURNAME/Sig2]] and put {{User:YOURNAME/Sig2}} on [[User:YOURNAME/SigX]]. A side effect is that should you decide to edit your signature, all signatures previously posted will remain in their old styles, since the old template link is embedded in each page.
