I thought I'd start out with something basic:
Personalizing your posting style.
My first suggestion is the tektek toolbar. In order to use this you must have firefox and you have to be comfortable adding a third party extension to your browser.
If you do choose to install it, it has all sorts of gaian goodies for you to use. The only thing I really use with the toolbar is the post style bit. Tektek never asks for your password. They also have a great resource on avatar creation, item costs, custom profiles and more! A great all-around gaian resource. But back to post styles.
Once you install it click "Options" and "Setup Options." It'll open up a window where you can design up to three different post stylings. Under your text box will be "tekFormat1," 2 and 3 available to you. All you have to do is type your message and click your desired format and viola! you have a formatted post to your specifications. You can also set it to automatically post in your desired format. It'll put in the coding when you click submit.
Pretty cool, right?
But whether you choose to do this or not, you need to know how to format your posts manually. So here are some useful guides to post formatting:
- Tektek's Gradient maker if you want your text to go from one color to another. Must be done manually by putting your text into the box and pasting it into your post.
BBCode guide. This shows you how to do all those fancy things, text manipulations, alignment, special characters, colors, font sizes - it's all here!
A Post Styling Guide that goes into details I haven't here. All the basics are pretty well laid out here.
GaiArch works like the tektek toolbar, but I haven't personally used it.
Color Codes for if you want to find that perfect hue to express yourself in biggrin I like using named colors instead of the hexadecimal system because it's easier to remember.
You can find all sorts of mini shops that offer images and more to help you personalize your post. You'll need somewhere, such as imageshack.com or photobucket.com to store image files if you add images to your post styling.
*Don't forget to TEST your stylings before unleashing them on the public!*
NOTE: I recommend you don't make your post styling too complex, as it can make your messages hard to read. Fonts should be in a readable size and color. Images should be unobtrusive and not huge. Also, if you choose to create a style that advertises ("Donate to my quest!" or links to your shop/charity/guild) some thread owners may become upset. All these are good things to keep in consideration.
I'm happy to review post stylings and give my two cents on whether I think they go too far. Feel free to ask my opinion if you aren't sure! Keep in mind it is only an opinion and not definitive.
I hope you guys enjoyed this guide. Please discuss! What do you like about post stylings? What bothers you? What resources do you use? Is there anything I should elaborate on?
All I ever wanted 