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Signatures and Node Templates

by SiteDocClan (Initiate)
on Jan 23, 2004 at 03:08 UTC ( [id://323419]=sitefaqlet: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

You can configure the way your new posts look via Signature Settings, which lets you define a Node Template and a Signature. These two are combined when you start a new post (whether root or reply) so that you don't have to type so much.

Node Template

The node template is intended for content which would normally be part of a standard posting. Some monks use it to pre-load tags for doing common things like quoting the parent node, code tags, or character entities which they frequently forget. You should not use it for including quotes, or your name, or anything other than node content or markup.

Node Signature

This is the approved way to put a signature at the bottom of your posts. Not only does this feature make it easier to include signatures, but it lets gives other users a way to apply custom rendering to signatures (including hiding them entirely), on both a site-wide and an individual basis, via custom CSS. Any text you place in your signature will automatically be wrapped in special <div> tags so that users can selectively style your signature. It's true you can edit this markup after the node has been created, but please don't; it is a violation of site policy to tamper with that automatically added markup. On the other hand, feel free to modify the content of your signature at any time, as you see fit.

What is (in)appropriate to include in a signature?

Signature blocks should be small and unobtrusive. Anything larger than a line or two is probably inappropriate and would be better suited to your home node. If you have a huge signature but your post contents are small, you are wasting screen space and annoying people.

Also, keep in mind that many monks surf with custom CSS and non-standard color schemes. If you use explicit colors in your signature, it may look groovy-cool with your settings but be an obnoxious mess with theirs.

How do I hide someone else's annoying signature?

Occassionally, a user may have a particularly annoying signature which you would rather not see, or you may wish to disable the displaying of signature entirely, or otherwise control the way user signatures are displayed. To support this, the signatures are automatically wrapped with two DIV tags with special class names: <div class="pmsig"> and <div class="pmsig-USERID">, where the USERID is the author's numeric ID.

By configuring the CSS which the Monastery serves with every page, you can cause these DIVs to not be displayed, or to be specially rendered (e.g. with toned-down colors or smaller fonts).
To hide a specific user's signature:

.pmsig-USERID { display: none; } // where USERID is the author's numer +ic ID
This will hide all signatures:
.pmsig { display: none; }

How do I deal with these DIV tags that keep appearing?

PerlMonks automatically adds these tags around your signature if they are not both already present in your signature text. This is biting you if you keep seeing unexpected DIV tags above and below your signature. To make this stop happening, delete all <div class="pmsig"> and <div class="pmsig-USERID"> tags from your signature block. Then PerlMonks will add the appropriate ones correctly.
Also, if you do have these tags in your signature explicitly, make sure that they contain no unnecessary whitespace, as this will interfere with autodetection.

Remember that users use these DIV tags to hide signatures, so be careful not to write your post's content inside these elements. Otherwise users with signature hiding in their custom CSS won't see your post!

Example template:

<blockquote><i> </i></blockquote> <p> &#91; &#93; </p> <code> </code>

Example signature usage:

<div class="pmsig"> -- PerlMonks: The Heart of the Perl Community <br> <div class="pmsig-USERID"> -- [id://USERID] is a Perl God! </div></div>

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