PSP Tuts & Tags By Q: Siggy Rotator

The links for the rotator sites have been temporarily removed. CGIspy seems to have Malware on it's site currently and is not safe to visit and the Ultra Randomization site is completely gone. I apologize for any inconvenience and will update this tutorial as soon as CGIspy is back or I find a better alternative.

This tutorial will teach you how to set up a siggy rotator for forums and/or Incredimail. If you're like many of us, you have a lot of tags. You like to show them off, but it's time consuming to go through them all to pick out which tag you want to use to post on a forum or in your email each time. This tut makes things easier for you.

There various rotator sites out there but for this tut I'm going to show you how to use 2 different sites, both the best that I've found and use. The first one is called CGIspy. The second is called Ultra Randomization (for this tut I'm going to refer to it as UR). I prefer the 2nd one myself.

So let's start with CGIspy. So first you need to go to the site and sign up for an account if you don't already have one. Once you get registered and activate your account, log in and you'll be taken to the Administration page. Click on Random Items under Script Manager.

Now on the next page, click on Add Images and you'll be taken to the add images screen

-------------------

Or if you choose to use UR, create or log into your account. Click on My Randomizers. If you do not have any randomizers made already, then type in the name of one you want to create and click Create. I have randomizers for certain seasons/holidays, one for forum tags, and forum avatars, etc.

If you already have a randomizer made and you want to use it for this purpose then click on Options then click on Add/Delete/Manage Images. You will now be on the main page for your randomizer.

-------------------

Now you need your tags to be a on a image hosting site. I'll give instructions for both Photobucket and Fotki, though in my personal opinion Fotki is better, they don't delete your images like PB is known to do.

Unfortunately you have to add each tag to the rotator individually but it's not too hard. Let's start with Photobucket first. So when you have your tag uploaded to photobucket, click on the thumbnail to show it full size.

On the right side of the screen is a box with links. Click on the one for Direct Link. It'll automatically copy it for you.

Fotki is a bit different. Click to view the tag full size. Click on the Share button above the tag.

If you have a paid fotki account, you click on the first link as you see below.

If you have a free account then you click on HotLink this image.

On the next page, click the link that says Direct link to this photo:

-------------------

Ok now back to our rotator. Again let's start with CGIspy. Now on the add images page and paste the url you copied into one of the boxes you see below.

You'll repeat this process for each tag that you want to add to the rotator. Click submit when all the slots are full and it'll take you to a page showing all the urls you've added so far. Do not worry that the page says delete images.

Click on Random Items Manager to be taken back to the Random Items page. Click Add Images again and repeat process until you have all of your tags added to the rotator.

-------------------

Now let's learn how to add tags to the UR rotator. Now on the main page for your rotator there is an Add new images box. Paste your copied url in the box and click add image. Now this is what I like about this rotator over the other one, when it adds the tag, it shows you a thumbnail of the image.

You unfortunately can not add more then one tag at a time, but the site makes up for it, for it's ease of use. And if you need to delete a tag you just click on the thumbnail and you get options.

As you can see by the image above, it gives the url which is clickable. You view information, when it was added and a delete link if needed. Now this is convenient if by some chance the tag got deleted on your image hosting site, you can mouse over the url, see which tag it is, re upload it to your PB or Fotki site, then delete the tag on UR and upload it again to there. Again a huge advantage over CGIspy because you can see what tag is causing the issue instead of wading through a ton of links on their delete images page.

-------------------

Ok now that you've added tags to your rotator you need to get the link to make it work.

CGIspy first: When you're all done go to the top of the Script Editor box and click on HTML Codes. On the next page you'll see html codes for different items. The 2nd box has the code you want, but you don't need the whole thing. Just copy the 2nd line just like you see here, make sure you only get what's between the quotation marks.

With UR, scroll to the bottom of the page were you added all your tags and click Linking Options. On the next page, set your options like this:

Always set the Image Extension to GIF, if you set it to png or jpg, it won't show your animated tags. Click on the generated link and copy it. Next, how to add it to a forum and then IM.

Now how to use it. First up, let's do forums. They're all pretty close to the same, so when you're typing out a new reply or a new topic, click the button to add a image if using CGIspy. Do NOT click the button if you're using UR, you don't need it.

And you'll get image codes in your post that look like this: [img][/img]. Paste your URL between those img brackets like this.

If using UR, just paste your generated code in that already has the img brackets on it into the post body.

If you click preview, you see this.

Your tag has been added but more importantly, every time that post is viewed, the tag will be different cause that's what the rotator does.

Now for email, this is a bit harder and helps if you have a page you can copy from like a forum or website. So let's use the forum we just posted our image to. Right click on the tag, and click copy image.

Now go to Incredimail. Open up a new email. Click the drop down arrow next to the Signature button and click on New Signature.

Now right click into the big white box and click paste and it'll paste your tag into the box. but oh look, it's a different one. Click save and type in the name. Mine says Siggy Rotator.