User:Laagone/Creating a signature

This guide is intended to guide users on the basics of how to create a signature (also knows as sig).

Background
When you put ~ on a page, it generates a signature and a timestamp for you. You start up with the basic signature that looks like this: Username (talk) 13:37, April 20, 2014 (UTC)

It is an adequate signature as it shows your username and time your left the message as well as provides links to your userpage and talk page, which are nice to have. However, if you want more out of it, like providing a link to your contributions page as well, or change the font or color of the text, or basically anything you can get, creating a custom sig is an option.

Starting up
You can change your signature options at your preferences (you can access them via this link or by using the drop-down menu on your username in the top-right corner as seen here).

You'll come across a section where you can change some of your signature attributes, by default it should look like this. You can create a signature here with wiki markup (if you don't know how to use it, see this page). This is a basic example of what you can do. Be sure to check the "I want to use wikitext in my signature" box.

Note: If you plan on doing just a basic signature like above, skip the next section.

Templates
If you want to create an even more customized signature, you should do it by creating a template dedicated to it. Simply create a page called Template:Signatures/  (go to Special:CreatePage and enter the name in the box that should appear as such). On this page, just write any signature code that you would write in your preferences page as explained above.

Now, go creative! Mess around, use your markup skills, ask others if you feel like they could do better. You can edit the page as you feel (just don't get too spammy with it, like saving it twice a minute), it's not a one-time deal. You can do something relatively simple (which would show up as this), or go a little more advanced (result). Again, if you want something cool but lack the knowledge to do it, you can ask people who know. If you know HTML this should be fairly easy.

Whenever you're decided on your new signature, add in   at the end of the signature code as such. This helps us categorize signatures, and it won't affect the signature itself.

When this is done, and you have saved the signature at the template page you created, there are three ways for you to use the template as your signature. if (mwCustomEditButtons) { mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = { "imageFile": "http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100502153339/callofduty/images/1/17/Button_Ssig.jpg", "speedTip": "Signature", "tagOpen": " ~"+""+"", "tagClose": "", "sampleText": ""}; }
 * 1) Write the template every time you post something (example). This is kind of slow, but it is also the simplest and doesn't have technical drawbacks. Remember to put down the timestamp with five tildes, and note that when using templates you use curly brackets and you don't have to use Template: in it.
 * 2) Add  Signatures/  in the signature field on your preferences (example). This way, you can simply sign with four tildes as usual, and the template will appear. However, the downside to this is that this template will now occupy the "four tildes" slot, and you can't use it for a basic signature that you could use on another wiki, for example, where the template does not work as it is internal to this wiki.
 * 3) Use JavaScript to create a button on the edit bar that types the template when pressed. To do this, go to your own JS page, insert the following (remember to change   to your own!) and save. You should then see a button appear on the right side of your editbar. Press it and the template along with a timestamp will appear.

Conclusion
Remember to follow the signature policy when creating signatures. If you have any issues or would like to know more, feel free to contact me or anyone else for help.