Resource Map down, need specs

[Rainbow Glitterswirl 220]

Hi everypony! 

This may be posted somewhere in one thread of multiple, but I've scrolled through a bunch and can't seem to find what I'm looking for.

Hopefully this thread will be a one stop place for newbs like me, who find the resource map down as well. 

 

Profile pic dimensions? What file type do you recommend (jpg,png, etc)

Cover pic dimensions? File type? 

How do I get the little saying that some ponies have under their picture in topics? The line of a personal quote right above their forum status (muffin, crystal pony, etc)

Thanks a bunch! 

[Salty Sweetness 203]

This may help you out. It is a list of all the FAQ's on this forum. Some of it may be wrong or outdated. 

41 minutes ago, Planetaria said:

Profile pic dimensions?

I think it is set at 150 x 150, but it is resized depending on where you are on the forum and what device you are using. 

41 minutes ago, Planetaria said:

What file type do you recommend (jpg,png, etc)

This depends on the image. The system seems to take both. One is typically smaller in file size. 

41 minutes ago, Planetaria said:

How do I get the little saying that some ponies have under their picture in topics? The line of a personal quote right above their forum status (muffin, crystal pony, etc)

I'll use my dad's post to explain. 

The red arrow is a member title. This is given to staff, former staff, and those that subscribe or donate to this place. 

The green arrow is your group name. Something about member groups. Normal members have one, staff have several, and subscribers have a few. These actually allow specific access or perks that are specific to the group. Mods have superpowers. Admins are OP, and donors/subs/and Retired staff get perks. New members start at Blank Flank permissions and as they post that group name changes to Muffin and then User (this used to be called Member ... strange). Each level adds more access to the place. 

That purple arrow that you see is rare. It was once supposed to be the name of the position of staff. In some cases people on staff have specific roles like head of IT, Newsletter, Public Relations. Overtime some also added some funny elements so it became a tradition. Some staffers keep the goofball role name when they retire from staff, like my dad did.

 

Hearing the old man talk about this place for years helped me pick up a few things. Like Magical Kindergarten.

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Salty Sweetness

[Fhaolan 4,468]

On 7/13/2017 at 10:07 AM, Salty Sweetness said:

and then User (this used to be called Member ... strange).

 

That was a specific request from Feld0 to change, as when Poniverse got incorporated last year 'Member' gained a specific, legal meaning for the company. And the members of this forum weren't 'Members' of Poniverse, so Feld0 had me change the user group name to something else. User was the only thing I could think of at the time that wasn't already being used somewhere else.

On 7/13/2017 at 9:25 AM, Planetaria said:

Hi everypony! 

This may be posted somewhere in one thread of multiple, but I've scrolled through a bunch and can't seem to find what I'm looking for.

Hopefully this thread will be a one stop place for newbs like me, who find the resource map down as well. 

 

Profile pic dimensions? What file type do you recommend (jpg,png, etc)

Cover pic dimensions? File type? 

How do I get the little saying that some ponies have under their picture in topics? The line of a personal quote right above their forum status (muffin, crystal pony, etc)

Thanks a bunch! 

150x150 is currently the profile pic dimensions. It's supposed to be so that subscribers and staff get taller ones, but the 4.0 upgrade buggered that up. The current options allow bigger profile pics for different groups, but they still have to be square which means the page layout will go weird.  So that option has been turned off for the moment until we figure something out. Plus avatars are limited to 150kB in size.

Cover pics are weird and new so I haven't quite figured it out. The system doesn't specify dimensions in the options, but it does say they're limited to 500kB in size. It seems to rescale to some extent, but I'm not quite sure what it thinks it's doing in there.

 

[Rikifive 23,475]

But profile picture seems to be 120x120 in both, posts and the profile page.  

 

As for the cover image-

---

I've toyed with it for a while and this is what I came up with.

 Cover's maximum width is 1270.
This is preferable width, as images will be scaled up maximally to that width.

 Cover's minimum height should be 248.
Below you'll see a template, that shows how the cover looks like in the maximum forum's width. Smaller resolution will scale the image down revealing the contents past these 248 pixels.

 Cover's preferable height is unknown, but something around 1000 should be enough.
It all depends on resolution. Note, that on desktop you'll probably see only the first 248 - 400 pixels.

 Unlike with width, different height will not scale the image.
So it basically can have any height, without any quality loss.

 Maximum file size is 0.25MB.

 Preferred image format is .png. This format doesn't hurt the quality, unlike .jpg, for example.

 

I've made a template, that represents the cover at the maximum forum's resolution. This probably will be the most common view, but consider using taller images. Everything past 248 pixels (template's height) may not be visible for most users, but some actually will be able to see that.

This is a template based on what's visible on the profile page.

 Template size is 1270x248. Can safely be set as a base to start with, but keep in mind the tricky height.

 Borders in the template are the part of the cover. Do not crop the image (width), otherwise it will be scaled up/down. Different height will not scale the image, however.

 AT MAXIMUM FORUM'S RESOLUTION, the part with "--- STATISTICS ---" is not visible on the profile page (it is covered by user information and profile picture), but is visible when previewing users by hovering the cursor over them:

Spoiler

Notice, that the statistics part is visible there.

However, it may be visible on smaller resolutions!

 

How to use the template:
Open it with an image-editing software, that supports layers. The template is partially transparent, to allow you adjust the image correctly for the best result. Additionally you can adjust its opacity in the software for better preview.~

 

Thanks to @Jeric for pointing out the differences with resolutions.  

---

The rest was answered I think, so I'll end here. Hope that helps!  

Edited July 18, 2017 by Rikifive
Updated information.

[Rainbow Glitterswirl 220]

6 hours ago, Rikifive said:

But profile picture seems to be 120x120 in both, posts and the profile page.  

 

As for the cover image-

---

I've toyed with it for a while and this is what I came up with.

 Cover dimensions are 1270x248. Images with different dimensions will be scaled up/down to that resolution.
 Maximum file size is 0.25MB.
 Preferred image format is .png. This format doesn't hurt the quality, unlike .jpg, for example.
 

Additionally, I've made a template, that worked for me.

This is a template based on what's visible on the profile page.

 Template size is 1270x248. Can safely be set as a base to start with.
 Borders in the template are the part of the cover. Do not crop the image, otherwise it will be scaled up/down.
 The part with "--- STATISTICS ---" is not visible on the profile page (it is covered by user information and profile picture), but is visible when previewing users by hovering the cursor over them:

  Hide contents

Notice, that the statistics part is visible there.

 

I've made my cover using that template and it seems, that every single pixel is 'sharp' - so no scaling was done in the result. Which means, that it works, I guess.

How to use the template:
Open it with an image-editing software, that supports layers. The template is partially transparent, to allow you adjust the image correctly for the best result. Additionally you can adjust its opacity in the software for better preview.~

 

 

The rest was answered I think, so I'll end here. Hope that helps!  

Thank you so very much for this thorough explanation! Also may I say I adore your signature gif, or image? Where did you get that and is it a gif?  

[Jeric 46,834]

7 hours ago, Rikifive said:

Cover dimensions are 1270x248. Images with different dimensions will be scaled up/down to that resolution.

This not the case on a smaller viewport. I know the height aspect changes on mobile ... 

 

Technically finding a sweet spot and centering the image you want to use with a decent amount of environmental elements above and below it would work on both. 

I know I may be the outlier since I am almost always on my phone when using this site, but it's something to keep in mind. 

 

[Rikifive 23,475]

20 hours ago, Planetaria said:

Thank you so very much for this thorough explanation! Also may I say I adore your signature gif, or image? Where did you get that and is it a gif?  

Why, thank you!  

This is just a gif I've made in an image-editing software. As simple as that.  

 

19 hours ago, Jeric said:

This not the case on a smaller viewport. I know the height aspect changes on mobile ... 

Technically finding a sweet spot and centering the image you want to use with a decent amount of environmental elements above and below it would work on both. 

I know I may be the outlier since I am almost always on my phone when using this site, but it's something to keep in mind. 

Oh, I've overlooked that one, good catch! 

I've toyed with this for a while and ... I'm disappointed by the results.  

I've took your images to get the correct proportion of the image - it turned out to be 1270x584. These dimensions should fully cover the spot on your device. I thought, that these are fixed dimensions for mobile view, so I've edited the template and re-uploaded my cover. To test that, I've opened my profile page on my mobile device and I've noticed something unexpected - that height still wasn't enough. That's when I realized, that we have to deal with dynamic dimensions and how poorly designed it is.

On the desktop*, aside from that tiny glitch

Spoiler

~it seems to be designed quite well. Even if you'll make the browser's window tiny, the image will slightly scale down revealing its contents hidden behind statistics, but not much*.
For example, I've marked what I can see at the forums' maximum size and what I've managed to 'discover' when reducing the size of the window:

At the maximum size, you can see only the 'full size' part, as the 'maximum* extra view' is hidden behind the statistics. It is revealed after reducing the size of the window. (I believe it's possible to view more using that glitch, that occurs at a specific window size*, but let's leave that glitch alone  )
So.. generally an image with height of ~400 should do the thing - in any resolution*, theoretically.
 

Now why I'm disappointed by the results?
To this point it is nice* - now it gets worse on mobile devices.
I've checked your profile on my mobile device and your cover didn't fully fill the spot.
On the desktop* (as seen in the image above) I barely can see the half of your cover. On the mobile device, I was able to see the full image and still, the 25% of the spot was black, which means, that you need to have a cover almost three times bigger (possibly even more), than you'd need for desktop* to make it look properly, where about 65% would not be even visible on any desktop* resolution.
For example, there's the size of your cover:

Spoiler

So much is hidden...

 

For additional reference, @Salty Sweetness's cover fills only 50% of the cover space on my mobile device, where it's about 80% on yours.
It would be best to just put a 1270x5000 image.   

 

That is simply inconvenient, because it's more difficult to come up with a proper image design for that feature. There should be a fixed maximum size of the cover, not completely wild like this.

 

* - That all was tested in Google Chrome, which seems to have a minimum width of the window (604px [including window's borders]). It may be possible to reduce the size even more in other browsers, but I haven't used these in ages, so I'm not aware of their possibilities. Feel free to point things out.  

 

Of course don't get me wrong- these were just my random thoughts not aimed to anyone.
Always some additional information!