Add a dynamic signature line to your email

See the blog.

We can talk about the feature, but what everyone is really going to need are directions for getting the signature lines into different email clients.

I'll post an Apple Mail one once I've got it down perfectly.

I'll be the first to inquire about instructions for GMail.

JB

This is cool, but as I said on the blog, what about those of us who are reading more than one book at any given time? Must we limit ourselves to just one to make this work. Same goes for the "Now Reading" feature. I can have a poetry collection or two, a nonfiction book and a fiction book all in process at the same time (although I do not read them simultaneously). I love going to profile pages and seeing what people are reading (for those who choose to list it). Having a field or 'feature' for this would be cool if it has some flexibility to accommodate different kinds of readers.

>3 avaland:, you're not limited to one book -- if you've got four books tagged "current" (or 400 tagged "unfinished", for that matter), it'll display a different one each time.

It doesn't take in Eudora 7.0.1.0. It just shows me the raw html when I create a new signature, assign a specific mail address to it and then send with that address to another of my mail addresses.

I think Eudora precludes images in sigs, but I wouldn't swear to it.

sounds nice :-) but it doesn't seem to work with yahoo :-(

#2:

GMail doesn't appear to allow HTML signature lines natively.

But if you're the adventurous type, you could try installing the "Better GMail Extension" for Firefox ("real" link is https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4866 while some instructions can be found at http://5thirtyone.com/archives/821).

You can also find Greasemonkey scripts, if you want to go that route.

Edited: Where'd the links go?

Can you use it with Outlook?

I'm getting a broken image when I use it on my blog (also when I use it in Better GMail).

"broken image", that's what I get I guess when using it with yahoo

Also, when I try to put it on my LibraryThing profile, nothing appears. (I would love to be able to add it to my profile.)

I tried it in Outlook Express and it came out with the HTML code. My emails are set to HTML (and not rich text format or just text.)

Hmmm....

> 11

It's not intended for profiles. That's why nothing appears!

>11 PhoenixTerran:

It is working fine on my profile. Did you copy/paste all of the text?

Okay, so I was wrong. Not the first time! And, I'm sure, not the last, either.

It's working now, yay! No more broken images!

To add a signature to an account in the Thunderbird Email Program (newest version):

1. Create the signature using the Librarything page

2. Copy the text to notepad and save it with a .html extension.

3. Go to Tools > Account Settings

4. Choose the account you want to add the signature to. (Click the email address so it is highlighted.)

5. In the default identity box check the box that says Attach this signature.

6. Click the Choose... button and navigate to the place where you saved the html file.

7. Click the OK button.

8. Done. The signature should appear at the bottom of your next email. You can click the compose button and it will show up right away.

To jrbutler message 2...

Direct quote from the Gmail Help Site:
Gmail does not support rich text formatting, graphics, or HTML in your signature.

I tried it. It won't work unless you use an email cilent to send a message through gmail.

I use Thunderbird to access my gmail account. It does allow me to add the HTML code.

The signature line feature does not work in Outlook 2003. All I get is the raw HTML at the bottom of a new message. (Yes, I am composing the message in HTML mode.)

Doesn't work on my MSN Mail, either. Just get the raw text, and I checked to make sure it was supporting HTML and stuff.

Here's the Apple Mail way to do it. Not very simple:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050706181449478

I should add that many OTHER forums allow you to use a graphical signature... :)

Att: Tim

Just a note that maybe you want speak to the FoxyTunes people about integrating with their Signatunes app? Or looking at their source code :)

http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/

Just so y'all are aware...if you're using this in your LT profile, the image will block out part of your profile on the right side of the page. The image is put in front of the menus on the right and will even force people to scroll horizontally if their window is small enough. Apparently, the image is a fixed size (at least, it is the same on the couple of profiles I've looked at) and so even short titles will still cause part of the tables on the right to be blocked out.

So how exactly do you fix the broken image problem, I've got a Blogger page and it's broken. My understanding of HTML is very very basic. Can anyone explain how to fix it?
I am very good at following directions.

Thanks

Where-ever there is a space replace it with %20

like so
"http://www.librarything.com/tagline.php?view=anamuk&text=I am currently reading TITLE BYAUTHOR.&font=verdana&tag=&linkto=none&select=lastadded&Submit=Refresh"

becomes
"http://www.librarything.com/tagline.php?view=anamuk&text=I%20am%20currently %20reading%20TITLE%20BYAUTHOR.&font=verdana&tag=&linkto=none&select=lastadded&Submit=Refresh"

That should fix it

If it is eating your LT profile, try changing your font. I have mine positioned in my profile with Verdana (I think) and it is fitting perfectly, not lost profile.

I've added "translation" to that page, for the non-English LTs, and I added a page to the wiki to store different email directions.

here

>6 pivox: & >10 pivox: (and possibly others)
It works find on my Yahoo7 account. Make sure that before you paste the code that you have clicked on "Rich Text" so that "Plain Text" is showing as the format!!! Those links should probably be "Change to Rich Text" and Change to Plain Text"

Full instructions (in case we're talking at right angles)
From your Yahoo Mail page, click on Options the Mail Options on the right hand side of the body of the page. Then click on Signature on the left hand side of the options page. Make sure you've clicked on Rich Text so that Plain Text is showing and past the code.

I love this feature although it has made me pay much more attention to the extra drivel that sometimes gets included in the titles.

Jim

Ok here is how to do this in Gmail.. You CAN paste in HTML messages.. So what I did was send myself an email from a client (or you can create a web page using the provided code) and then paste it in a message. So it is kind of a pain every time I compose a new message I copy my sig and paste it in. It is the only way it works but it does work. I keep a message with my sig in the inbox and just open it and select the sig and then compose a new message.. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

OK, I am so confused on this. I have yet to be able to get these to work at all in any email address yet. The only thing I can do is copy and paste the code into my profile and then it displays on this site alone. I have free email addresses with Hotmail, Yahoo, Blue Bottle, Netzero, and Gmail and I can't figure out a way to get this to go from one to the other and come out as an image and not useless HTML code. Could someone please give working directions for ANY of these so that I can actually see the results and then I can figure out what to do. If I could make sense of the last message I would love to do it in Gmail in particular. Thanks!

It's amazing what can happen when you put your mind to it. After the last message I searched Google for "html signature outlook" and this was the first result:

blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/short-tutorial-how-to-create-html-signature-in-microsoft-outlook/

Reading that actually got me to send my first email into Gmail with this working properly - from Outlook (bluebottle account) into Gmail. I then carried off of #30 and selected the functioning image (not code). I composed a new message and pasted the image and sent it to myself and it came through correctly. So I can validate #30 now.

Using that method (emailing the image to yourself), at least in my experience, if you want to send another email with a new, random book, you have to start over...go back into Outlook and resend it to Gmail, copy and paste or else it will send the same book again. HOWEVER, I discovered that there's a better way to do this. (Edit: this is mentioned in 30 also by saying that you can also create a web page using the provided code. That method worked better for me and the following is directions on how to do that and then put it back into your email.)

Instead of copying the received image, you should copy a bit of functioning HTML. Directions (simplified from previous link):
1. Open up a blank Notepad document
2. Paste the code you want to use as is on LT
3. Go to "Save As" and save it as *your name here*.html (for example, test.html) at a place you can remember.
4. Open that document up in Internet Explorer. (It may work in other browsers too, I don't know why not, but I know IE 6 works.)
5. Copy and paste THAT image into a new Gmail message and send it to yourself.
6. Star the received email or better yet put it in a special label so you can easily find it again anytime you want to send an email with the dynamic signature.
7. Any time you want to send this out just reopen that email and copy the image and paste it into your new message. It should be sent out differently each time, which was not my experience with copying an image sent to me.

Anyway, now that I finally have that figured out and am very happy (Thanks Tim and LT!) I just thought I'd share with everyone in a more detailed step-by-step way how to make this work. I think I have it figured out so just let me know if it's not working for you.

The tag (or whatever it's called) "BYAUTHOR" works for English language sigs *only*, because it does not only pull the name of the author but adds "by" to it:

English: I am currently reading Resistance by Owen Sheers.
German (edited): Ich lese gerade Resistance von by Owen Sheers. (proper Denglish, that is!)

Also, I am not able to use quotation marks:
Ich lese gerade "Resistance" von Owen Sheers.
shows up as
Ich lese gerade //

May as well post this again: it would be very nice if the background was transparent, rather than white.

I would use this, except for the fixed width of the image is wider than works for me without overlap problems. I really wish you could specify the image width (and background/transparency for that matter). This would make it perfect for me.

About that width and transparency thing again?

You can set it to display the last book added, acquired, started or finished, but what I really want is last-started-but-not-yet-finished.

You could always put whatever that book is in as a tag and set it to that tag. I know that's a workaround, but it would work.

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but I just noticed Gmail can now handle things like this without an elaborate workaround, so I'm interested again. The original blog post said "This feature will get a lot more useful when we have a proper 'currently reading' collection feature (coming soon). You pretty much have to use tags now."

So I have to ask, does this signature have any support (or is it easy to add) for collections? If not, is there an easy way to give every book in my currently reading collection a special tag?

The easy way to tag all the books in a collection is to use Power Edit. Go to the collection, start Power Edit (lightning bolt button), choose Select all # books, enter the tag you want to assign, make sure Add is selected and click Change selected books. It still just works with tags.

How does Gmail handle it? I made one and made it my signature on Gmail, but when I sent myself (to another account) an email, I got the HTML rather than the image.

for gmail, if you use thunderbird, use the addon WiseStamp. I've been using it for some time and using the old version what I'm reading html to show currently reading.

I'll change to the new html now, obviously. Great feature!!

number 42 (which for some reason I can't seem to edit) I meant gmail in Firefox, use WiseStamp.

I also use thunderbird, so duh.

I might be missing something obvious here, but is there a way to make the signature choose from my "Currently Reading" collection?

What's the change in how GMail works? I'm eager to work on this again if something has changed that matters.

(sigh) ... I suppose that this will mean that I'll have to add books I'm reading when I start reading them rather than when I finish them ... as I have, up to this point, not added anything to my library listing that I haven't actually read (and I've got boxes and boxes of books that are my "to be read" pile).

Eh ... screw it ... I really don't need to tell anybody in an e-mail what I'm reading ... if they're paying attention they'll see a review of it in a week or so anyway!

 

>41 jjmcgaffey:
I should have remembered Power Edit. Thanks. Official support for collections would be nice someday too though...

>41 jjmcgaffey:, 45

As of July 8, Gmail supports rich text signatures (http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/rich-text-signatures.html), and I have been able to copy and paste images (like this one) into it. I don't know if it'll work in HTML form or not, but the image does.

44> Not yet (though Tim says he wants to work on it). That's why ojchase wanted to tag all the books in a collection... I put a tag on anyway, because I use my catalog offline (on my Palm) as much as on and the export doesn't notice collections yet either.

And yes, it does work - and refreshes too. Thanks, ojchase!

What I had to do was create a blank HTML doc (blank text doc that has <HTML><BODY></BODY></HTML> in it - I think that's the minimum), copy the LT HTML into it, view it in Firefox, CTRL-A to select it and CTRL-C to copy, put that into my Signature in Gmail settings. Now when I open a new email, it appears and changes - I set it up to choose randomly from everything tagged _CR (which is my Currently Reading tag).

Yes, the width is a little annoying, but not terrible. Nice! I've been wanting a pertinent, random sig on Gmail.

Okay, excellent. Excellent.

I've started a new thread, soliciting last-minute ideas. I want to rerelease this soon.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/96660

48> Thanks for the answer jjmcgaffey. I think I'll wait for the rerelease, though.

Has this feature died? I've been using a signature for years, and noticed it wasn't working right in Gmail a few months ago. I assumed it was a Gmail-side update and fixing it went on the back burner, and I tried looking today. And now I'm seeing that https://www.librarything.com/signatureline.php is redirecting to the problem page https://www.librarything.com/problem.php?msg=1 claiming I'm not logged in. Now I'm wondering if it broke a few months ago on the LT side not on the Gmail side after all. It's still listed as a fun thing on https://www.librarything.com/more

>52 ojchase: This is a 19 year old thread. You might want ot go to bug collectors and post something there.

>52 ojchase: I think it has sort of died. Image links with php inside doesn't work in your Profile but seems to work here (sort of).





I think I once had some externally hosted php that displayed the local time. Stuff like that. But as >55 ojchase: says, that is sort of 20 years ago.

Ah, and putting anything in square brackets here is triggering Touchstones. That doesn't end well :-)

Well the config page is working again today, so maybe it got fixed or I had some kind of cookie issue. Still don't have it working in Gmail, but it's back to a me-or-Gmail problem anyway. The LT side is working great.