We've launched the announced Talent and Lore Update! All characters are granted one free RP talent and race change. Update Log.
Updates to Talents and Monsters: Read the specifics in the Update Log
08/01/'21
Gaia Reborn
Gaia Reborn, the hottest MMORPG of the last decade, has seen millions of players experience its unique world - a combination of fantasy and reality. When Gaia Reborn was a game, one goal was to make the game world a one-half scale model of the real world. This pursuit was known as the Half-Gaia Project, and it is one of the aspects which led to Gaia Reborn becoming such a popular virtual world. With regional servers having unique areas, quests, cities, and monsters, it wasn't uncommon for people to create alternate characters on other servers to experience what felt like an entirely new game.
Ten years after the game's launch, millions of players have joined and created countless characters across the many servers. Now, with the release of the latest expansion, Pioneers of Arcadia, many are getting ready to begin new adventures in the new Italian server, exploring the new region corresponding to Italy, known in Gaia as Italia. Characters would have to start from fresh in this new world, but Italy would finally get its own piece of this world.
Countless players created their characters, logged in with excitement fueling their hands as the cursor swept across the screen, and then... darkness... Everything was black, and as their eyes opened, the players found themselves in the streets of an unfamiliar city. Looking around to survey their surroundings, many players realized this city was not so new after all. While desolate and ruined, the architecture conquered by vines and greenery, this city was unmistakably Rome, but at the same time, it was not. Finding themselves in the bodies of their characters, trapped in the world of Gaia Reborn, players are left to adapt to their new reality in this fantasy world.
You know, Aaron didn't exactly remember showing up to some damn cosplay convention. He didn't exactly remember showing up in any sort of costume either-- foreign robes and... feathery appendages spouting on his back...? Or were they... in... his back...? Great. It's been a whole hour and he still had no clue where he was. Didn't exactly look like a city. Dilapidated, vegetation-covered, medieval buildings popped up all over the place, literally no signs of modern civilization. Hell, did anybody here even speak English? When did his dumb ass think it would be a good idea to take a fresh vacation to nowhere?
Aaron clasped his hands together, closing his eyes and mouthing a few words.
"God, if you're out there... please man... get me outta this mess."
Aaron shook his head a bit before resuming his business, walking past panicking players into an empty pathway shrouded with trees decorating the sides, providing a nice bit of shade for folks to cool down. Well, at least with the blinding sphere out of the way, Aaron could appreciate his surroundings in its complete and utter beauty. Deep breaths, one after another. Fresh, uncorrupted air headed straight for his nostrils. In a way, it was therapeutic. Maybe one of the few things keeping him from having a serious mental breakdown. He'd take this time to reminisce about the past, to retrace his steps a bit. His name... was Aaron. Of course. He was a streamer waiting for the release of... the next Gaia Reborn expansion...? Then, the game finished downloading, and he made his character... and then...
A vision of Mariana, standing in the hallway, flashed in his mind. Aaron reached out towards her as she suddenly began to vanish from sight.
He was pulled back into reality, reaching out towards nothingness. Crap, well, that's where the memories of the old world end. That's around the time when he woke up on a grass patch in the middle of nowhere.
"Ugh... Well shit, Mari's totally gonna starve if I ain't around to feed 'er. Hope we got leftovers back there."
Maybe she could snag his wallet and step out a bit to grab a bite. She better stay safe while he's gone, because unless there were some ancient city ruins near his house that he'd never noticed before, he wasn't about to get home anytime soon. Hopefully his viewers wouldn't mind if he didn't stream for a few days. Or however long it took for him to get back.
Aaron'd continue walking along for a few more minutes. No signs of modern tech whatsoever. Just old buildings and vegetation and cosplayers. They were everywhere. He just wanted to keep to himself for a bit without being a part of some weird nerd paradise. He'd hustle on out of this place eventually. There had to be an end. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could find some sort of payphone and tell his sis that he was all good.
More walking. More nothing. Aaron started sprinting at this point, growing increasingly desperate. At this point, he'd felt like he'd seen the same structures thousands of times by now. What kind of crazy labyrinth was this?! How did people even find their way around this shitty place? Alright. Screw it. One of these dweebs must know something. Aaron walked up to the nearest person, tapping them on the shoulder, in an unintentionally innocent-looking manner. Was it just him, or was this person extremely tall? Or maybe he shrunk a shit-ton since the last time he looked at himself in the mirror? Or maybe it was both.
"Yo! Sorry, just wanted to ask~"
Aaron hiccuped and covered his mouth, visibly recoiling from the sound he'd made. It was like, some smooth, high-pitched, elegant, fancy accent, coupled with Aaron's usual lingo. What the fuck? He didn't ever remember attaining serious throat damage any time during recent history. What on Earth crippled his vocal cords this badly? Word Count: 660 Tags: Atlas Notes: First post! Woohoo.
Seeing Kat and Maruem start speaking in the telepathy voice chat as they walked away, Atlas and Ellie got the hint this was a private conversation so they walked away in an opposite direction to explore the city. I wonder if they've got real-life landma- Atlas' train of thought was interrupted as she set her eyes on a perfect replica of the Roman Colosseum. Well, I guess this answers your question. As they kept wandering around the forum the atmosphere got more and more... chaotic. The realization of what had happened was starting to set in for most people and they had gone from confusion to full-on panic. Atlas and Ellie couldn't bear to stand and watch so they headed off looking for a place with as few people as possible, eventually finding a small marketplace with... -NPCs? Could they still be called that?- selling and buying fruits and vegetables. Well, it looks like they're sentient at any rate. Some are giving us some strange looks though. I mean... look at us, we're a giant woman wearing heavy armor coming into a marketplace and we probably look SUPER lost, which to be fair, we kinda are. How can I be loooooooost Ellie started singing. If I've got nowhere to goooo? Heh, Axey is rubbing off on you. Atlas replied with a chuckle.
They walked through that busy street for some time, at one point passing in front of an inn. Looks like at least there's a place where we can stay. We seem to have a bit of money on us, hopefully we can earn enough to sustain ourselves. Atlas thought as she kept walking. How do you plan on making that money though? I don't know, you're the smart one. We could hunt shit and sell the meat. OH MY GOD we could buy off the colosseum and organize events in it! Atlas, I swear to god you better not say what I think you're about to say. What? Sell popcorn during the games and make tons of money off it? You know what I meant. I genuinely do not have the slightest clue. Fine, let's not talk about it more then.
Suddenly, there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping on the Paladin's shoulder. As she turned around, before her stood a little girl- no wait. It could not be a little girl. Appearance kinda didn't really serve as a good indicator if they all got turned into their characters. Either way, the person before Atlas was small and quite honestly adorable. They were very short, especially next to Atlas. Probably around a meter and a half, maybe even less. Their slender figure and childish face complimented this, and to top it off those little wings -definitely smaller than Vincent's- came to complete the little angelic look. For some reason the character's appearance seemed familiar. Atlas dismissed the thought assuming it was just supposed to be a character from some other game. "Yo! Sorry, just wanted to ask~" As the person started speaking they let out a gasp and covered their mouth in shock. Ah, so that's not their usual voice then. "Judging from your reaction I'm guessing you hadn't spoken since you woke up huh? The name's Atlas, nice to meet you." Hey, Atlas... look at their username. "Wait aVelia? Duuude, I was watching your stream while making a character when... well, when this happened." she said, waving her hand around as if to point everywhere at once. "I know it's probably not the best time, but I watch your streams regularly." Axey is so not gonna believe this. I know, right?
Word Count: 607 Total Word Count: 607 Tags: aVelia
The armored giant turned around, appearing quite daunting to the currently comparatively tiny winged dumbass standing before... her...? Aaron wasn’t quite expecting a muscular beast of a body to house a feminine face. Avelia straightened up, sharpened her expression, and dropped her arms from their former position over her mouth in order to cross her arms. It was a commendable attempt at looking tough, but ultimately feeble due to her frail, innocent appearance. A bead of sweat silently cascaded down the side of her face. Aaron didn’t want to get his ass beaten by some beefy lady who got mad gains for the sake of putting on a stunning cosplay.
...
No hands were thrown, luckily. Friendly greetings and introductions were tossed his way in their place. Pleasantly surprising. Aaron thought a bit, looking off to the side, rather than making eye contact. Atlas was right, he hadn’t tried speaking once during his time in these ruins… but who could blame him? Nobody would want to socialize with a bunch of weirdos at a strange costume party like this. Plus, Aaron wasn’t exactly the type to think out loud, either. So what? Were they going to explain the origin story of his ruined vocal cords? Avelia stared back up, opening her mouth as if to continue asking her question, but was interrupted by Atlas’s sudden realization.
"Wait aVelia? Duuude, I was watching your stream while making a character when... well, when this happened. I know it's probably not the best time, but I watch your streams regularly."
Wait... wha--? Did they just mention his channel name? Avelia's jaw dropped in awe, her eyes widened. Could it be?! One of her very own viewers? Was her recognition leaking from the internet into real life? This must've been one helluva celebrity meeting. At least everyone around wasn't a total nutjob after all. Aaron felt a bit of giddiness in his chest, excited to have finally met one of his followers outside of a chat box... even if they were a ripped armored woman. Avelia had a stupid smile on her face, any signs of animosity long gone. He was compelled to use his voice again.
“I-- I--”
Avelia coughed a few times, clearing her throat from nonexistent blockages.
“Like I was--”
She raises her right hand up and begins palming the back of her neck repeatedly while going on another coughing fit.
"...saying--"
Her voice softened to a near-whisper.
"I gotta say... feels pretty sweet... to finally meet some of my crew... outside of chat...!"
Avelia eagerly stepped closer and shook her hand. Also, more coughing.
"My bad... 'think something must've... gotten in my throat... since the last time I said anything..."
Jeez, this was an awful fan meetup. Why'd he have to encounter them on a day where everything was going wrong? Aaron had no control of the situation whatsoever. He was lost, plain and simple. Well, maybe it was time to ask chat for help again.
"So like, y'said something about some jazz happening after you finished your character, right, man? Gaia Reborn, right? Something similar happened to me, my guy. I finished my stuff, and I ended up in this weird-ass outfit, with a broken voice, in the middle o' nowhere! Did some shithead drag me here or some crap? How am I s'posed get back to my place? You got a phone on you? Where's the quickest route to somewhere that ain't some historical landmark?"
Avelia stroked her neck as she spoke. The more Aaron talked, the more he started to realize more things wrong with his voice. The last time he checked, throat damage didn't make you speak with some fancy accent. Avelia sighed, slouching over.
"Sorry if I'm shooting you all o' these questions too fast. I'm a little outta my element, man. I've gotta get back somehow. Can't keep the crew waiting for too long, am I right?"
Avelia unintentionally shot her a cute, innocent smile. Word Count: 661 Thread Word Count: 660 + 661 = 1321 Tags: Atlas Notes: More dialogueeeeeeeeee
Atlas watched as aVelia clearled his stuttered for a bit before speaking nervously while shaking her hand. "I gotta say... feels pretty sweet... to finally meet some of my crew... outside of chat...!" "Likewise. I'm honored to be the first viewer you met. After that handshake aVelia cleared his throat yet again and apologized for his new voice, thinking there must be something in his throat. Oh my god he hasn't figured it out yet, has he? No way, it's been hours since waking up, how can he not have realized? You're talking about the guy who spent 2 and a half hours looking for a character that had a quest marker on him when playing Skyrim... Oh right... Holy shit he hasn't figured it out yet!
As Atlas and Ellie thought that they realized aVelia was still talking to them. Asking about what happened, how they got here and if they knew a way back, and giving them a friendly smile. Not gonna lie he looks kinda cute like this. I think it might be better if you let me handle this one. You tend to be a bit too... blunt, in delicate situations. Sure, go ahead. Atlas thought letting Ellie control the body. "Right so... first things first. Here's what I've been able to figure out so far: we're currently in the 'Enlightened Republic of Romalia'. From what I've understood from the people I've talked to so far, everyone around us has the same story. Making a character in the new server of Gaia Reborn, passing out, and waking up here. And... I don't know how else to say this but... we've all been turned into our characters... including you..." Ellie said, pausing to let aVelia take in the bombshell that was just dropped on him. "Your voice isn't broken, that's just the voice you picked for your character. Or, well... the voice we picked for it. Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I like how it sounds..." Wow, you were pretty "non blunt" about that. Atlas thought sarcastically. I'm doing my best okay? I know, sorry. You did great.
After giving aVelia some time to think about all the implications of being turned into his character Ellie continued. "I don't have a phone on me, in fact, I'm 99% sure there's no such thing as phones here. We do have a feature allowing us to communicate long-distance with fellow players on our friends list though. Seeing aVelia's confusion at the mention of a friends list Ellie remembered to explain. "We're able to use skills from the game and do stuff like opening our menu and having a friends list. You should give it a try. she said while sending a friend invite to the confused enoch. "By the way, I think you unconsciously toggled on your Idol's Mannerisms skill at some point. It looks pretty cute so I'm not complaining, but I don't think you meant to have it active. To turn it off, make a mental image of clicking the skill's icon to turn it off and think really hard about it, that's how I do it for my skills." Ellie said, before letting Atlas take the wheel again.
Word Count: 535 Total Word Count: 607+526 = 1142 Tags: aVelia
Aaron took his time downing the truckload of information given to him. The instant seemed like it lasted an eternity, like someone snipped the frame of the moment into a video editor and stretched it across the entire timeline. When he was finally done processing all of the information, all signs of life dissipated from his eyes. The whole world zoomed out of focus as Avelia slowly tilted her head downwards for a double take. She stared soullessly into her hands, Aaron slowly feeling more and more dead inside. Were his arms actually paler than they used to be? Was it not just the lighting caused by the blinding sun? His view seemed generally closer to the floor than usual, too.
"Holy shit."
Avelia's hands scrambled to the top of her head.
"Hair. Ain't mine. Short, soft, straight..."
She winced as she plucked off a strand, staring at it in the sunlight.
"...white."
Avelia kept examining herself haphazardly, noting as many differences as possible. Low muscle mass. His well-toned abs were gone. Her chest... protruded outwards a little more compared to her former self. She had the typical hourglass figure. Just everything in general was that of a smaller proportion. Aaron desperately hoped his prediction wasn't true. Avelia swiftly grazed her hand over her crotch area, expecting to feel an outline of his pride and joy, but there was nothing but void. She covered her face in distress, not letting anyone see it glow pink from embarrassment.
"Agh~! Everything's gooooone!"
Oh god, this had to be a dream. Eventually Aaron would wake up, all tight and cozy in bed, right? Not stuck in a game, not stuck in the 'Enlightened Republic of Whatever-The-Fuck', at least not looking like... this. Why did this have to happen to him? Suddenly everything started making sense, with all of the weirdos in fantasy outfits, the ruined city, the completely lack of modern technology...
At least, now he knew someone he could consider a friend.
Avelia slowly lowered her hands as the paladin continued explaining details about their world, about game mechanics like friend requests and skills. Aaron was just barely following along, a million thoughts still whirling about his mind. A friend request prompt appeared on his HUD, catching him off guard. This pretty much confirmed the game aspect of everything going on. Avelia guided a pointed finger to the checkmark on the prompt in order to accept the request.
The tall woman in front kept going about skills... something about--
Wait, did she just call him cute?
Oh, nevermind. He'd accidentally toggled a skill that made him seem more attractive. Of course. Idol talent perks, he guessed. Now to turn it off, he continued to follow instructions. He focused, bringing up a mental image of the skill on the HUD. Avelia navigated her hand towards the toggle button to turn it off... and... wait...
"It's..." She sighed. "...not on...?"
Avelia stared emptily into space for a few seconds.
"I'll... I've gotta go somewhere for a sec."
She stumbled off to behind a nearby structure, out of view from Atlas. A sound resembling that of a muffled high-pitched scream could be heard emanating from behind said nearby structure.
After a minute passed, Avelia stumbled back, grabbing Atlas by the top of the chestplate, awkwardly needing to stand up on her tippy toes to reach up there.
"Man, what the hell'dja guys do to me?! I can't keep goin' on like this, my guy! My pride and joy is gone! It's like-- like--" She gestures to below her torso. "Like it just ain't there anymore! Zip! Nada! My voice is like..." Avelia gestured to her throat. "...like, fuckin'... all wack and shit, and then--" She furiously starts messing up her hair, like a little girl throwing a temper tantrum. "Look at me! I'm tiny! People're gonna be able to snap me in half like a toothpick! Look man, Gwendolyn, she's adorable, a'ight? I get it. It's all a funny 'haha' moment when y'all decided to base my character off of her. But when I actually have to like... be her?! Not something Aaron Velia does, man!"
Avelia's eyes widened when she realized what she was doing. A feeling of guilt overwhelming him. She promptly let go and backed off, twiddling her thumbs nervously in silence.
"I-- I-- I... my bad... I shouldn't... be all angsty like this...." She looks away, trying not to make eye contact. "It's been a rough few hours for me lately, and I.. I guess I just really wanna get back to my regular life, y'know? Got my lil' sis back home, sure y'all know her since I talk about her all the time... but if I'm here, then there's nobody back at my place to be there for her. But... like, whatever I did back there earlier, that's not how I treat a member of my own family, a'ight? I'm... uh... sorry." Word Count: 822 Thread Word Count: 1321 + 822 = 2143 Tags: Atlas Notes: The shackles have been released.
Atlas and Ellie watched as aVelia's expression went from confused to lifeless while Ellie explained the situation. Sh- he started touching his body, fully realizing the changes that had happened. Naturally his first reaction was to check his different bodyparts.
First he noticed his hair was white, looking at his arms he noticed the lack of muscle on his slender figure, he slighly fondled his new chest. And finally with a look of horror in his eyes he looked down there.
"Agh~! Everything's gooooone!" Of all things of his body why is it the missing dick that makes him cry. Once aVelia calmed down Ellie started to explain how the HUD worked and let him know he might have an Idol skill active. After checking and confirming it was not on, aVelia excused himself for a bit and went behind a tree. After letting out a muffled scream of frustration he came back to continue the conversation. That's a... unique way to cope with it...
Once he was back he grabbed Atlas by the chestplate and started berating her for making him make that character. With that Atlas snapped, pushed him off her and slapped him. "What the fuck do you mean "what did we do to you"? Listen here you little shit, no one could have known we'd get turned into our characters. Do you think I like being stared at by everyone like I'm the fucking hulk? You tried your best to hide it but I could tell you had that "oh shit she's gonna kick my ass" moment when you first saw me turn around. While you're worrying about a stick of meat missing between your legs, I'm dealing with everyone around looking at me and the first word that comes to their mind is "freak". Everyone you see around you is in the same shit situation you're in and the last thing I need right now is someone trying to guilt trip me over something I couldn't have known about or prevented. You can't blame chat for ending up like that when literally everyone in it, yourself included, thought it was just a video game. So you can either keep blaming others for something that isn't anyone's fault or you can man up and try to find a way to fix it."
After she was done aVelia stood in silence for a moment, clearly ashamed of what he said before apologizing. Atlas let out a sigh and replied "Yeah, I know, sorry for snapping at you like that. I realize you're probably panicking and trying your best to keep your shit together, it's not fair to judge you based on it. There was a brief moment of awkward silence until Atlas decided to break it. "Look, we clearly started off on the wrong foot, how about we start over from the beginning?" she said stretching out her hand for a handshake. "My name is Atlas, nice to meet you. Would you like go look together to see if there's a way to change your character's features? Other servers had potions that allowed you to change your character's appearance, if we're really inside the game right now then that item might still exist."
Word Count: 536 Total Word Count: 1142 + 536 = 1678 Tags: aVelia Notes: Sorry I took so long to reply
They were right. Nodody in their right minds could've known this was going to happen to them. It was all for fun and games, for random hijinks and shenanigans. Everyone, minus a few sadists, probably would've worked together to give Aaron a more plausible experience if his fate was known beforehand. And now he'd taken out his anger on someone who'd been going through the same exact situation. Good grief. Avelia silently stroked the side of her face where the hand had left a giant pink mark, unsure of how to continue the conversation. Luckily, Atlas was there to pick up the slack with another friendly hand extension.
"Look, we clearly started off on the wrong foot, how about we start over from the beginning?"
Of course. A hard reset was for the best. Avelia took a few sweet breaths and straightened herself up, newly reinvigorated. A slight smile formed, brightening her entire face as eye contact was once again formed.
"Hell yeah, sounds good. Let's forget that any of this ever happened."
Atlas's hand was met with a satisfying clasp from the small Enoch.
"My name is Atlas, nice to meet you. Would you like go look together to see if there's a way to change your character's features? Other servers had potions that allowed you to change your character's appearance, if we're really inside the game right now then that item might still exist."
Huh? Wouldn't a potion like that be extremely rare? In most games he'd played, items that allowed you to edit your character's raw appearance were either locked behind a paywall or were seriously hard to obtain. How would microtransactions even work in this game? Maybe they'd let you leave the game for a few seconds to get your wallet.
"Well, wouldn't hurt, would it? You wanted to change your appearance too, didn't'cha? Let's get this bread, then!"
Aaron seemed to have recovered quickly, returning to his former self. Avelia whirled around, taking a few paces forth into the great unknown.
...
Followed by an equal amount of few paces backwards and a quick turnaround.
"Right, right. Introductions, my bad. You prolly already knew this, but the name's Aaron. Aaron Velia. I hope I didn't ruin your impression of me when I sorta flipped out on you. In the end, I'm just a regular dude playing the game with the rest of y'all, y'know?"
And with that, Avelia raised a leg, about to start heading off towards a random direction when they realized they had no idea where they were going, instead stepping backwards behind Atlas.
"Oh, and uh, ladies first! Y'got any clues on where to start?" Word Count: 442 Tags: Atlas Notes: All good!
After Atlas suggested looking for an appearance change potion, aVelia agreed and set off. Did he seriously unironically say "let's get this bread"... Ellie thought.
I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and think it wasn't unironic. replied Atlas, starting to walk after Aaron before he turned around and introduced himself once again. "Right, nice to meet you. And don't worry, you're in a stressful situation right now, it wouldn't be right to judge you based on that. If anything, your willingness to admit you were wrong shows you're a nice person." she said as aVelia started walking and stopped again.
"Oh, and uh, ladies first!"
"No you, m'lady." replied the paladin with a grin, gesturing for aVelia to go first and tipping an invisible fedora on her head. "Sorry for that. Anyway no, I don't know where to start looking, but if this place is roughly the same as Rome in real life, then I think I have a general idea of where the market district is, we could start by looking there." she suggested, already starting to walk away.
Word Count: 183 Total Word Count: 1678+183=1871 Tags: aVelia
Welcome to the help dialog for the Custom Mini-Profile Creator plugin!
Click on any of the tabs above to go through the plugin configuration process!
You can access this menu at any time by clicking on the icon in the bottom right bar (may not be applicable if you're on Forums.net), or you can disable the welcome window and/or the icon by going to Plugins > Manage > Custom Mini-Profile Creator and changing the Show Help option.
This step is essential as it gives the plugin everything it needs on the page to get as much profile information as possible.
To make the profile variables work you'll need to add a new line to the very end of Themes > Layout Templates > Mini-Profile and paste the code below on it. The code should be placed completely outside of the mini-profile, so if you're using the default mini-profile template this will be after the very last closing </div> tag. This needs to be done on every theme you have the plugin enabled on as the template is theme-specific.
If your mini-profile template is already customized and you've hit the variable limit for your template you're free to remove any lines from the code below if they contain information that you don't plan on using. For example, if you have no plans to ever add a user's IP to their mini-profile for staff reference you can remove <div class="mp-info ip">$[user.ip]</div> from the code and everything else will still work just fine.
Once you've added the HTML from the Layout Templates tab you're ready to move on to building your mini-profiles. If you want to get going and try some out now or you're not very adept at HTML, CSS, or Javascript, worry not! This plugin includes some examples for you to try out. You're free to skip to the Custom Profile Fields tab and read over this tab later when you're ready to build your own.
Here's a quick rundown of each of the components in Plugins > Manage > Custom Mini-Profile Creator:
Name This is the name you'll be adding to your custom profile field dropdown once you've finished coding the mini-profile. Pretty self-explanatory. Make sure this name is unique from every other name you use for your mini-profiles or you'll end up overwriting the earlier ones in the list.
HTML This is the HTML that will go inside your mini-profile. You can use just about any HTML tag here so long as it's appropriate for where the mini-profile is showing on the page. Please refrain from using <style> or <script> tags here. You have the next two sections for that! Also, remember that mini-profiles can show multiple times on the same page, so you shouldn't add ID attributes to any of your elements here. Two elements on the same page cannot have the same ID per HTML standards.
CSS This is where you'll place what would normally go in your forum's style sheet or what would normally be between <style> tags. Try to code your mini-profile's HTML in a way that will allow you to target it specifically with your selectors. For example, you can surround all of the content in your HTML with a <div> element with a class and target that class and its child elements specifically with your CSS. That way you don't accidentally target every mini-profile on the page with CSS that was meant for the one you're building. One more thing: The forum theme's CSS still applies beforehand, so your mini-profile may look right in one theme but not in another. The best way to circumvent this is to define as many styles as you can to override the theme's CSS.
Javascript Anything that normally goes between <script> tags will go here. This one's a bit tricky since you'll obviously want to target the custom mini-profile specifically. Luckily there's an easy way to do that. In your statements you can use the $(this) variable to target the mini-profile if you're coding using jQuery. Otherwise, if you only plan on using standard Javascript you can target $(this)[0] instead.
Once you've finished building your mini-profiles it's finally time to add them to the Edit Profile page for use! To enable selection of custom mini-profiles you'll first need to add two specific custom profile fields in Members > Custom Profile Fields in your forum's admin area:
Mini-Profile Theme
Staff Mini-Profile Theme
Mini-Profile Theme is for mini-profiles that are designed for member use. You can set the Who Can Edit option for this field to Staff With Power if you only want staff to be able to choose mini-profiles for users. Otherwise, if you want members to freely be able to choose their own mini-profiles you can choose Members and Staff With Power.
Staff Mini-Profile Theme is for mini-profiles designed specifically for staff use. This field is completely optional.
Set the type for both of these fields as Drop Down Selection. Click on the (View/Edit) link to add mini-profile names to each of these fields.
If you've just installed this plugin you should have three different mini-profiles already installed by default: Example 1, Example 2, and Example 3. You can add these to your dropdowns to test them out and see the plugin in action.
If you're having trouble getting this plugin to work despite following the instructions in the previous tabs you may want to check that each of your themes meets the prerequisites below in Themes > Layout Templates > Mini-Profile.
First, ensure that opening tag of your mini-profile template includes the $[miniprofile_class] variable in its class. On the default ProBoards theme it should look something like this:
<div class="$[miniprofile_class]">
Next, make sure that the default {foreach} loop for custom fields is present inside your mini-profile. It doesn't need to be visible, so you're free to add it inside a hidden element if you don't plan on displaying it or if it would mess up the appearance of your own custom template.
Beyond that you can do whatever you like to the mini-profile template for the most part and it shouldn't negatively impact the plugin.
The following is a list of available variables for use in the HTML section of the mini-profile creator and their definitions. Adding any of these to a mini-profile will generate the content described in its definition in place of the variable so long as the information that variable outputs is visible to you.
To reference your forum's custom profile fields you can use $[user.customfieldname], substituting "customfieldname" with your custom field's name. You'll need to type the name in all lowercase with no spaces and only use characters A-Z and 0-9.
For example, Mini-Profile Theme becomes $[user.miniprofiletheme]. This will output the value of the custom field. In the case of this example, it'll be the name of the mini-profile theme you've chosen in your profile.
IMPORTANT NOTE: These will only work if you followed the steps in the Installation tab of this window on each of your themes. Any themes that do not include the template code specified there will not have these variables replaced in the mini-profile.
$[user]
User's display name link.
$[user.age]
User's age (if visible to you).
$[user.avatar]
User's current avatar.
$[user.badges]
User's list of badges.
$[user.birthday]
User's date of birth (if visible to you).
$[user.color]
Hex color of user's group. If user is not in a group this will return inherit.
$[user.custom_title]
User's custom title.
$[user.email]
User's email (if visible to you).
$[user.gender.image]
Image associated with the gender selected in the user's profile (if available).
$[user.gender.text]
Name of gender selected in the user's profile (if available).
$[user.group.name]
Name of user's current display group.
$[user.group.stars]
Star images associated with user's current display group.
$[user.id]
User's numerical ID.
$[user.instant_messenger]
User's list of instant messengers specified in their profile (if available).
$[user.invisible]
Returns 1 if a user is invisible. More useful for Javascript.
$[user.ip]
User's IP address (if visible to you).
$[user.is_online]
Returns Member is Online if user is currently online.
$[user.is_staff]
Returns 1 if a user is designated as staff. More useful for Javascript.
$[user.last_online]
Timestamp showing when user was last online.
$[user.likes]
Number of likes this user's posts have received.
$[user.location]
Location specified in user's profile.
$[user.name]
User's display name in plain text.
$[user.personal_text]
User's most recent status.
$[user.posts]
User's post count.
$[user.rank.name]
User's current posting rank.
$[user.rank.stars]
Star images associated with user's current posting rank.
$[user.registered_on]
Timestamp showing the date/time the user registered on the forum.
$[user.registered_on_short]
Condensed version of user's registration date.
$[user.social_network]
User's list of social networks specified in their profile (if available).
$[user.username]
Outputs the user's login username in plain text.
$[user.warning.bar]
User's warning bar (if it exists).
$[user.warning.level]
User's current warning level (if visible to you).
$[user.website]
Website specified in user's profile.
You can utilize the $(this) variable in the Javascript component to target the mini-profile <div> element. For example, if you wanted to add a class to the mini-profile you can use:
$(this).addClass('class-name-here');
Profile variables can also be used in the Javascript component in this plugin. In Javascript the value undefined is used to signify that a value doesn't exist for the variable you've specified. With this in mind you can use profile variables in Javascript conditional statements within the plugin similar to how they're used in the actual layout templates section of the admin area.
if(variable) will only run if the variable you specify has a value.
if(!variable) will only run if the variable you specify has no value.
Example 1 (variable has value):
if(user.group){
$(this).find('.group').show();
}
If the user has their group displayed in their profile the above Javascript would make the HTML below visible if you had it hidden with CSS.