How does this work?

It uses the PHP GD library to create images. Those images contain text pulled from a random database entry. Read on for more information about how to create and customize your own random quote signature.

Categories

A category is basically a set of quotes that the image picks from. All categories (even the ones you create) are accessible to anyone by using http://engy.us/randsig.php?category=categoryname . Even though this isn't a .jpg or .gif file, browsers will load the image and display it as it would any other image. Categories you create can only be added to or edited by you.

Creating your own

Just make an account and go at it!

Customizing the image

You can get a plain 500x80 image of a category like this:

http://engy.us/randsig.php?category=deepthoughts
Plain example

However, there are a variety of parameters you can add to change how it's displayed:

http://engy.us/randsig.php?category=deepthoughts &width=400&height=150&bgcolor=cyan&color=black
Customized example

Image parameters

All are optional.

width: The width of the image to be displayed.

height: The height of the image to be displayed.

color: The color of the text. (Supported colors)

bgcolor: The background color. It can be set to transparent as well.

font: The font of the text. Default is arial. (Supported fonts)

fontsize: The size (in pixels) of the text. The text can end up being smaller if it needs to be for it to fit in the box. When set, the image size will fit to the text by cutting off what would normally be dead space below and to the right (unless you're using a background image). Otherwise, the font size will change to fit the image size, as shown previously. Here's an example of the fontsize parameter:

http://engy.us/randsig.php?category=deepthoughts &fontsize=10&maxlength=200&bgcolor=grey
Font size example

maxlength: The image won't display any quote with more characters than the maxlength. This can prevent the text from getting too small because of long quotes.

bgimage: The URL to another image to use as a background for the quote. This image can be anywhere; you don't need to upload it here. Supported formats are .gif, .jpg and .png. Example:

http://engy.us/randsig.php?category=deepthoughts &bgimage=http://engy.us/clouds.jpg
Background image example

padding: The number of pixels of padding to put between the text and the image border.

box_left, box_top, box_width, box_height: You can use these to confine the text to a specific area. These parameters come as a single unit, so you must specify all of them if you intend to use them. They are in pixels. Padding does not apply to the box.

Box parameters example

autoresize: As shown earlier, the fontsize parameter can trim off some of the image. You can disable this by setting autoresize=false. Or you can set autoresize=true if you want to have both a background image and the autoresize feature. Note: This parameter will only have effect when fontsize is set and the box_ parameters are not used.

displaystring: This will override the random quote and display whatever string you put here.

format: Images are output in png format by default, but if you want to output in a different format, use this parameter. Valid values are gif, jpg and png.

Your image alias

The Image Alias menu option will take you to where you can set up an image alias. Some messageboards won't convert an [img] tag to an image unless it has a recognized image extension like .gif, .jpg or .png. Making an image alias will allow you to use your random signature there.