Using Stationery Wizard To Get the Stat You Want
Part 2
Before we get started here...you might want to choose a midi or a wav file for your new stat and remember where it is and what the name of it is so we can browse to it later.
With your new stationery still open, go to the bottom of the screen...there should be three tabs; edit, source and preview. If they are not there, go to up to View and select Source Edit as shown in the picture below:
We will be working with the HTML coding in Source...but not to worry. There isn't a lot of it there and we're just going to make some minor changes.
Below is the picture of what the HTML coding looks like and the places we are going to change are marked with numbers:
#1: If you wish to make a change in the font, which I did here to Comic Sans MS, do so here. You must write it perfectly.
#2: If you wish to change the size of your font, do so here. Also, if you want to make your text match the colors of your topper, make the change here as I did. I want my text to be pink.
#3: Here is where we change the white background to our colored background. I wanted my background to be yellow. It doesn't matter if you use capital letter or lower case letters here.
Click on the preview tab at the bottom and here is what your topper should look like now:
There still isn't any music, is there? That's an easy fix. Click on the "Edit" tab, then go to "Format" at the top of the screen and select Background/Sound. A window will open that looks like this:
Click on Browse and browse to where you have your midi or wav file. Click on Play the sound 1 time...usually used if it's a wav file and the sound can get obnoxious to the listener. Or, click on continuously if it's nice music playing. Then click okay. Now, go back to the source tab at the bottom of your stat and let's take a look at what we just did:
See where it says BGSOUND? That's our background music. There is one thing I want to show you here that's kind of important. See where it says volume? Do you ever open up a stat and have the music hit you full force and about pop your ear drums? This is where we can soften our midi or wav file volume. I usually put mine to minus 900 or minus 1000... that's -900 or -1000 . You can go even lower than that if you want...I think up to -10,000. See below for where to make the change:
Here's a tip if you are having problems finding your midi file that you just KNEW was there a minute ago! Make sure if you are looking for a midi, you have midi as the "Files of type". And if you are looking for a "wav" file, make sure that option is selected...see below:
If you made a mistake, and decided you just don't want that particular music, repeat the steps to change it.
The last thing we need to do in this part of the tutorial, is make our HTML file into an easy-to-use EML (email) file. Now that you have the stat just the way you want it, go up to File/Save As and a window will open. Notice that it already wants to save it as an eml file. Here is where you rename the file whatever you want its permanent name to be. I put DS in there somewhere so people know I made it. Save it into that desktop EML file folder we made earlier.
Now, when you wish to use your new topper, simply open your desktop EML file folder, double click on the topper and it will open in OE, ready for you to use. To use it, just highlight the text that says "Text goes here" and type in what you wish.
There's one more thing I want to show you how to do in OE so you can clean out your OE stationery folder from all the files you will be creating. There's no need to have them in there if you always use your EML file. The reason it's better to use the EML file instead of OE, is because the more stuff you put into OE, the slower the program will run.
With OE open, go up to the envelope icon at the top left hand corner of your window and pull the menu down. Select "select stationery". That will open up the file in OE where all the stationery is stored. You can highlight the different files and see a preview of it to the right as long as you have "show preview" checked. Here you can see that I have found the one we just created. Simply right click and choose "delete". Some of these stationeries are ones that came with OE and I'd leave them alone. But the ones you no longer need, delete them. Use your EML file from now on. and keep OE cleaned up!
That's it for making a topper with a plain background. In part 3, we will figure out how to use a pattern tile for a background, instead of a plain color.