Tips & Trick's - to customize your FaithLight.com experience!

So you've created your FaithLight.com account, added some info about yourself and you feel your page needs a little more spice, though you aren't exactly sure about how to do that... Well, you've come to the right place.

Contents

The Basics

Getting Started - Control Panel:

To start editing your profile, uploading media and tweaking your settings, etc... click on "Administration" at the top of the page. (If you can not see the word "Administration" - make sure you are logged in). Once the Administration page loads, you will see a control panel on the left.

Here's a short description of what each section in the control panel - controls: Edit Info: Change password, name, email and display picture. Edit Profile: Edit the content inside your profile. Add/edit info about yourself, insert picture and videos, etc... My Profile: See your profile, as seen by other people My Message: Send and manage messages to other members. My Friends: View or delete your friends. My Photos: Upload, view and manage your photos and their description. My Videos: Upload view and manage your videos and their description. My Audios: Upload, listen and manage your audio/mp3 files. My Links: List/share some of your favourite links. New Blog: Create a new Weblog (Blog). Write/share about what ever you wish. Invite A Friend: Invite friends to join Faithlight.com, by sending them an email. Themes: Change the appearance of your profile, by either selecting a pre-made theme, or by selecting your own header/background images. Settings: Edit how recieve notifications, e.g. Via Email or Failight inbox.

Adding Content to Your Profile

Adding Information about yourself:

Okay, so what information would you like to add? Here are some recommendations:

Basic Ideas about what to add: Your name, where you are from, whether your are working, studying or inbetween jobs, likes/dislikes, hobbies, aspirations, how you became a Christian or how God has touched your life. Etc...

A-2-Z Survey: The A-2-Z survey asks you some basic questions, you fill in the blanks. E.g. like your name, DOB, Favorite movie, quote, etc... (You don't have to answer questions you don't want to). At the end you will recieve the HTML code of your results, which you simply copy and paste into your profile 'Editing Box'. To see an example of the results, Click Here to view David's (aireweth) profile. To take the A-2-Z survey Click Here.

Add Pictures:

Uploading Pictures:

Click on "Administration" at the top of your page:

Click on "My Photos" In your control panel.

Once the page loads, next to the control panel you will see a button that says "Upload": Click on it.

On the next page, to select the photo you wish to upload click on the "Choose" button. select your photo. If you wish, give the picture a "title" and add a short "description", then press the "Upload Photo" button.

Adding Pictures to Your Profile Page:

Would you like to place images on your personal page, as I have added the kitten on this page?

Firstly, click on "Administration".

Then click "Edit Profile" in the control panel.

After the page loads you will see your profile as visible by visitors as well as an editing box bellow, where you can add more information. Think of this box as something similar to Microsoft Word or Openoffice Writer. Use the Enter/Return, Arrow Keys and the mouse to navigate to where you would like to go on the page. Then press the image icon, which looks like this:

Once the box pops up to insert your image, paste the "Image URL" into the coresponding box, if you would like, add an image "description" (this will show up when you place the mouse over the image). Then "align" (e.g. left, center, right). Then add the "dimensions", this is optional, though if the entire image doesn't appear on the page - you may wish to make it smaller by specifying the dimensions.

If you wish to select a simple border, place a number in the "Border" box (1 being the smallest) this will create a black line around the border. The larger the border number, the thicker the border (just like the border around the kitten).

Adding Videos

Uploading Video:

First click on "Administration". When the administration page loads, click on "My Videos" in your control panel. When the page loads, click on the "Upload" button. Then "Choose" the video you wish to upload. Add a Title and a short Description about the video (that is optional), click once on the "Upload Video" Button - and patiently wait till the video finishes uploading. Once the video is finished
uploading, you will be returned back to your "My Video" page.

Embedding Video:

You can now embed videos and most other Flash gizmos, such as Flash photo albums you might have on your MySpace page, Flash games, Flash chat and RSS feeds!

To Embed a video on your profile page. Firstly click on "Administration" then "Edit Profile".

Option 1: Paste the code straight into the editor, press "Submit" and after the page loads, press "Submit" again.

Option 2: Click on the HTML icon on your editor (looks like this: ) Find where you wish to paste the code, paste the code. Click on "Update" and then click on "Submit".

Finding the Embedding Code:

Websites such as YouTube.com and GodTube.com have embedding code available, to right of the video. Simply select all of the code, copy it, and paste into your profile.

What if there's no embedding code?

Step One: Look at the source code of the page on which the video/flash is located. Either Click on "View" then "Source"/"Source Code". Or right click on the page and click "Source"/"View Page Source" different browser say slightly different things, just look for the word "source"

Step Two: Look for the media code (more details coming soon)

Adding Audio

Uploading Audio/mp3:

First click on "Administration". When the administration page loads, click on "My Audios" in your control panel. When the page loads, click on the "Upload" button. Then "Choose" the mp3 file you wish to upload. Add a Title and a short Description about the audio (that is optional), click once on the "Upload Audio" Button - and patiently wait till the audio finishes uploading. Once the Audio is finished
uploading, you will be returned back to your "My Audio" page.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Only upload MP3 audio files. I tried uploading WMA files, and they weren't audible.

Themes and overall appearance:

To give your page a more personal feel, you can alter the back ground (wallpaper) image aswell as the header (Desktop) image. To get started click "Administration", and then on "Themes" in your control panel.

Theme Selector

First you will see the "Theme Selector". Using the theme selector is the easiest and quickest way to change the appearance of your profile. Simply select the theme you want and click on "Apply Changes".

Changing Desktop/Header Image:

The "Desktop Image" is the one that appears at the top of your page. To change the desktop image, click on "Administration", then on "Themes", then on "Desktop Image". Note that the desktop image is 1016 x 191 pixels, meaning that if you wish top post a photograph, the image will either be stretched, tiled (displayed a number of times), or left as is - but will not cover the entire length of the desktop, with you being distored unless you edit the picture. You can use your favourite picture editing program to crop an image or create your own that is 1016 x 191 pixels in size.

To select your Desktop Image, click on "Choose..." and select the image you want. Select what you wish to do to with the image (stretch, crop, tile, leave as is). Select "Turn on" desktop image, click on "Apply desktop image"... And that's it! As you will notice at the top of this page, I have created my own desktop image. Also you can Click Here to see a different desktop image I placed on my profile.

Desktop Image Resources

CLICK HERE or HERE to see some great, ready made desktop banners! These banners were made by Rico. On those pages you will see links to many other great piictures Rico has tracked down and edited himself, which you may like to use on Faithlight or other places.

Changing Background Images:

coming shortly

Send Picture Comments!

A picture is worth a thousand. And if you feel like leaving a picture comment, you can do it!

All you need to do is type in some very simple html. Here's the HTML needed:

In between " " copy the URL of your image, like in the example bellow:

That's it! The above code would display the following image:

Have a look at www.ChristianProfile.com for more cool Christian pictures you can send in people's comments

Adding Friends:

Add a friend:

Don't be shy and invite people to be your friends!

To add a friend, view the persons profile and click on "Add Friend", which is located on the top left handside of the page. The person will recieve a message that you've requested to be their friend, they will either click on approve or deny. If they click on "approve" - they will show up as a friend in the "Friends" box on your profile. How ever, you will not show up as friend in their profile, unless they send a request to you also.

Invite a friend to join FaithLight:

If you have friends who you think would like to join FaithLight.com, you can invite them quickly and
easily through your control panel. First click on "Administration", then in the control panel click on "Invite a Friend", enter your friends email address and a short message - and then Click on "Send Invitation".

Advanced Users:

If know HTML then simply click on the HTML icon (which looks like this > ) at the top of your "Editing Box", to pop up the source code for your personal page. Then start customizing your personal page, just as you see fit. For example, you can add the content of your page inside a table, play around with the background colors/images and positioning of the content. Edit font color, size. Etc...

Got Marquee?