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* English version at bottom

U beznadežnim pokušajima da se oslobodim raznoraznih spam poruka u svom IGM (In game message - eng. poruke u igri) sandučetu, došao sam do frapantnog saznanja:
99% mailova koje sam dobio do sada nisu imali nikakve prorede, nikakvu formatizaciju teksta, a o slikama u istima i da ne govorim...

Slažem se sa ocenama mnogih da je sistem IGM poruka u igri jedna od slabijih strana eRepublika, ali situacija nije baš toliko beznadežna, kako se čini na prvi pogled...

Nakon dužeg isprobavanja, otkrio sam da je ipak moguće sročiti IGM poruku da ipak liči na nešto. Da ne bude samo gomila nabacanog teksta (neretko natrpanih linkovima ka borbama, zanimljivim tekstovima ili linkovima ka nečijim profilima...) koju je izuzetno teško pratiti...

Da pređem na stvar - ključ odgovora na pitanje "Kako napraviti lepo upakovanu IGM poruku" leži u skraćenici HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). Da, u pravu ste - to je onaj "jezik i skup komandi" koje se koriste prilikom pravljenja web-stranica. Međutim, nije ništa komplikovano tako da bi i potpuni laici mogli da nauče da koriste par redova ovih komandi, a za uzvrat da budu u stanju da naprave super pregledne, neretko dobro linkovane, pa čak i ilustrovane IGM poruke.

Koja je svrha svega ovoga?

Najiskrenije, lično koristim ovakav vid pisanja IGM poruka kada se obraćam svojim zaposlenicima, gde im dajem određene instrukcije koga da kontaktiraju, gde da se bore ili šta da pročitaju od određenih tutorijala. Trudim se da im poruke budu pregledne i da ih inciraju da ih zadrže u svom Inbox sandučetu kao važne i korisne. Isti primer smo koristili prilikom kreiranja pozdravne poruke koja je stigla svakom novoregistrovanom igraču eSrbije.

Naravno, tu si i sutacije kada odgovaram i na drugačije mailove, ali je svrha ista: preglednost poruke koju nekome šaljete.

Uporedite ove 2 poruke:
Primer 1

(kliknite na sliku da bi je videli u punoj rezoluciji)

Primer 2

(kliknite na sliku da bi je videli u punoj rezoluciji)

U oba slučaja, šalje se identična informacija, s tim da se nadam da se možemo složiti da ova druga izgleda mnogo preglednije i profesionalnije.

Da li je teško napraviti ovakvu poruku?

Iskreno mislim da nije i sve što vam treba je da naučite nekoliko osnovnih HTML komandi koje možete koristiti prilikom kreiranja vaših IGM poruka.

Evo kako izgleda tekst drugog primera poslate poruke pre nego što sam je poslao primaocu:

(kliknite na sliku da bi je videli u punoj rezoluciji)

Kao što možete da primetite na slici gore, postoje određene komande koje se koriste prilikom pravljenja ove poruke i ono što je bitno da znate jeste da se koristi svega nekoliko ovih komandi. Pokušaću da Vam približim značenje svake od njih kako bi bili u stanju da ih što lakše naučite i potom primenjujete prilikom kreiranja Vaših IGM poruka.

Krenimo redom:
1. Komanda p,/p (u uglastim zagradama) se koristi za definisanje početka i kraja svakog pasusa teksta u Vašoj poruci. Može se dogoditi da imate i nekoliko redova teksta između ove 2 komande, ali je bitno da gde na početku ima p, da se na kraju obavezno nalazi /p.

2. Komanda b,/b (u uglastim zagradama) koristi se BOLDOVANJE tj. podebljanje nekog teksta koji želite posebno da naglasite u svojoj poruci.

3. Komanda i,/i (u uglastim zagradama) služi da bi se neki tekst napisao kao ITALIC (iskošen)

4. Komanda br / (u uglastim zagradama) se postavlja za pravljenje proreda između 2 pasusa.

5. Komanda služi da bi se u polje LINK stavila adresa (http://www...), a da onda napisan TEXT bude linkovan tj. da bude link koji vodi na željenu internet lokaciju. Na primer: eRepublik bi bio sročen kao: )

6. Komanda služi za umetanje slika u samu poruku. LINK je link ka nekoj internet lokaciji gde je prethodno uploadovana željena slika (npr: http://imageshack.us/ ili http://www.photobucket.com). Deo komandi width (visina) i height (širina) nije neophodno da se nalazi u okviru ove komande ali može u mnogome da Vam pomogne da određenu veću sliku smestite u veličinu koja Vama odgovara u datom momentu. Recimo, ukoliko imate neku veliku sliku (npr. Vaš Avatar) koju želite da ubacite u IGM poruku, možete da iskoristite ove komande i da je proporcionalno smanjite da bude adekvatne veličine. Vodite računa da se pridržavate proporcija originalne slike (ako je originalna slika 800x600, smanjite je na 200x150 ili 100x75) inače sa ovim dodatkom možete da deformišete sliku po visini ili širini...

E sad, ovo su samo osnovne komande koje se takođe mogu i kombinovati. Oni koji se možda duže bave pisanjem i formatiranjem tekstova u svojim novinama znaju o čemu pričam... Moguće je, recimo, boldovati linkove u vašim porukama ili recimo linkovati slike tako da svaka slika bude i link ka željenoj internet lokaciji... Prilikom korišćenja ovih kombinacija, važno je voditi računa o tzv. hijerathiji, pa je neophodno najmlađu uglastu zagradu u tekstu zatvoriti prvu, pa tek onda onu prethodnu (stariju). Šta to konkretno znači?

Bitno je da se poštuje HTML hijerarhija što znači da ako hoćete da napravite BOLDOVAN LINK, neophodno je da pravilno postavite hijerarhiju uglastih zagradi:
da bi dobili željeni rezultat: eRepublik

PRAVILNO:


NEPRAVILNO:


U slučaju da napravite grešku, Vaša poruka će otići sa takvom greškom (najčešće prekinuta tačno na pola, tamo gde je greška) i neće izgledati onako kako ste zamislili...

Za one koji bi želeli da nauče nešto više o HTML kodovima, preporučujem da posete stranicu http://www.quackit.com/html/codes/ gde je podrobno objašnjeno sve ovo o čemu sam pričao (i mnogo više). Ko zna, možda neko provali još neke stvari koje su podržane u eRepubliku, a da mi toga nismo ni svesni 😉

TIPS & TRICKS

1. Trudite se da u polje SUBJECT (naslov) ne stavljate karaktere naših znakova čćžšđ ili da naslov napišete ЋИРИЛИЦОМ.
- U oba slučaja, osoba koja dobije vašu IGM poruku, neće biti u mogućnosti da Vam na nju odgovori prostim pritiskom na "Reply" opciju jer će joj eRepublik izbaciti grešku.

2. Kada komponujete vašu prvu poruku sa HTML kodom, pošaljite je sami sebi.
Tako najjednostavnije prekontrolisali da li je sve u redu sa istom. Sami sebi možete poslati poruku ukoliko odete u vaš OUTBOX i ako krenete da odgovorite na neku poruku koju ste nekome poslali. U tom slučaju, primalac poruke ćete biti Vi, pa možete korigovati sve eventualne greške koje ste napravili u prethodnim pokušajima dok ne budete u potpunosti zadovoljni izgledom Vaše IGM poruke.

3. Čuvajte tipske poruke u NOTEPAD-u ili u google dokumentu (dokumentima).
Ukoliko imate kompaniju, dešavaće se da ćete vremenom slati identične (ili bar slične) poruke Vašim zaposlenima. Kako poruke koje sastavite neće ostati u izvornom obliku neophodno je da imate mesto gde ćete skladištiti poruke koje šaljete relativno često. Idealno mesto je upravo neki notepad ili google dokument.

Za sam kraj, nadam se da će se i eRepublik tim potruditi i da će jednostavne komande za pravljenje preglednijih IGM poruka jednog dana biti uvrstene kao sastavni deo editora prilikom pravljenja novih poruka. Do tada nam ostaje da se nadamo da će se neko, možda baš eHrvatski igrač PeeKaBooh koji je napravio izvanredan alat Erepublik PLUS, uvrstiti ovakav editor u dodatak koji je već napravio za eRepublik ili ćete sami morati da se snalazite sa komandama koje sam pokušao da Vam približim ovoga puta...

Do tada, pozdravlja vas Vaš
Lipec aka "Sr. Bin"

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English version: How can You make cool IGM's

In hopeless attempts to get rid of various spam messages in my inbox, I came to an astonishing conclusion: 99% of the messages I received had no spaces between passages, no text formatization, and don't get me started about pictures...

I agree with the estimation that IGM (In-game Message) system is one of the weaker sides of eRepublik, but the situation is not so hopeless as it appears...

After a bit of testing, I discovered that it's possible to make an In-game message look nice after all. Not to be just a heap of text, sentences, links to various things stacked up together, without any order, which is rather difficult to follow.

Let me get to the point - the key to answering the question "How to make a nicely packed IGM" lies in the abbreviation HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). Yes, you're right - that is THE "language and a set of instructions" used to make web-pages. However, it's not really complicated, so even a complete layman could learn to use a few lines of these commands, and in return, to be able to make super formatted, very well linked, and even illustrated IGM's.

What is the point to all of this?

Honestly, I use this type of writing in my IGM's when adressing my employees... I give them certain instructions whom to contact, where to fight and what to read out of a few tutorials, and I also try to create those messages easy for survey, and to make those players keep them in their inbox as important and useful. The same example was used on the occasion of creating a welcome message for newly registered players.

Of course, there are occasions when answering on different types of mail, but the purpose is the same: good layout of a message you're about to send.

Compare these 2 messages:

Example 1

(click to view in full resolution)

Example 2

(click to view in full resolution)

In both cases, an identical information is being sent, but I hope we can agree that the second message looks more professional and easy to survey.

Is it difficult to create such a message?

Frankly, I think not. All you need to do is to learn a few basic HTML instructions/commands that you can use to create your In-game messages.

Here's the layout of the text in the second example before I sent it to the receiver:

(click to view in full resolution)

As you can notice in the picture above, there are certain instructions that are used in this message, and what's important for you to know is that there are only a few of them. I'll try to explain a bit further so you could be in shape to learn and use them with ease.

Let's examine them one by one:

1. Instruction p,/p (in diamond brackets ) is used for defining the beginning and the end of each article in your message. It can happen that you could have several lines of text between these 2 commands, but the only thing that matters is - if you have p at the beggining of the segment, you must have /p at the end of it.

2. Instruction b,/b (in diamond brackets ) is used to BOLD/emphasise a certain part of text.

3. Instruction i,/i (in diamond brackets ) is used to write a part of the text in an ITALIC manner.

4. Instruction br / (in diamond brackets ) is for creating an empty line between 2 parts of a text.

5. Instruction serves for creating a link in the text. You put an internet address (http://www...) instead of LINK, and in the place of TEXT you type the word that will be linked with a desired internet address (for example: eRepublik would've been interpreted as: ).

6. Instruction is used to input an image in the message. LINK is a link to an internet location where you previously uploaded a desired picture (example: http://imageshack.us/ ili http://www.photobucket.com). Part of those instructions, width and height are not required to be in this command, but they can help you to put a desired large picture into a size you see fit at the moment. Let's say you have a huge picture (example: your Avatar) you want to insert into your IGM. You can use these commands and proportionaly decrease it to be of adequate size. Take care of the original image proportions (if the original is 800x600, you can decrease it to 200x150 or 100x75), or you'll end up with a deformed picture...

So, these were only elemental commands that can also be combined. Those who are a little more experienced in typing and text formatting in their newspapers know what I'm talking about... It is possible, let's say, to bold the links in your messages, or link the images so every picture is a link to a desired location... When using these combinations, it is important to take care of the so called hierarchy, so it's necessary to close the youngest angular bracket first, and then the previous one (older). What does that actually mean?

It is important to respect the HTML hierarchy, which means that if you want to make a BOLDED LINK, it's crucial to properly set the hierarchy of angular brackets:
to get the desired result: eRepublik

CORRECT:


INCORRECT:


In case you make a mistake, your message will be sent with that error (most commonly cut exactly in half, where the mistake is), and it won't look like you imagined it...

For those who wish to learn a bit more about HTML codes, a visit to this page is recommended http://www.quackit.com/html/codes/ There you'll find everything I talked about (and much more), explained in details. Who knows, maybe someone figures out something that is supported in eRepublik, and we're not aware of it. 😉

TIPS & TRICKS

1. Try not to put non common characters like čćžšđ or Cyrilic letters in the SUBJECT field.
- In both cases, the person who receives your message, will not be able to send you a reply just by simply clicking the "Reply" button because eRepublik will report an error.

2. When composing your first HTML message, send it to yourself first.
It's the simplest way to control if everything is in order.

You can message yourself by going to your OUTBOX and replying to any message you previously sent. In that case, the message receiver will be you, so you can modify all the eventual errors you might have made, until you are fully satisfied with the appearance of your IGM.

3. Keep your templates in NOTEPAD or a google document.
If you have a company, from time to time, you'll probably have to send identical (or at least similar) messages to your employees. As the messages you compose will not stay in their original form, it is necessary for you to have a place where you will store the IGM's you often send. Ideal place is exactly a Notepad or a google document.

For the end, I hope that eRepublik team will also make an effort and that the simple commands for composing better IGM's will one day be a part of the editor for creating new messages. Until then, we can only hope that someone, maybe even a eCroatian player PeeKaBooh who made an excellent tool Erepublik PLUS, will insert this kind of editor in his accessory to eRepublik or you'll have to manage on your own with the commands I tried to explain this time...

Until then, greetins from
Lipec aka "Sr. Bin"