[0ctavius]

You are right about the php versus gif thing. Some forums allow dynamic images, and some don't. There are ways to get around it though via HTACCESS or if you can't do that, you can use tinyurl.com to generate an image link. We had to do the same thing for a dynamic trillian plugin some guys and I were working on in the trillian plugin dev forums.

I am releasing version of my sig that doesn't use a database. Be aware this will mean that it has to load the soe page every time you refresh the image. This makes it take a few seconds to load depending on connection speed, and other factors. I will release a database version soon. FYI - this version is completely dynamic. It gets EVERYTHING about you from eq2players. This includes your guild name and id (which it then passes on to use in order to grab your guild rank from the roster page, and guild stats for the sig image). This means all you need is your player id, and it does the rest.

I almost released this with a minor bug though, so please watch for any others I might have missed. The bug I just fixed involved pulling up data on someone that was unguilded. It put some funny data into some of the arrays and displayed it on the image. Now I have it set up so that if you are unguilded, it will know, and it will use ------ for some of the values. It isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but the alternative was to create a different image depending on if you were guilded or not (which I may do soon anyway).

Those of you that are hoping to make your own image backgrounds, realize that it IS possible. I even added a theming capability so that you can make a yourname.png and a yourname.php in the iamge directory. Follow the format that the other similar php files have, and you will be fine. The php file stores placement data for the text, so you could theoretically customize where the text goes on your image as well (columns and rows). I may enhance this part further later as well.

As always, anyone wanting to modify my code, or add things, please let me know. Some of you may realize how much of a pain it can be if 4 or 5 people start releasing different versions of the same exact script. Letting me know your intended changes will allow me to integrate them into my own if it is something everyone wants, and make a single release...

and last but not least -- the link --
LINK UPDATED IN A LATER POST

P.S. I need people willing to provide mirrors for this. Possibly with the ability for me to upload. My site isn't really meant for mass downloading, so if the downloads and bandwidth start getting high, I may have to pull the file. Let me know if you would be willing to host this project. -- I may later release a full features website package that grabs everything you would ever need from eq2players to use on your own website. This would become a full blown project that would extend into when they start using xml feeds. I may or may not put this on sourceforge or somewhere similar. The database version uses a basically all the data you would need for a full blown roster. I know someone already has one out, but I can see this project becoming inclusive of a roster, player stats, signatures, and more...

UGH - time for bed...