In-game Character Background Formatting

kallethen · May 2013

In Champions Online, when you set your character background, you can use some HTML tags to do some formatting to make it look all nice and neat. Otherwise, you just end up with a block of text without any breaks in it (even if you put blank lines after paragraphs and the like).

I noticed that character background text in Neverwinter also ended up being a big block of text too, so I thought I'd try out HTML tags and see if they work in NW as well. The answer is YES. So, if any of you want to make your character backgrounds in game nice looking, here are some HTML tags to use. I've tested all these tags and verify they worked for me (as far as I can see, it's mostly the same as CO):

Paragraphs - Enclosing paragraphs between a and a will separate them with an extra line space. Actually, this will also work if you just have the at the end of each paragraph.

Example) Paragraph text here. Next paragraph text here.

Line Breaks - The tag places a line break inbetween your text, but without an extra space like the paragraph tags above.

Example) One two. Buckle my shoe. Three four. Shut the door.

Bold - To make text in a bold font, place it between a and a .

Example) Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!

Italics - To make text in an italics font, place it between a and a .

Example) Is it me, or does italics text look like it's falling over?

Color - To make text colored, use a tag with a color attribute and close with . Color can be defined as either a valid HTML reference name (http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colornames.asp) or a RGB hex value like #FF00BB.

Example A) Look at me! I'm blue!
ExampleB) Oh yeah! I'm blue, too!

Unordered Lists - For lists, use <ul> and </ul> around the list, and <li> and </li> around each item in the list. Each item in the list will start a new like with an asterisk (*) as a bullet.

Example) <ul> <li>Thing 1</li> <li>Thing 2</li></ul>

Hyperlinks - THIS one surprised me. It sort of used to work in CO in that the hyperlink was accessible from the website character viewer (long since extinct), but not in game. IT WORKS IN GAME ON NEVERWINTER!!! See the example below for how to do it. Note: The hyperlink won't be differently colored, but will show an underline if you hover the mouse over it. I'd suggest pointing out there's a link if you use this.

Example) <a href="http://nw.perfectworld.com">I link back to NW. Redundant, no?</a>

Hopefully, we can get this stickied.

lesserthan3 · May 2013

Good job. I love when people actually do something with their curiosity. You've done science a service this day. And roleplayers too, I guess.

kallethen · May 2013

I've been trying out other HTML tags without success. I was hoping for the underline tag to work like bold and italics, but no dice. I'm pretty certain I've got listed all the tags that will work. Next I'll see if I can copy this information into the wiki because I doubt this thread will get stickied (and even if it does, the info should be added to the wiki anyways).

kallethen · June 2013

I am sad. The recent patch stripped out the ability to create hyperlinks in character histories.

Please fix this Cryptic!

beckylunatic · June 2013

I re-entered the background for my one character and it showed up when I went to recreate the history of another character as well. I'd kinda like to see that fixed, personally.

thulkoth · June 2013

Has anyone else had the problem of your history erasing? Everytime I log out my character history disappears. I've re-entered it liek 5 times now. Am I missing some "save" function?

powereddjinn · June 2013

thulkoth wrote: »

Has anyone else had the problem of your history erasing? Everytime I log out my character history disappears. I've re-entered it liek 5 times now. Am I missing some "save" function?

Reported as a bug - on the bug reports and email, but no responses yet!

kallethen · July 2013

FYI, the latest patch broke the HTML formatting capability. I hope they bring it back.

Also the cursor doesn't display where it actually is. On the plus side, saving your history does work.

kattefjaes · July 2013

kallethen wrote: »

I am sad. The recent patch stripped out the ability to create hyperlinks in character histories.

Please fix this Cryptic!

This is a very sensible move. The potential for mayhem and ownage of the unwary is reduced this way.

kallethen · July 2013

kattefjaes wrote: »

This is a very sensible move. The potential for mayhem and ownage of the unwary is reduced this way.

I suppose, though it was a nice thought that you could put a link to your character page from the NW Hall of Records site, or your guild's site, or such.

Honestly, I'll be happy if they at least restore the rest of the HTML functionality.

mytgroo · July 2013

My character history disappeared three times. It is the charm. Maybe they can put in an editor for formatting text. Hyperlinks could lead to unwanted advertising. I would be happy if the history section worked with a simple text editor.

deadmanswrath · July 2013

going to link and sticky this in my guilds website. Very nicely done and amazing information. Thank you for this.

danderously · July 2013

Yeah, we totally disabled the HTML in the character backgrounds. We found that most people didn't think to use the HTML-style tags to format their text, and they were frustrated by the "normal" line breaks and white space being removed. So, to help most of the users (who will never find this kick-*** post, alas) we went with the simple text display - it preserves line breaks and white space without any HTML-like syntax, removes potentially dangerous <a href> links, but removes the HTML tag formatting tricks from the power users.

Sorry about that, but it seemed like the right choice for the Greater Good (tm).

In-game Character Background Formatting

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