MSN TV - Customizing Your Emails
~ Part 5 ~ COLORS
So, you've mastered the technique of installing pre-made email signatures, and now you want to try to personalize your own sigs. Ok, this is where it all begins. (This is your LUCKY DAY, if you happen to be using a black & white TV...you can skip this section!... take the day off...go fishing, bike riding, shopping.)
With MSN TV, there are over 250 colors for you to choose from, that you can use for your email text, and the background of your email.
At the bottom of this page you'll find a menu with links to some color charts. You'll find that most of the color charts have the number symbol # followed by six numbers, or six letters, or a combination of six numbers AND letters. This color code is called the
HEXADECIMAL COLOR CODE.
I know you're curious, so, go ahead and take a look at those color charts at the bottom of this page CLICK HERE. You can use your "BACK" key to return here.
So, how do we get these colors into our emails? It's not that difficult. We just make a few of our own codes to place into our signature boxes. Do you faintly remember the term "HTML CODES" (from the pre-made email signature section)?
Now, we get to learn a little bit about the basics of HTML. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. This is a language that you can use (via HTML codes) to tell your browser where to go, what to do, and how to do it.
The technique involved with this process, is to place specific information or "commands" within brackets, which are referred to as tags. The left bracket is formed by using the "less than symbol" <<> key, and, the right bracket is formed by using the "greater than symbol" <>> key.
The first tag will always be the tag containing these letters...html...placed within brackets. This tag is referred to as the "opening HTML tag". OPENING ?...you ask. The opening HTML tag prepares your browser to accept a string of somewhat organized "commands". This is how the opening HTML tag should look:
<<>html>
The last tag (which is referred to as the "closing HTML tag") will always be the tag containing the backslash / symbol plus these letters...html...which are placed within brackets. The closing HTML tag tells your browser, that there are no more commands to execute. This is how the closing HTML tag should look:
/html>
Did you notice that the closing tag has a backslash / preceding the letters html ?
Did you also notice that the letters contained within the brackets, were not capitalized?
You did? You're very perceptive.
Now that we have an opening HTML TAG and a closing HTML TAG, we need to put a tag in between the two. Think of the two HTML TAGS as slices of bread, and we're rather hungry, so we want to put something of substance in this "e" sandwich. And the "substance" that we're working with on this page is COLOR.
The "substance" will be placed into a tag called the BODY TAG, which is contained within brackets, just as the HTML TAGS, and, there is an OPENING BODY TAG, and a CLOSING BODY TAG. The CLOSING BODY TAG is also preceded with a backslash / just as the CLOSING HTML TAG. These tags look like this:
OPENING BODY TAG
<<>body>
CLOSING BODY TAG
<<>/body>
Here is the order in which our HTML TAGS and BODY TAGS should be:
<<>html>
<<>body>
YOUR TEXT WILL GO HERE.
<<>/body>
<<>/html>
Now we're ready to select some colors for our email background and text. You can go to the color charts and choose whatever colors you want "to paint your wagon". I'm going to choose BLACK for my background (as I've done on this page), and for my text color, I'll choose WHITE. I'm also going to use the hexadecimal color codes. The hexadecimal color code for BLACK is #000000, and the hexadecimal color code for WHITE is #ffffff. Now I'll place these hexadecimal color codes into my OPENING BODY TAG. This is what my OPENING BODY TAG will look like with the background and text colors that I've chosen:
<<>body bgcolor="#000000" text="#ffffff">
Did you notice I shortened the word "background" to "bg"?
Did you notice there is a space between the word "body" and "bgcolor"?
Did you notice the 6 digit hexadecimal color codes are preceded with this symbol # ?
Did you notice the hexadecimal color codes are placed within quotes?
Did you notice there is a space between the first hexadecimal color code and the word "text"?
Here is how the completed coding should look:
<<>html<>>
<<>body bgcolor="#000000" text="#ffffff"<>>
YOUR TEXT WILL GO HERE.
<<>/body<>>
<<>/html<>>
We're good to go! All we need to do now, is to place the above code into our empty signature box. Do you remember how to empty your signature box? If not, CLICK HERE. All you have to do is write down this short code on a piece of paper, go to your email signature box, and type in the code just as you've written it. Do you remember how to get to your signature box? If not, go back to the pre-made email signature tutorial CLICK HERE. Review items 8 & 9 only to refresh your memory.
After you've finished typing the code into the signature box, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the word "done".
Then, once again, while at your "mail settings" page, go to the bottom of the page, and click the word "done".
Press your "mail" key to get to your "mail list".
Click the word "write" to see the "COLORFUL" results produced from your HTML code.