Usercolors are colors and font styles you can add to your name on the boards. More specifically, they apply to any link to your profile. Your usercolors are shared with all other IGN++ users.

IGN provides their own usercolor option for Prime users, but it is more restrictive and you must pay for it.  IGN++'s usercolors override these.

How they work

Everybody's usercolors are stored on a server.  heyf00L manages the usercolor server - it's the same one IGNBQ uses.  When IGN++ starts up for the first time (and every 12 hours after that), it will fetch the list of everyone's usercolors from the server.  It uses this list of usercolors to give profile links their appropriate style.  You can click the "Refresh" button in the usercolor options to trigger this manually.  Beware of refreshing repeatedly - if you do so, you may be getting cached usercolor lists which aren't truly up-to-date.

When you want to change your usercolors, you change the inputs in the usercolor options to your liking, then click the "Post" button to send them to the usercolor server so other IGN++ users can see them.  Your local copy of the usercolor list is changed so that you can immediately see your colors.  However, other people won't see your usercolors until they perform a refresh themselves, automatically or not.  You can think of it like replying to a thread on the boards:  other people won't see your reply until they refresh the page.

After you've posted your usercolors, you will be able to fetch them and put them into your form with the "Get" button.  This is useful if you want to get your usercolors on a different browser or after losing your preferences somehow.  The server will remove inactive users from the main list after about a month, but your usercolors should always be available via the "Get" button.  If you get removed for inactivity, you can simply post your usercolors again to have them reinstated.

How to set your own

IGN++ provides six usercolor selection inputs in options under the Usercolors tab, which you can read about in more detail below.  Your selections will be shown in the preview to the right of the inputs.  Your username is determined by looking at the username you last used on the boards, so you should visit the boards at least once before trying to change your usercolors.  The color fields require a six-digit hexadecimal triplet.  You can leave them blank to use the default color.

When you're done changing your usercolors, just click the "Post" button so other IGN++ users can see them.  Remember, other users will need to refresh their usercolor list before they can see your changes.

Options

All usercolor options can be found under the Usercolors tab.  Note that there is a slight difference between using options like "Default" and "None".  Using "Default" means you don't want IGN++ to do anything to that particular option, while using "None" means you explicitly want IGN++ to enforce "None" for that option.  If IGN decided tomorrow that all links should have an overline by default, then your username would change to have an overline if you chose "Default" for Text Decoration, but not if your chose "None".

Text Color

The color of the text of your username.  Leave blank to use the default blue color.

Background Color

The color of the background of your username.  Leave blank to have no background.

Border Color

The color of the 1 pixel wide border around your username.  Leave blank to have no border.

Text Weight

The weight of the text of your username (bold or normal).  Leave as Default to have bold text.

Text Style

The style of the text of your username (italics or normal).  Leave as Default to have normal text.

Text Decoration

The decoration of the text of your username (overline, underline, strike, or none).  Leave as Default to have no decoration.

Apply Usercolors

Make usercolors visible on the boards.  If not enabled, you will not see any usercolors.  Note that, unlike other preferences, this one will be saved immediately after being changed.  This change will also be reflected immediately on any boards tabs you have open.