Commenting: Text & Background Colors (Advanced) – Vampires: The Darkside

This article is continued from Commenting: Text & Background Colors (Basic)

Single colors and backgrounds are a fun way to spice up your messages, but did you know you can take your comment decorations even further? The VDS comments system supports multiple combinations of text and background colors. It's easier than it sounds!

Understanding the Plain-text Commands
Here's a quick overview of the plain-text commands that make your colors and backgrounds work. Learning this will help you make sense of combining your message decorations quickly and effectively.

{} - Curly Brackets (command)
The curly brackets signify that you're inputting a command. In this case, you're decorating text. The specifics of your command will go inside the brackets.

# - Pound (text color)
When the pound symbol is placed inside the curly brackets, you're telling VDS you're making a text color.

$ - Dollar sign (background color)
When the dollar sign is placed inside the curly brackets, you're telling VDS you're making a background color.

1 - 9 - Numbers (predefined choices)
Each number is equal to our pre-defined colors. When you follow the $ or # with a number, your command now has a specific, predefined text color or background color.

So all together:
{#1} Means your entering a command for a text color that's predefined as red.
{$1} Means you're entering a command for a background color that's predefined as red.

Placement
These commands only effect the text that follows them. The command must be placed in front of your word or sentence.

If you only write one word and place the command after the word, your decorations will not appear.

Starting and Finishing your Decorations
Now that you understand the signs and symbols, it's time to learn how to combine them together to make amazing text. In order to do this, you have to be sure to start and finish your decoration commands.

To start a sentence with red text, we know you just use {#1}. But to make your next sentence in blue, we first have to finish your first command. You can finish the command using {#}. This signifies that you're stopping the first command.

Once your first command is stopped, you can start another.

Here's an example of two different colored sentences:

Text command: {#1}This is a red sentence.{#}{#2}This is a blue sentence.{#}
Message result: This is a red sentence. This is a blue sentence.

You can take this even further by doing individual letters:

Text command: {#1}H{#}{#2}E{#}{#3}L{#}{#4}L{#}{#5}O{#}
Message result: HELLO

This same method also applies to background colors, but you must be sure you're finishing your decoration with the correct sign. Background colors close with {$}.

Mixing and Matching
You can mix and match multiple signs through your sentence you achieve some amazing decoration results.

In our HELLO example above, you could choose to have one or more background colors run behind it. Let's see the command for one pink background behind the same multicolored text as above:

{$9}{#1}H{#}{#2}E{#}{#3}L{#}{#4}L{#}{#5}O{#}{$}
Results in:

You could stop the pink background anywhere you like within the word by simply moving the {$} earlier in the word. Then you could add a whole new one with a new color choice. The options are virtually unlimited.

Add in Emotes to Take It Over the Top
Lets say you want to sprinkle hearts before and after the last HELLO example. Just add in the emote commands before and after!

{LUVERS}{LUVERS}{$9}{#1}H{#}{#2}E{#}{#3}L{#}{#4}L{#}{#5}O{#}{$}{LUVERS}{LUVERS}

Or stretch the background all the way through the hearts by moving the Start and Finish background commands.

{$9}{LUVERS}{LUVERS}{#1}H{#}{#2}E{#}{#3}L{#}{#4}L{#}{#5}O{#}{LUVERS}{LUVERS}{$}

Practice Makes Perfect
Once you get the hang of it, you'll be decorating your text with the best of them. You can use your own profile for a little practice! Don't want anyone else to see your practice messages? Just delete them from your profile page. It's a cinch!

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