trying to make my own steam signature xml needed

[tonyt3rry]

Hi was wondering if anyone could help me out im trying to make my own steam custom signature from http://steamsigmaker.de/_editor

i like the one on my sig right now but find the fade isnt so good with some images i came up with a design was wondering if anyone could help me get it that way basicly id like to have the design where it pulls the image from the game and puts it behind where I make a transparent section eg the counter strike image in the example where I have put a shaddow on it and instead of fade its a line over so it will blend nice no matter what picture

I added the other details in for a example. I put the profile name in etc but my actual psd has transparent box for profile and rectange with the line for the right picture

 

[cypto]

Actually did this quite recently using PHP (as you can see below). I wouldn't be inclined to just make it for you as you would miss out on learning something new. Hadn't done any image processing in PHP before so it was good doing something new myself.

First of all however head over the the Steam API page and get a Steam API key.
http://steamcommunity.com/dev

You can use the public Json, XML file without a steam key however there is a rather constant delay between you doing something on steam and the data you read from being updated. With the API there is seconds between action -> update.

Here is the link to the public XML if you didn't want to make a steam API account/key

This is my steam account however change out "cypto" with either your steam ID or steam short URL (if you have set this up).
http://steamcommunity.com/id/cypto/?xml=1

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In terms of setup you are going to need a web server that will host your PHP code.

In theory what you are doing is generating a new .png image every time steam updates your data overwriting the old image. This image is then being fetched by the forum so it appears dynamic.

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I don't mind going over some of the more confusing parts of the code. Mainly making use of the Steam API.

You will need to load in your XML file from the steam API using this link along with your API key. (you can find this and more info on the steam API page)

$steamxml = simplexml_load_file('http://api.steampowered.com/ISteamUser/GetPlayerSummaries/v0001/?key=STEAM API KEY&format=xml');

You will then be using the image processing libraries in PHP to render your text/images onto the .png that is created every time something in your steam data changes.

Link to the PHP manual on image processing http://uk3.php.net/manual/en/book.image.php

For example the block of code that redraws which game I am currently playing or show that I am offline. $steamxml is the data we retrieved earlier from the API call.

$gameInfo = $steamxml->players->player->gameextrainfo;
if(!empty($gameInfo)) {
    $inGame = "and Playing ".$gameInfo;
} else if ($profileState == '0'){
    $inGame = "Last Online - ". $steamxml->players->player->lastlogoff;
}

And now for the image processing part that works along side the code above.

imagettftext($image, 10, 0, 85, 52, $white, $font, $inGame);

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That should give you a good head start for making a dynamic steam sig. Let me know how you get on.

 

[tonyt3rry]

Appreciate the help seems to confusing. Would it be possible to use some sort of free hosting service the site in my first post let's you use some of the api by letting you add stuff to it

 

[cypto]

Generally as you are running PHP code free hosting won't let you run scripts since it runs directly on the server and can be destructive.

x10 hosting is the only service I can think of that provides full PHP access however you would still need to write up PHP file to create the signature. Took a look into the Link in the first post however never used it so can't really help you there.

 

[tonyt3rry]

It let's you put all the code on the page just not sure how the image upload works for the base I've read some stuff that u have 2 images one black on the area or white where u want the transparency mask always wanted to know how to do it on android for theming