Gnomz is a website allowing to anybody (and the others) to easily create and publish comics, and this, without even knowing how to hand a pen! With a good many of pre-existing characters and sceneries, you can produce as much comics as you want, about anything you like and you can e-mail them to your friends. Gnomz is also a community; you’ll quickly meet the local fauna and travel trough their own comics, you’ll be able to comment them, to take part to the message board, and even maybe, one of these days, to become a major author, appreciated and esteemed by crowds all around the world.

To register, you must specify a username and a password. Registration is free and only requires a valid e-mail address. Your e-mail won’t be, in no circumstances, communicate and neither the others members nor any commercial organisms will be in the position of “spamming” you.

In order to fully utilize the abilities of Gnomz, you must register as a member. Registration allows you to do the following:

• Make your own comics.
• Posts comments about other member’s comics.
• Participate to the message board.
• Send private messages to the members.
• Be listed on the site, so the users can read your comics in a few clicks.
• Take part to the Gnomz community!

If you forgot your password, click on the appropriate link in the identification space. This will bring up a page where you should enter your username and your registered email address, and your password will be automatically e-mailed to you immediately.

An avatar is a gnomz that graphically represents you on the site. It appears under each of your comments or your posts on the board.

Once registered, click on the link « My characters » in the member space. At the end of the page you’ll find a gnomz editor, which simply works by clicking on the little arrows around the naked character. In this way, you can custom your own gnomz, select it’s haircut, clothes, skin color and sexual gender. Name and save your creation then choose it in the rolling menu subtly titled « My avatar ».

Cookies are used on Gnomz to ease your navigation; they memorize your password so you don’t have to type it on each connection. In the case where you’d be sharing your computer with a bunch of misintentioned people like your near family or an east European group of spies, you may like to delete your cookies to avoid their intrusion in your gnomzian life. Here are the instructions (for Internet Explorer 5 on Windows):
Close all Internet Explorer windows.
1. Click the "Start" button.
2. Move up to "Find" and click "Files or Folders" from the menu that appears. In the new window that appears, in the "containing text" field, type “@Gnomz” and hit “Search”.
3. After it has finished searching, highlight all files and delete them (press the "delete" key).

Your cookies should now be removed.

What a pity! You’ve slipped trough a chaotic space warp portal and the only way you can come back to the English dimension of Gnomz is to click on the little union jack up-right your screen.

Tu es malencontreusement tombй dans une faille spatio-temporelle et ne peux rйintйgrer la dimension franзaise de Gnomz qu'en cliquant sur le petit drapeau bleu, blanc, rouge en haut а droite de l’йcran.

In the member space, click the “My comics” button. A window appears where all of your strips will soon be listed. Click then on the “Create a new comic” link in bold up on the page.
The comic creation formulary pops up. Title your comic, choose your characters, your set and fill the balloons. The commentary, if you choose to write one, will appear under the form of a blue box down in the strip you’re editing. To go on to the next box, click on « New box ».
When you finish, don’t forget to « Save » your comic. You can also « Visualize » it, the way your readers will see it, and finally “Publish” it to the eyes of the world, after chosen in which category it fits the best.
You can also « Send » your comic to your friends by e-mail. In this case, you must enter their addresses and write them a message explaining why they do find their so protected mailbox invaded by little pixies trying to be funny.

You should process the same way than to create an avatar. In the member space, click on « My characters » and custom your extras gnomz as you like. There’s no limit to the number of gnomz that you can make. Those will appear above the standards characters in the protagonists list of the comic editor.

It is possible to insert little pictures and bold, red or italic phrases in your strips and on the message board. The process is relatively simple; you just have to enclose your text with “tags”.
For a bold text, use [b] and [/b]. For an italic text, use the “i” tag. For a red text, use the “red” tag. You can combine several tags. If you type [b][i][red]Gnomz[/b][/i][/red] you will obtain Gnomz.
Don’t forget to carefully open and close your tags so they will be taken in count.
To consult the list of available pictures, click on the “Help” link at the upper side of the comic editor. It just takes to type their French denomination into brackets to insert them. So, typing [ampoule] integrates a bulb in your text, [coeur] inserts a heart, [bombe] a bomb, etc.

By clicking on “My comics” in the member space, you’ll access to the list of your contributions to the 8th art. On the right of each of your strip, you’ve got the choice between “Visualize”, “Edit”, “Publish” or “Delete” your comics.
If you click on the “Edit” button near one of your comics, you should modify anything you want: dialogues, sceneries, gnomz. You can also add or suppress boxes. The “Delete” button will suppress your strip. Take care, the suppression of a strip is definitive, you won’t be able to go back on your decision.
If you just want to forbid the access to one of your strips without losing it forever, it’s better to dispublish it. You can do this by clicking on the “Publish” button and choose “unpublished” in the rolling menu.

If this member is logged on Gnomz at the same time than you, its username appears on the right side of the site, under the member space. You just have to click on the username to look at its profile.
Otherwise, you can make a research by members. Click on the “Members” tab up on the screen. You’ll see the list of the last logged members and, down the list; you’ll find a research box where you should type the username you’re looking for.

To confess your flaming love, or your desperate hatred, to another member of the community, you can use the private messaging system of the site. Up on the member’s profile you want to reach, on the right of its avatar, there’s a “mail” icon that will open the messenger window. Then, write your message and click “Send”.
You can read your personal messages by clicking on “My mails” in the member space. The number in brackets shows how many unread correspondences are patiently waiting for you.

A message board is an open discussion space to which all members can participate. Unlikely to a chat, the discussion is not instantaneous, it goes trough a list of messages posted one after another by the members. To avoid anarchy, these messages are posted in thematic “threads” (example: “what do you think of grouchobeer’s comics?”), to which members may answer.

The Gnomz message board is a page on which the threads are chronologically classified, from up to down, according to the last post. This means that it’s enough to answer to a thread to move it at the head of the page, even if it’s several month old.

• To answer a thread, click on the one that interests you and go down the messages list. You’ll find a text box, in which you should write your answer, and some smilies to illustrate it. Once your message finished, click on “Reply” to publish it.
  
• To answer to a particular message in the progressing discussion, French members of Gnomz had made up a simple technique: each message composing a discussion being numerated from the first entry, you should indicate at the beginning of your answer the number of the message to which your answer. Example: if you answer to the fifth message on the list, type “5. [then your answer]”.
  
• To create a new thread and make the world participates to your existential wondering, return to the main page of the board and go down of it. You’ll find a “New topic” button. Find a title and write the first message.
• On the very left of the “New topic” button, there’s a research interface. Use it if your want to find only threads containing a specific word (or a username). The result of your search will appear under the form of a page presenting all the threads in which your word occurs.

Here you go! Lay on this message board, it’s yours !

So, would you regret something you said? Hmm. It’s simple to modify the content of your comments and messages on the board. For this, you just have to click on the “pencil” icon located under your interventions, on the left of your avatar. A little window pops up, allowing you to correct or transvestite your words. To delete your message, you must click on the “rubber” icon .

Since a few years, this technology (“Real Simple Syndication” but others denomination exist), when implanted on a website, produces an “RSS feed” which is, roughly, a regrouping of all the news on the page, real-time updated. Then, with an RSS reader or a news aggregator (easily and freely downloadable), any internaut can read quickly, without research, and in a unique window, all the RSS feeds he selected anywhere on the Web. On Gnomz, each author produces now an RSS feed. That allows you, if you have an RSS reader, to receive at home all your favourite comics in a simple click.

Once installed your RSS reader, you must select the authors whom you will receive comics :

1. Right-click the “RSS” icon in the member profile and choose « Copy the url of link » Or directly click on the icon and copy the feed address. An RSS address looks like the following, for “grouchobeer”, the RSS feed would be: http://ru.gnomz.com/comicrss-grouchobeer.xml
   
2. Paste the link in your RSS reader and receive the first box of your favourite comics at the time of their publication on the site. You just have to open you RSS reader to make appear the last productions of your beloved authors. This allows you to navigate in a customized mini-journal, updated in real time.

It’s simple. Send an email to Trelkax (webmaster of Gnomz) to ask him to add it in. The webmaster of Gnomz is very demanding about the esthetical quality of the site, so don’t be surprised if he rejects your propositions by lack of grace.

This blue bar indicates the ranking of the author, based on the rapport between the number of comics and the number of points obtained. The more your comics are read, the more your public enlarges, and the more your ranking will increase.

The url of Gnomz is http://www.gnomz.com.
For exigent users, Gnomz proposes a few banners (animated images). You will find them on the “Goodies” page. Paste the image in your Web editor, right-click on it and type the url. You’ll obtain a cutie little linking .gif !