CVGM.net - Chiptune, Retro & Video Game Music

Welcome to CVGM!

This post is aimed at new users to the site (and maybe even those familiar with the site) as a guide to using the site. It goes over some of the various areas we have to offer, how to use them, and where you can go to do many different things You should read this post in it's entirety to make sure you don't miss something important!

New Users
Greetings! We hope you enjoy the site! As a new user there anre many things that you can do to get going on the site! The first thing you should do is Log In (if you didn't already do so) and Edit your Profile. Here you can set some important information about yourself. See further below for info on what the different fields mean.

New users can look in several areas to start looking for songs. If you already know some names of songs/authors, you can proceed straight to the Search page and type in partial searches. The results will be taken from songs, artists, groups, compilations and labels. From there, you can add the songs to the queue etc.

You could also look in the New Uploads section to see some of the latest tracks that have been uploaded to CVGM. If you're stuck for ideas on what to request, this is a good place to start looking.

And, there is also the Song/Artist/Label/Compilation pages directly. You can navigate through all of these pagtes, and their sub-links, finding stuff you want to listen to.

Talk in the OneLiner
The OneLiner is like a small chat tool, similar to Twitter where you can send simple messages to the website, and others can message back. Its normal for the Oneliner to be active all day. If you're new to the site, feel free to say 'Hi' in the window, you can also ask questions and so forth, and speak with other users/listeners directly.

There are several emoticons that you can use in the OneLiner, you can see all of the available one in OneLiner / Forum Smilies.

Underneath the OneLiner box is a 'Who's Online' box which will show you who has been active on the site within the last 5 minutes. It isn't updated in realtime, so don't be surprised if you see some people talking when they don't yet appear to be online!

How To Request Songs
Requesting songs is simple! Just click the green Request button () next to any song in the database. If the song has a lock symbol () next to it, this means it cannot be requested. You can see the reason why by going to the song page. If the time has not elapsed since it was last played, the details will tell you how long before the song becomes available to play again.

You can request any active song in any list, compilation, artist page or forum post, as long as it has the request icon and you have requests available. As of right now, you can request 6 songs at a time in the queue. As your songs play, you can keep adding new ones, as long as they don't exceed the limit. Remember to be considerate of others that are requesting too! If lots of people are requesting, wait for all of your reqs to finish before adding new ones!

You can also comment on songs! Simply visit the page of the song (by clicking on it's name) and leave a comment at the bottom for the author. You should also Vote on the tracks you hear, based on how you liked them. Click the appropriate star rating in the Now Playing section on the right, with the left star being 1 out of 5,m and the right star being 5 out of 5. You should always vote honestly! Voting on the tracks that you hear helps the database correctly measure the songs that people like the most.

Adding Songs To Your Favourite List
You can add any song in the database to your favourites list. There are a couple of ways that you can do it. The most popular is from the 'Now Playing' window. If you hear a track that you really like, click the heart with the green + in it () to instantly add it to your favourites. If you see a song with a heart with a red mark through it () you can click it to remove the song from your favourites.

You can view your favourites page at any time, by clicking My Favourites. Depending on your profile settings, you'll receive one long list, or several pages of your favourites. You can then request/remove/view any of the songs there.

Editing Your Profile
Editing your profile is the best way to get yourself noticed with different users. There are several different fields that can be edited, we'll go over them now to give you a hand with what they all mean! To see a live profile in action with most of these already active, you can look at My Profile for a real-world example.

Infoline - This is a short sentence that appears under your name. It can be a quote, a saying, or some other piece of information you want to display.

Visible To - Determines who can view your profile. Set this to All Users for anyone to see your profile, to Registered Users for only members of the site, or Noone to enable your profile to be invisible.

Website - If you have a website, enter the address here. The link will then appear on your profile, and on forum posts etc.

AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, Twitter - If you use any of these services, you can enter your usernames/numbers here. These will appear as icons under your picture for other users to see.

H.O.L ID - Amiga Only. If you have an artist entry on Hall of Light, you can enter the number here and it will be linked on your profile. This can be any artist type, such as musician or coder.

Country Code - Specify a lower case country code for your country of origin, in 2 letters. This will designate a flag on your name and profile. Example entries can be: gb (), ru (), se (), england (), wales (). If no flag is specified, or the flag code is wrong, the default flag will be used instead.

Hometown Location - City, state or province in which you are located.

Avatar - The avatar is an image that you can upload to the site to visually represent yourself. Can be any GIF/jpg/PNG/BMP image no bigger than 150x150 pixels in size. This will then appear on your profile, and forums/comment pages etc. above your name.

Profile Info - This is the text portion that gets shown in your profile. You can put a little bit about yourself in here, for other people to learn a little more about you. Full BBCode tags are supported here (see OneLiner / Forum Smilies for info on the available tags, icons and smileys you can use).

Fave SongID - If theres an all-time favourite song you have on the site, you can put it's ID number (you can get it from the link, it's the numbers on the far right after /song/) in here. When someone views your profile, it'll show your song, along with a link to queue it!

Send Email On New PM - If checked, if you receive a private message on the site from another user, you'll be sent an email letting you know.

Send Email On Accepted Upload - If you upload music to the site, and wish to be notified when its approved, place a checkmark in this box. If you upload a lot of music and don't want your inbox to fill up with lots of notifications, you can uncheck this box.

Paginate Favourites - Determines if you want to view your list of favourite songs as one huge list (unchecked) or in pages that you can jump between (checked).

Custom CSS - An option for advanced users. Here you can link to an external CSS file which will be used instead of the site default. Handy if you want to modify the CSS to fit your own viewing needs a little better. Most people will never use this field.

Posting in the Forums
Posting in the Forums is easy! Simply navigate to the board you wish to post in, and fill out the online form at the bottom if the list. The same form will appear when replying to an existing thread. There is a checkbox that you can check, which will send you an email message if someone posts a reply to your post. These subscriptions can be manged at any time from the Subscriptions Menu in the main Forum list.

We hope that you enjoy your time on CVGM, don't be afraid to ask any questions

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