Customising your IPDb Account
Avatar, additional login methods, custom folders/fields, general settings, notifications
IPDb Support ES
Last Update 2 months ago
There are several ways you can personalise your account:
- adding a photo/avatar
- choosing a display name/alias
- adding additional login methods
- adding additional custom folders
- adding additional personal fields
- adding members to contacts
Adding an avatar/photo & choosing your display name/alias
LOCATION: SETTINGS screen (cog icon) > Account section
The badges at the bottom of the Account section are your very own achievements as an IPDb user. To see the top 10 in each category, click on the badges - see more here.
Selecting an Avatar/Display name
Details can be found here: Avatar/display name
You can either take a selfie (camera icon), upload a photo (gallery icon) or choose an emoji (smiley icon).
Personalising your IPDb account / general settings
The right-most icon (person with cog icon) will display the user settings dialogue below:
DISPLAY TAB
List view mode
You can decide how to display a list of puzzles from searches, etc. The default is cards, but if you show a different setting, the list will appear differently. You can try some until you find the one that suits you best.
Image preference
By default, IPDb is set up to show the first image uploaded for a specific puzzle record.
However, if you wish, you can modify this if you prefer to see either a the box, poster or puzzle images as default instead.
Many people prefer box images to display in the list and detail view, others prefer to see images of the finished puzzle instead. You can set your preference here. Naturally, images have to be categorised as box, poster or puzzle images for this to work.
Colour theme
Choose your favourite colour scheme for your IPDb App background.
Font
Choose your favourite font for text display.
Landscape mode
Allow IPDb to show the user interface in landscape mode when rotating the screen (predominantly for mobile phone / tablet users)
In IPDb, all puzzles can be tagged with image descriptors, and these tags are mainly used when searching for puzzles. As the tag list can be long, this list is not displayed in the puzzle record by default, but only visible after a click on the "more" link.
If you prefer to have them shown by default without having to click through, you can enable this option.
Completion Pop-up (Enable / Disable)
Each time you mark a puzzle as completed when creating a new puzzle record, a pop-up will, by default, give you the option to record the date and time (optional) taken to complete it. If this is of no interest to you, then you can disable the pop-up here.
IPDb Assistant
When adding puzzles to IPDb, the IPDb Assistant can facilitate prefilling a lot of the puzzle record fields for you by extracting information from your images (2 - 3 pic minimum for best results - box, side/back of box, completed puzzle).
The image scanning and extraction can add 10 or more seconds to the initial record creation process, and for this reason, initially you are asked if you want to use this feature or not.
If you can most often provide the 2 or 3 image required for the Assistant to prefill most of your record fields, you can enable that setting permanently (so that you won't be asked every time).f
However, if you find that most of the time you cannot provide the 2 or 3 images needed (in which case the Assistant can extract much), you can disable it, so that it won't ask you about the Assistant going forward, but this will result in you having to fill in as many fields as possible manually.
Remote File / Camera / Barcode Scanner selection
Many users choose to add puzzles to IPDb using their PC/Computer, as it gives them a bigger screen, keyboard and mouse. However, as a mobile device is often used to take the puzzle images or have previously taken pictures stored, they need to be able to be extracted from those devices. At the same time, you might want to scan the puzzle barcode instead of entering it manually.
- When the Remote File Selection feature is enabled, it allows you to choose photos directly from your mobile device.
- The Remote Camera Selection, when enabled, allows you to take new photos with your mobile phone whilst creating the puzzle record on your PC.
- The Remote Barcode Scanner feature, when enabled, allows you to use the camera on your mobile device to scan barcodes on the puzzle box whilst entering the puzzle via your PC.
NOTE - The above 3 features require you to have IPDb installed on both your PC and your mobile device to work.
DEVICE TAB
Network timeout
If you receive many network timeout errors, it usually indicates that you have a bad internet connection at that time, which delays the connection to the IPDb server.
When it times out regularly, you may wish to increase the time your device should wait before showing the timeout message, and see if that helps.
On-device barcode detection
Some devices have a native barcode detection method available, which IPDb will use by default. If that default selection is not giving good barcode scanning results, you can try the alternative method provided by IPDb. In most cases however, the default method will be best.
New File API
Some devices may offer a new modern way to select and save files depending on the latest device updates. If you do not like this method, you can disable it here and the standard legacy method will be used instead.
Whilst the new File API view will most likely give you more options, it is also a bit more complicated for some users.
ACCOUNT TAB
Flag
The flag is used in the IPDb puzzle games. You do not need to choose the flag of your country, there is also a limited number of alternative flags available to choose from.
Measurement system
You can decide whether you prefer 'inches' (fractions or decimal) or 'cms' as a unit of measurement for puzzle dimensions when viewing puzzles.
You can always choose which measurement to use when adding new puzzles (some brands only display them in a particular measurement that may not be your preference). However, later on when viewing the entries, this setting will determine what measurement you prefer and will convert the entered measurements to your preferred one.
Adding Additional Login Methods
Whilst one login method is usually enough for most people, we encourage you to register with at least 1 additional method.
Benefit: If one login method fails for whatever reason, you can still log in with any of your other login method(s). E.g. mobile phone registrations require an SMS notification each time to provide a login code, so this won't be a viable login option if you don't have your phone handy.
NOTE: It is important that if you decide to create an alternative login, it is necessary to make sure that you do so via the 'additional login' icon in your original account. This way, both login methods will log you into the same account, rather than creating 2 separate accounts.
See the instructions at the bottom of the following article: How to register as an IPDb member
The remaining 3 buttons are used if you need to change your email or you would like to log out or delete your account.
Adding Additional Personal Folders
LOCATION: FOLDERS screen
Whilst 6 standard folders are provided on the FOLDERS page (wishlist, puzzles submitted, puzzles completed and puzzles edited), you can create an additional 8 folders to arrange your puzzle collections, as you like.
Examples: To Be Completed/To Do, Specific Collections (favourite artist/brand), etc.
More information: Personal Folders
Adding Additional Personal Fields
LOCATION: SETTINGS screen (Cog icon) > Private Information section
Whilst each puzzle has all the standard puzzle fields for the IPDb database, you also have the option to add some fields of your own if you wish to keep track of more information about your puzzles.
Examples: Date bought/sold, Condition, Date completed, Purchase cost.
More information - Personal (private) fields
Adding Contacts
Are there regular contributors whose puzzle taste you like, or even existing puzzle friends whom you would want to follow?
Adding these individuals to your "Contacts" list will make it easier to see their submitted puzzles, or send them a quick message.
More information - Follow a member
Messages
Some app notifications come in the form of Messages. These may be notifications about someone adding information to one of your submitted puzzles, another member sending you an enquiry or direct feedback about puzzles submitted, general app notifications or member-direct messages.
All of these can be found in the Messages section of the SETTINGS page (Cog icon), and new messages received are usually indicated by a Red Dot on firstly the Cog icon, and then on the relevant notification sections once in the Message area.