It is important to take the time to customise your proxy’s header because a lot of your traffic will come from word-of-mouth referrals. By having a customised logo in your header, you effectively imprint your site’s name into the visitors’ memory, increasing the chances of them returning in the future or recommending the proxy to friends. This is sometimes referred to as ‘branding’ by large multinational companies, but is an effective and simple strategy for webmasters to implement whether they run just one proxy or hundreds.
Some of our proxies use a text header logo. Changing this text simply requires that you edit the configuration file to change the header text. Details of where you need to make edits will be found in the readme file included with the template.
Some of our proxies use a graphic as the header logo. In these instances it is necessary to edit the .psd file included in the compressed folder. A .psd file is an Adobe Photoshop format file, which preserves layers and formatting making it simple to change the header logo. If you do not have Photoshop installed, a free and open-source alternative is GIMP, which can edit .psd files.
Before editing the logo file you should first ensure that you have the necessary fonts installed on your system. The fonts used in the logo will be listed in the readme file, together with the URLs from where the fonts can be freely downloaded. To install, unpack the fonts (if compressed) then install as follows:
Windows users: Select ‘fonts’ from the ‘control panel’. Drag the new font file into the folder and follow any on-screen security prompts.
Mac OS X: Open the folder containing the downloaded font using ‘finder’. Select the font suitcase for the font you want to install. Drag the fonts into the fonts folder within the library folder.
It is recommended that for either install you close any applications (word processors or graphics editors) which allow font selection.
Once the fonts are installed you can then open and edit the .psd file using Photoshop, GIMP or other program capable of editing Photoshop files. Next select the appropriate text layer(s) and using the text tool you can edit the ‘yourproxy’ text to the name of your site. Also edit any other text layers (URL etc.) as appropriate.
Once you are finished simply save the file. Once the file is saved in .psd format you should also select the ‘save as’ option to overwrite the logo.gif file (or whatever the logo is named in your template). You will be prompted that you are saving over an existing file, that’s okay, select yes to continue.
That’s it! This simple edit will take only a couple of minutes but will ensure that your site is more memorable and looks more professional to your visitors.
If, despite your best efforts, you are unable to make the changes to the logo please see our services page where we will gladly make the necessary edits for a nominal fee.