Neurotic Stix Help

Here is some questionably helpful information about using Neurotic Stix Pro.

• Demo (YouTube Video)
• How to Create Stix
• How to Add Ready-Made Stix
• How to Use Stix in Messages
• How to Share Stix (on Social Media, Email, Etc.)
• How to Edit Stix
• How to Add Daily Stix from the Community
• How to Use the Widgets
  • General Info
  • Configuring a Widget
  • Tips When Using Neurotic Weather
  • Tips When Using the Library Widget
• How to Mark a Favorite
• How to Use Neurotic AI
• How to Organize Tabs
• Troubleshooting
• Privacy & Terms
• Contact

Demo

How to Create Stix

You can either create your custom stix from the app, or from within Messages. Either method will add custom stix to your library.

Create Stix From the App

From the Neurotic Stix Pro app, select the “Custom Stix” tab and pick a custom stix template.

You can now add your caption. Some stix also allow you to make a few customizations (like changing the frowny face to a smile or adding some hair).

Tap “Save” when you’re done.

Create Stix From Messages

You can also create custom stix directly from the Messages app. Select the Neurotic Stix pro sticker pack, scroll to the bottom of your library, and tap “Create Your Own Stix”. (If you don’t know how to access the sticker pack, see How to Use Stix in Messages.)

Then you’ll see the same interface for creating custom stix as you would from within the app.

How to Add Ready-Made Stix

For lazy folks, I’ve created over 30 “ready-made” stix that you can use without requiring any creativity on your part whatsoever. Just tap on your favorite ready-made stix and they’ll get added to your library… Pretty cool, I guess…

From the app, tap the “Ready-Made Stix” tab and tap on the stix you want to add to your library.

You can also add ready-made stix directly from the Messages app. Select the Neurotic Stix pro sticker pack, scroll to the bottom of your library, and tap “Add Ready-Made Stix”. (If you don’t know how to access the sticker pack, see How to Use Stix in Messages.)

Then you’ll see the same interface for adding ready-made stix as you would from within the app.

Hope you like my ready-made creations, which are filled with all of my low-self-esteem love.

How to Use Stix in Messages

It’s easy to create and share stix using the sticker pack from within the Messages app. First, launch Messages.

From within a conversation, select the plus button near the Messages text field.

Select “Stickers”.

Tap the Neurotic Stix Pro icon, and then select the sticker from your library.

At the bottom of your library, you’ll see buttons that allow you to create or add stickers directly from within Messages.

NOTE: The stix you create with the app and the stix you create with the sticker pack are part of the same library and you can access them from either spot.

How to Share Stix

You can share the stix in many different ways (beyond just from within Messages). For instance, you can post your creations on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, or in an email. Start by tapping the stix from the “My Stix” tab inside the Neurotic Stix Pro app:

You have a few choices for how you can share the stix.

You can share it from the Messages app or share it anywhere as a PNG or an animated GIF. (Keep in mind when sharing a GIF that some social media sites don’t animate GIFs when you upload them. They’ll still show the image—they just won’t animate.) You can even send it as a link to another Neurotic Stix user so they can add it to their Neurotic Stix library just by clicking a link.

If you share the sticker as a PNG or a GIF, the “share sheet” appears.

This screen looks different depending on what apps you have installed, but in general, the first section (1) is the “quick-share panel” and has some quick ways to share the sticker based on your recent activity.

The second section (2) contains other apps you can send this sticker to.

This is where you’ll see your social media apps, email, and a bunch of other things. This is a great way to create a post on Facebook, Instagram, or to create a new email.

This row (2) is configurable so if you don’t see what you want, scroll all the way to the right and configure it manually.

NOTE: The stuff in the second row typically only allows you to create a new thing (like a new comment or post or email), and doesn’t let you reply to a thing. If you want to reply to an existing comment or email, continue reading (about “Copy” and “Save Image”)…

The bottom section (3) contains a bunch of other useful actions.

For instance, you can select “Copy” to copy the stix to the clipboard or use “Save Image” to get the stix into your photo library.

Copy

Use “Copy” in order to “Paste” the sticker as a reply to an existing comment thread on Facebook or Instagram. Tap inside a text field (that accepts images) and a popup menu with “Paste” appears. (If the menu doesn’t appear, try tapping in the text field a second time.)

Save Image

Use “Save Image” to save the image to your photo library. Now you can get to the stix just like how you’d access any of your other photos.

How to Edit Stix

If you want to edit any of your existing stix, go to the “My Stix” tab and tap the “Edit” button at the top-right corner.

From here you can edit your stix library.

If you tap on a stix, the “Share & Edit” window appears. Scroll to the bottom and select an editing option.

• To change the stix contents (like the text), select “Edit Stix Contents”.
• To change the stix template that you’ve chosen, select “Change Stix Type”.
• To move the stix to a different location, select “Move to Top” or “Move to Bottom”.
• To delete a stix, select “Remove from Library”.

NOTE: You can’t change the stix contents or the stix type for ready-made stix. These options are only available for custom stix.

How to Add Daily Stix from the Community

Every day, you can see three questionable daily stix from the community in the “Community” tab.

One stix is for the “optimist”, one is for the “pessimist”, and one is just “weird”. (But don’t take these categories too seriously, they just roughly give you the gist of their tone.) Anyway, you can add any of them to your library or edit them a little bit before adding.

How to Use the Widgets

NOTE: Widgets require iOS 17 or later.

To add a widget, tap and hold anywhere on your home screen for a few seconds. When the apps start jiggling, tap the plus icon at the top of the screen.

Select Neurotic Stix from the list of widgets.

You can pick from various widget types:

• Neurotic Weather: View the local weather in one of several different layouts. Tap the widget to open the Neurotic Weather page, which is where you can update the location. See Tips When Using Neurotic Weather.
• Community Stix: Displays stix shared by the developer of this app. You can configure the mood of this widget: optimist, pessimist, weird, or random. Changes daily. Once placed on your home screen, tap the widget to have the option to add the stix-of-the-day to your library!
• Library Stix: Display random or favorite stix from your library. Configure this widget to show specific stix and to adjust the refresh frequency. See Tips When Using the Library Widget.
• Stix with Date: Shows the current date on a stix. You can configure which stix shows the date.
• Big Dumb Clock: Shows the current time, date, or day of the week. Not that amazing, but could be useful with iOS’s new StandBy feature.

Place your preferred widget wherever you want on your home screen. Can’t decide which widget to use? Use more than one!

You’ll see a refresh button at the bottom of any widget with a stix that can change from day to day. Just tap that button to refresh the stix. If you tap the widget anywhere else, it opens the Neurotic Stix app.

Configuring a Widget

If you want to configure a specific widget, tap and hold that widget, and then select “Edit Widget”.

From here, you can configure the widget. Each widget type has a slightly different configuration screen, but the settings should be pretty straightforward.

You can also configure some global widget settings from the Widgets Settings within the Neurotic Stix Pro app. Select the “More” tab and tap “Widget Settings”.

From this page, you can change the widget background colors and other global widget settings.

Tips When Using Neurotic Weather

Neurotic weather is one of the new features that subscribers can access from a widget and from the app. You can add the weather widget just like any other Neurotic Stix widget. There are many different widget layouts you can choose from when you configure the widget.

One unique quality of this widget is that when you tap on the widget, it opens the Neurotic Weather page from within the Neurotic Stix app. This page contains more weather info, lets you update the location, and also lets you share the current weather with another person or app.

The first time you add this widget, you’ll need to tap the widget to get location information.

After tapping the widget, the app opens and asks to search for your current location. You must allow the app to search for your location at least one time.

If you run into issues searching for your current location, make sure that the Location setting for the app (“Settings > NeuroticStix > Location”) is set to While Using the App. If it’s set correctly, you can try setting it to Never and then back to While Using the App.

Once you allow location information, the app won’t check the location again unless you explicitly ask it to update the location using the update location button. (This also means that the location won’t change just because you’re in a different location. You’ll need to explicitly select update location whenever you want the weather to reflect your new location.)

If you run into issues getting weather information, check that the device has a valid internet connection. Since the app uses Apple’s WeatherKit for weather information, you can also check Apple’s system status to ensure that the Weather service is online.

If you want to view the Neurotic Weather page while already within the app, go to the “More” tab and then select “Neurotic Weather”.

Tips When Using the Library Widget

The library widget shows stix from your library. When configuring the widget, the “Display” field lets you decide what to display. The “Frequency” field lets you decide how frequently the widget updates (if applicable).

The “Display” field allows you to display random stix from your library (“Randomize Library”), random stix that you favorited (“Randomize Favorites”), the first or last stix from your library (“First Stix”, “Last Stix”), or you can pick from any specific stix in your library.

How to Mark a Favorite

Your favorite stix can display on your widget if you’ve added a Library Widget to your home screen and then configured that widget to show your favorites.

To select a favorite, go to the Neurotic Stix Pro app and tap on any of the stix in your library. When the “Share & Edit” page appears, scroll to the bottom, and select “Favorite”.

You’ll know which stix are your favorites because they’ll have a heart at the bottom right.

To unfavorite a stix (not that you’d ever want to do that to your precious stix), tap the stix again and select “Unfavorite”.

How to Use Neurotic AI

Neurotic AI is an experimental feature that lets you use an AI provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini) to create neurotic stix for you.

But it takes a moment to set up. You’ll need to create an account with one of these providers and then create an API key with that provider (OpenAI key help, Anthropic key help, Gemini key help). In some cases, it’s free to set up an account and create a key; in some cases, you may need to add a small amount of money to a developer account for that provider.

All AI calls go through your developer account with your selected provider. You’re responsible for costs with this provider. A Neurotic AI request is typically under 1600 input tokens and under 350 output tokens. Check the per-token cost for your selected provider and model. By default, Neurotic Stix selects a cost-effective model, but you can change the model. At the time of publishing this page, the default OpenAI model is GPT-4o mini and with this model, it costs less than 1/20th of a penny per call. ALWAYS review billing information from your selected provider.

Once you have an API key, tap the “Neurotic AI” tab. From this tab, the settings allow you to select a provider and paste in the API key value.

Once you’ve saved your settings, you can start asking Neurotic AI to generate stix for you.

Each prompt results in about five suggested stix. You can add them as is to your library, or you can edit them before importing. Use the gear icon at the top right of the Neurotic AI page to experiment with different providers and different models to see which one you like the best.

How to Organize Tabs

You can organize your tabs by tapping the “More” tab from the tab bar.

If you tap on one of the tabs, you’ll go right to that tab. But you can also reorder the tabs by tapping and holding a tab and then moving it to your desired location. Just keep in mind that only the first four tabs show up in the tab bar (and the first tab has to be the “My Stix” tab). So make sure your favorite tabs are towards the top.

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Troubleshooting

I’m having trouble using Neurotic Weather.

Check out the tips above for using Neurotic Weather.

I can’t find a tab, or my tabs aren’t in the right order.

Check out how to organize tabs.

What happened to the Favorite Widget or the Random Widget?

The new “Library Widget” contains all the features of both the Favorite Widget and the Random Widget. You just may need to remove the old widget and add this new one. Sorry about the inconvenience. Check out the tips above for using the Library Widget.

My widget went blank!

Your widget may turn blank if there’s been a major app update that has affected the widget configuration. (Also, widgets require iOS 17 or later)

Oftentimes, restarting your device fixes the problem.

If that doesn’t work, remove the widget and add it back to the home screen.

Need help removing a widget? Check out these instructions from How-To Geek: How to Add and Remove Widgets from the Home Screen on iPhone.

Messages sticker pack shows a blank screen!

In some situations, just after you update the app from the App Store, the Neurotic Stix Pro sticker pack shows a blank screen in Messages.

Try to force close the Messages app.

When you relaunch Messages, the Neurotic Stix Pro sticker pack should be happy again and all your precious neurotic stickers are back.

Contact

If you actually want to contact the neurotic developer, use this half-baked form, or send him a message on Mastodon or Threads or Bluesky.

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