Particle System Editing?

Soul

<div class="IPBDescription">a little trouble</div> Ok, I read greedo's particle system editing guide, I read it all. but when I make a sprite how it instructs you, then go in-game to edit the ps using the necissary commands to identify the ps, I press the toggleeditps button and it doesnt work. I tryed just typing toggleeditps in the console, and it worked. but then when I pressed ~ to get the console off, the bars dissapeared
also, when I followed the first instructions to put the sprite in plain and simple, only naming the particle system and checking the certain boxes described in the guide, the sprite didnt show. is this normal?

thanks for any help