Avatar selection

[TosaInu]

:eyepop: didn't even know such thing was here, lol. Must be 12 meg of images.

[Craterus]

Todl you you would get there soon. Congratulations on your 400th post.

Thanks, I was quicker than I thought.

One word of warning though: it's an image heavy page.

Loaded pretty quickly for me!

[Navaros]

Uploading avatars is currently not possible at all due to this server configuration.
I don't know whether I can make a custom avatar skin for this board.
Dropping the increasing pool system and making all avatars available at once is possible. Just agree about it.

i really hope you get that working. that is by far the coolest avatar feature to have. but once it's working you should make it so that one needs 1000 posts or more to choose a custom avatar just so they don't become an epidemic

[therother]

i really hope you get that working. that is by far the coolest avatar feature to have. but once it's working you should make it so that one needs 1000 posts or more to choose a custom avatar just so they don't become an epidemic

I agree that custom avatars are nice addition to a site. I had a quick gander over at the vBulletin modification forums to see if anything over there would help. It seems that someone did attempt a off-board custom avatar hack for v3, but it apparently ran into problems. There doesn't seem, despite a fair bit of interest, to be a follow up attempt.

I suppose it's possible that someone will release a hack to do the trick, Jelsoft will add the functionality in a new version (plenty of other boards already have it), or the host will allow uploads. So all is not lost.

[player1]

Ugh...
I need over 500 posts, just to get Roman soliders.

That's way unfair.


P.S.
Hmm...
Maybe I'll take some pikemen for 250 post.

[caravel]

vBulletin doesn't seem to support outside linked avatars, so it's a rather moot point.

phpBB supports outside linked avatars, so does YaBB, and so does Vbulletin. I know because I've set up all those types of boards many times. Outside linked avatars have been disabled on this board, simple that. As to the reason... well that's anyones guess.

[TosaInu]

It seems to be yes and no Beorhtwulf.

vBulletin supports outside avatars, but not just like that (it doesn't just store the url). Instead it uploads the image to this server. And uploading files is not possible with the PHP settings made by the host.

We'll need to modify code to do real external linking.

When we'll manage to do that, it will become like the skin system we had on Ikonboard for the simple reason that several users voiced their preference for internal avatars and a ranking system.

[Byzantine Prince]

Well can everyone above postcount like 2,000 have a custom avatar uploaded? There's not to many of them lying around.

[caravel]

Avatar Options

* Admin Defined Avatars
* Custom Avatars - upload from your own computer or specify a URL

The hack you referred to is to stop the user avatars uploading to the db, (user bandwidth protection) the hack makes it like any other board and shows the direct link to the avatar not a php script.

http://www.vbulletin.com/features.php

[TosaInu]

this happens when you try to link to an URL. Profile pictures have the same problem.

I'm interested in the hack.

[therother]

Tosa, welcome to the club of the avatarless, even if you are only passing through!

Edit: Yes, the primary purpose of the unfinished hack I mentioned was to conserve the bandwidth of the forum – it replaces remote avatar upload, with remote avatar linking. I installed the v2 version a while back for a friend for just this reason. The reason why it would be useful here, as TosaInu points out, is that the host does not allow uploads to this server: both the methods you highlight are just different ways of uploading the avatar to be stored locally on the server.

The default vBulletin custom avatar system, by design, does not allow remotely linked avatars. This allows a forum administrator to control the dimension and file size of every avatar on the board. I think we'd all like it if signature pictures had a similar option (such as this hack) as it would make enforcing the current restrictions much easier. Unfortunately, we can't have that hack, for exactly the same reason as the custom avatar system doesn't work.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

I had some time to look at this custom avatar for a skin. The basic things that have to be done are so simple that I'ld hardly call it a hack. There are a few things to sort first though.

-First, it's going to be used on a new skin, people who like the theme skins will still be able to do so. Which skin is going to be used to start this?

-Two, in the basic form it will be possible to use huge pictures (2,000 * 2,000 pixels and up). There's possibly a clumsy way to code in limits and use extra fields, but I prefer to keep it simple at this stage.

It seems to be possible to set just one fixed width and height (HTML) to prevent display of oversized pictures, but that takes away from the custom picture (any picture larger or smaller than the set size will be distorted).

So, it will be better to allow all sorts of sizes, but agree in advance about sizelimits to prevent topics looking bad or slowing down browsing too much. Consequences for people not abiding this (take away the toy) and maybe a limit when it can be used (give user a chance to know how it works).

Custom pictures also have to abide the forum rules of course.

I'm awaiting some feedback from the users.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

so can we?
And can I use my rommel avatar?

[Quietus]

Hi Tosa,

I'm not sure how this works. Can we upload our own avatar? And are everyone allowed to do so without deference to postcounts?

Also, the maximum allowable size is up to 2000x2000 pixel (and maybe even higher)?

If so, that great!!

edit: is that 200x200 pixels instead?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Woo Hoo I would be able to use my Sohei picture, or my Kenshin picture, but I would need an image editor to make it work...

[player1]

Wohooo!
I finaly got Hastati avatar!

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Kaiser of Arabia yes we can, it's not added yet to this board. Just to the board I use to see the effect of hacks/tweaks before they get added here.

I'ld guess Rommel is ok. He was 'just' a general, or am I wrong?

Quietus no, you can't upload your avatar as that is still not allowed by the PHP settings (vbulletins default url linking, uses file upload as well). What you can do, is enter the url to a picture, and it will be loaded from there and displayed here. Different details, but result for the user will be the same. So, you're right too.

The org has a hosting space for users custom avatars and a PHP script to upload them (different server, different PHP setting). Those scripts recently broke down and will have to be fixed though.

No, the point is that users could perform such things like uploading a 2,000 * 2,000 10 mb image and render the whole skin useless for other users.

Some members will use the system, and it's their free choice to use it, so I ask them for fair limits. Staff will only patrol to spot those who breach it in order to demolish the system for others or post pictures that (could) cause a big uproar (18+, vulgar, hateful).

So, it is possible to make a custom avatar (your choice: red firetruck, purple orchid, a general, a panzer, picture of yourself..) but to keep it working we need agreements from the users about max pixel and byte sizes, animations, sound and which skin will be used (it should be possible to make another option toggle in UserCP and use it with the current skins, but I'm not there yet). First things first.

[Togakure]

I like the idea of custom avatars.

I think it's important to make sure that custom avatars don't adversely affect performance for us 56K users, and also that they don't distort the dimensions of posts.

I have never liked the idea of the privilege to use special or custom avatars being linked to a patron's post count. This encourages spam. I have been a board member for a while now, and have contributed my fair share to the board, particularly to the Sword Dojo. Yet look at my post count--I refuse to make a habit of spamming just to get my postcount up.

Because custom avatars are so desireable by the younger, rowdier folks in particular, I think one way to leverage them is to use them as an incentive for gentlemanly behavior on the board. This doesn't require a judgement call up front--maybe once you become a regular member you can have a custom avatar. If you ever get a serious warning, your avatar would be suspended for a period of time, the worse the offense, the longer the time. This would be in addition to temporary banning etc. I think this would encourage good conduct a bit. Maybe it would be funny to make a special avatar for those who are "in jail" because they behaved badly, like a person in jail clothes or wearing a dunce cap or something like that .

I have mixed feelings about leaving it up to patrons to make sure the dimensions and file sizes of their avatars comply with forum standards. You've had problems with this regarding sigs in the past, and I think you will have problems with avatars too if you don't build in some automated controls. I think it's important to balance usability for the patrons with manageability for staff. If you don't think it wil be a problem to shut down custom avatars that exceed the standards before they mess up the experience of board users, then I'm fine with it. But if it's going to take days to correct abusers, then I think automated dimension and file size management would be better.

My two cents ... .

[therother]

Okay, I say that dimension limits should be encouraged to be around, but not significantly bigger than, the current size of avatars (about 50 by 70). So I think perhaps 100 by 100 is a fair upper limit, assuming it does not distort the formatting.

Current avatar image size is ~4.5KB. Current signature picture limit is a maximum of 10KB. So I propose that we should have a maximum image file size limit of 15KB. So you can have a 15KB avatar, but no signature picture, or a 15 KB signature picture, but no avatar (custom or system), and various combinations of the two (e.g. 10KB sig pic, 5KB avatar). This means that the overall download for narrowbanders will remain the same.

As for the other restrictions, I'd say no sound but gif animations should be fine as long as they are within the file size limit. IIRC, solypsist's custom avatar was animated.

[Quietus]

Tosa, thanks. This is awesome!

IMO, the rules of posting avatar should given to members as soon as it is determined. Perhaps, an announcement at the colosseum for current members and maybe another thread at the new members section.

This way, Togakure's concern is addressed right away and there are no ambivalence.

I also agree with therother's assertion of 100x100 pixels and 15 kb max (sounds reasonable enough).

[Epistolary Richard]

As Quietus has solicited opinions from the Colosseum, I'll venture mine. I like the fact that these forums have a consistent themed look and so I'm not in favour of custom avatars. They'll also make more work for the moderators, undoubtedly lead to disputes regarding inappropriate images and a slew of 'I can't get my avatar to work' threads.

That being said, I appreciate that posters who are active on several different forums would like to use the same picture across them all and that there are some brilliant custom avatars out there. I always have avatars switched off anyway.

[TosaInu]

It's a matter of choice now Epistolary Richard. I've been experimenting a bit, and one simply gets another toggle in view options (where the toggles for displaying avatars, signatures and pictures are). Toggle URL avatars and normal avatars on, and you'll see both images (there's a size limitation now to prevent huge pictures, but we'll have to find out which limits we'll use). Turn one or both off if you like that.

[TosaInu]

The question about which skin to apply it to is no longer valid, as it's pretty easy to apply it as option to any skin. There's a toggle in your UserCP Edit Options/Thread Display Options called DUA. Check that and you can see an URL avatar in my posts, together with my normal one. You can turn either on/off.

This option isn't available for you yet as we haven't set the limits right here, I just serve as example. It is using a box that provides room for a picture up to x00-x00 pixels, so the software will protect us from that side. A check for byte size won't be possible afaik. We'll also have to see whether we should display a default image for people having no image?

I'll wait for some more feedback to finish this.

There's something you can use right now though, and that was disabled for the same reasons: a profilepicture. UserCP/Edit Profile. It will display on your profilepage.

I apologise for holding this feature back for so long, if only I had seen this easy edit before

[therother]

The question about which skin to apply it to is no longer valid, as it's pretty easy to apply it as option to any skin. There's a toggle in your UserCP Edit Options/Thread Display Options called DUA. Check that and you can see an URL avatar in my posts, together with my normal one. You can turn either on/off.

I've been fiddling with it for a bit. I can see your url avatar in your profile, but only your usual system avatar with your posts.



I see the empty space whether I check the DUA box or not.

[TosaInu]

I'll go check this out.

[therother]

Been having a wee look at the source inbetween the "Tosa Urlavatar" comments, there seems to be a bit missing - the "" after img src is empty. Meaning no piccy.

I manually inserted http://www.mizus.com/hosted/TosaInu/TosaS.gif in there, and this is what it looks like:



Which looks excellent.

Edit: And it now looks perfect on the forums too.

Edit2: Just got the profile picture to work. To save confusion, follow Tosa's instructions, i.e. insert the url under the PP heading in the Additional Information section of your Edit Profile link. Don't use the now somewhat misleading Edit Profile Picture link!

[Admintestc3]

Disabled the normal Profile Picture link.

The " issue is strange. I could see the avatar when logged as TosaInu. I removed some stuff around it, it did look ok and the normal avatar uses it as well (link to profile and alt tag). Now it seems to work in Experimental. No idea why.

Right now I see a similar thing with your not selected default avatar. I'll have to see what changed this.

[TosaInu]

To say I understand it is claiming too much.

When you don't have a normal avatar it displays an empty image. It also does that when the urlavatar is empty. For some reason it can't pull that off when both are empty. It doesn't make any sense here either.

[TosaInu]

hmm the DUA option is doing something.

[Togakure]

Theother's rationale for dimension and filesize sounds good to me. End-user flexibility with limits that guarantee reasonable performance for "lowest common denominator" patrons .