I've just enabled forum avatars to test them out. They're small 16x16 icons (similar to those that appear on Digg-style sites in comments) and limited to 2K to keep bandwidth down (as long as you optimize when saving from any image program, it'll be fine). You can upload your own by going to your My Account page. They'll appear within any forum posts you make and any comments.
Oh, and you made need to reload a page to get the new CSS file that makes them show up properly.
Please give it a try and post any thoughts.
Regards,
John
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I like it. A little bigger would be nice, maybe 24 x 24, but this works just fine!
" "
16x16 and no larger. Avatars are not the most important part of a forum and usually take away from the information. I'm sticking with 16px icons for now (there are lots of premade ones out there, too, due to sites like Digg using them as the standard and the fact that it's a standard icon size (like favicons for websites).
Since yours is not square, chop it square first and then shrink it.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Oh well better start Googling
Oh, and for future reference, please don't leave the comment itself blank. If anything, leave the subject blank and Drupal will fill it in for you. At some point later, I may ditch comment subjects and all of yours will show up as "" which looks silly.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Loved it. Using my own custom avatar right now (made originally on Inkscape, enhanced on GIMP).
EDIT: John, I see what you're doing. You're trying to make this forum more like the other existing forums. Don't do it. This is one of the most user friendly forums I ever seen (but maintain the avatars, and don't change nothing, unless allowing avatars from other sites/servers too, even on other sizes, then reshaping them to be 16x16; this wont eat the bandwidth
).
Blue is everything.
I'm trying to pick and choose the best features from around the web on both regular forum sites (using phpBB, etc) as well as Digg, Slashdot, etc. The goal is to make it as usable as possible so users can easily find the information they need and follow a conversation while still allowing folks to add some personalization, etc.
If I'd wanted it to work like a regular forum, I'd have either installed Simple Machines Forum (which has a Drupal connector) or used the flatforum module for Drupal, which allows it to look kinda like phpBB (flatforum example)... though it hasn't been updated for Drupal 5 properly, I could hack something for it.
So, I've added features piece by piece to improve functionality and usability. The theme has been refined over the years. I added in forum stats to the main forums page. Little things like that. I'm still going to add in homepage links next to names (at which point we can ditch them from sigs) and new sig css to make the sigs look different from post text and separate them from posts.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent.
EDIT: Darn. It's there anyway. OK. I'll do it, but I won't like it.
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
They're tiny.
Hmm... maybe I should hide them if a user doesn't have it set.
Thoughts anybody?
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I hate the gray silhouette. Make it look like you are on America's Most Wanted or something.
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
Make the default avatar the PortableApps logo.
And maintain the comments subject. I like to have a small resume on what is the comment about. Make the Subjects default the thread title, being able to change it. (don't forget that I only know very basic HTML and CSS and I have no clue on how to do this)
Blue is everything.
I feel better now. No Avatar.
I can't bend anyway, so I don't think it would have been right to have one.
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
...IF you are going to riff on Dana Carvey's George Bush (the first) impersonation, the proper spelling is as follows:
"Na Ga Da"!!!...
('not gonna do it')
"I don't hate cats...as long as they stay on the freeway, where they belong."
- Brad Stine
mauahauhauah
I recycled my Digg avatar. It's Carl from Caddyshack if ya can't tell.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
a touch small but that's the nature of icons
/s/ When life turns your dreams to dust, vacuum
I love it, but they might be a little too small. Better than none, though!
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
Haven't had time to set one yet, but will do so in a minute. It looks right at home too
However, it doesn't look right on the topics.
I think it should be on the right hand side (maybe a float) like the rest.I spoke before I reloaded the CSS as usualIf anyone wants to get rid of them, I'll do a section for your userContent.css (I think) later.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
John already took care of it.
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
If you want to hide the rest
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Nah. Don't need it. Just did not like the gray empty silhouettes.
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
Me likies. Touch of personalization but not gaudy. A jorb well done.
~Lurk~
avatar test until I can find my decent one!
took ah while to find something to put in there. I had to make one for scratch.
nice but small.
Never curse the alligator till you done cross the bridge.
Now that the avatars on the left near our names, the 16x16 size looks "right" to me.
Was there a change to the post layout too besides the avatars? Maybe that gray header thingy is new too or maybe I'm just seeing things. It IS early in the morning and I've only had about 3 sips of coffee so far.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
yay!! they look great but a bigger size would be more desireable.
Zoop
to appease some folks who love to see themselves, maybe on the page that has user info, it can be bigger.
Like maybe the default is 64*64, but it is scalled down to 16*16 on the threads.
That'd be my vote. If someone else will write that script for John/
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
It's called ImageMagick
(PHP library for graphics manipulation)
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
I'm tweaking it bit by bit. I added in a divider after the title/name and before the edit, reply buttons. I'm working on separating the sigs now (they'll appear in a smaller italic font below your post) and adding in homepage links.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
64x64 please???
In fact, I asked. John doesn't want to go bigger for bandwidth reasons.
It's a combination of bandwidth (don't want to force people to download 20 or 50 pics on a page that don't add to what they're looking for) and layout (large avatars may look cool to the person posting them, but they detract from the readability and usability of a page the same way ads do).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
This is probably an easy no, but can you have it so that when you're on their member profile, the picture shows up larger?
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Drupal expects to have only one size picture per user (defaulting to 85x85) to show up on the profile and in comments and all posts. So it's not something I can easily fix. I'd love to have the profile page be, say 48x48 or 96x96 and have it auto-generate a 16x16 for comments and forum posts... but you'd need a custom module for that. If someone can write one, I'd love to use it.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
instead of having it auto generate a 16x16 and use up cpu time, maybe just add a second image for just the profile page and let drupal use the default 16x16 everywhere else. I would think this would be easier and less resource intensive.
"Because they stand on a wall and say, 'Nothing is going to hurt you tonight. Not on my watch.'" (A Few Good Men)
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.(Albert Einstein)
As I said, Drupal only supports one picture per profile.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I got that, It was a suggestion if you or someone else were to write a custom module as you suggested. Or can a custom module not be written to add support for a second image?
"Because they stand on a wall and say, 'Nothing is going to hurt you tonight. Not on my watch.'" (A Few Good Men)
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.(Albert Einstein)
But it would be just as much work as creating one that did 16x16s of the submitted image (since Drupal automatically works with the installed image library and does thumbnailing of images anyway)... so it would make more sense to do that.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks for the addition John. I like the "little" personal touch.
"If knowledge can create problems, is it not through ignorance that we can solve them." -Isaac Asimov
If someone using dialup wants to save some bandwidth and speed up page loading use Firefox with Adblock Plus and add the following as a filter:
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
figured I'd throw my 2 cents in.
I think the Avatars are great, but have to agree they should be bigger.
24x24 or even better 32x32 but no bigger, have to agree with John on that point it would be a distraction and a waste of bandwidth.
"Because they stand on a wall and say, 'Nothing is going to hurt you tonight. Not on my watch.'" (A Few Good Men)
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.(Albert Einstein)
I agree.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
Get rid of the signatures separated underneath. It breaks backward compatibility and looks bad. (IMHO)
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
But if we can have at least 2/3 line it will be better, but 1 is fine, cause it looks more separated and not like part of your comment. But what about it posting twice? Well, lets see if this one does.
I agree with Ryan 100%. I think you should get rid of it, John. I wouldn't mind it so much if it were two or three lines, but one won't cut it for me.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
He's cleary working on it. As now I've seen one regular sig, and one new sig and three sigs in a box, two regular sigs in a box. Sigs on posts, and no sigs before posting.
Insane!
spoke too soon
Looks great now
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Me too. Also, I love this new look you have here, John. It keeps users from thinking it's part of the post.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
i know its not the right post but i missing on big thing, a "all post reading" button. is it possible to set this button???
greetz
NeoRame
Hell was full, so I came back!!!
Sorry for my lousy English!!!
not with Drupal.
That's a real shame!
Hell was full, so I came back!!!
Sorry for my lousy English!!!
Can we get the sig's to work on the main forum topic?
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan