Topic: New plugin: BuddyPress Identicons

New plugin: BuddyPress Identicons

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

BuddyPress Identicons automatically replaces default avatars with Github-style identicons. The example shown below is based on my own username henrywright. Each member’s username being different ensures a huge number of unique identicons. Also, images are stored locally to speed things up.

Hope you enjoy!

https://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress-identicons/

Viewing 25 replies - 1 through 25 (of 29 total)

1 2 →

bp-help
Participant

@bphelp

9 years, 9 months ago

@henrywright
Great job!
I installed the plugin and it works a treat and left a 5 star review. Congratulations!

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

Thanks @bphelp, that’s awesome! Glad you enjoy 😀

rosyteddy
Participant

@rosyteddy

9 years, 9 months ago

Very cool. The readme has an useful FAQ too. Thanks a lot. Recommended!

Please add it to https://buddypress.org/extend/plugins/
rosyteddy
Participant

@rosyteddy

9 years, 9 months ago
The readme says: To remove the border, paste the following into your functions.php file:
```
add_action( 'wp_print_styles', 'bp_identicons_deregister_style', 100 );

function bp_identicons_deregister_style() {
	wp_deregister_style( 'buddypress-identicons' );
}
```
This can also be done by just changing the padding value in the css
```
.avatar {
	box-sizing: border-box;
	padding: 0px;
	background-color: #eee;
}
```
Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago
Hi @rosyteddy

Thanks for your kind words about the plugin. I’m glad you find it useful! 😀

Whilst you’re right that you can change the CSS, I just wanted to point of that any changes you make to plugins/buddypress-identicons/css/style.css will be overwritten when you download plugin updates.

If you want to apply your own CSS, override the plugin’s styles by adding the following to your theme’s stylesheet. That way you won’t lose anything going forward.
```
.avatar {
    // Your CSS here.
}
```
rosyteddy
Participant

@rosyteddy

9 years, 9 months ago

Yes, I should have done that / should do that :

If you want to apply your own CSS, override the plugin’s styles by adding the following to your theme’s stylesheet. That way you won’t lose anything going forward.

Thanks. Why it has not been added to the BP plugin page? Please add.

PS : Just now saw it has been added. Thanks.

mcpeanut
Participant

@mcpeanut

9 years, 9 months ago

@henrywright Nice one bro, Even though i probs wont use it congrats on your plugin m8, I see the feedback is positive so far, so well done 🙂

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

Thanks @mcpeanut! It’s my first plugin so your feedback means a lot 😀

mcpeanut
Participant

@mcpeanut

9 years, 9 months ago

@henrywright i tell you what i will install it on a test website and have a look at it in action and leave you a review later bud, 🙂

peter-hamilton
Participant

@peter-hamilton

9 years, 9 months ago

Somehow no identicons and all avatars blank after install, although I am running a lot of plugin so conflict is almost unavoidable.

I will dig a bit into the code and try to find which function conflicts with the plugin cause it sounds like a great one, and under 10kb makes (could make) it even better.

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

Thanks @peter-hamilton, looking forward to hearing what you find. I’m testing on BP 2.2.1, WP 4.1, no plugins activated (aside from BP) and Twenty Fifteen theme and things are working so it’s more than likely there’s a plugin conflict somewhere.

Hopefully we’ll be able to resolve the problem.

danbp
Participant

@danbp

9 years, 9 months ago

@henrywright,

good idea really.
I have same issue as @peter-hamilton
Local single install, WP 4.1.1, 2012, php 5.5.12 with only BP 2.2, bbPress and bp-default-data

Admin use gmail, and also all dummy users created with BDD plugin.

– first time i activated BI, all users showed the mystery man. And plugin works, as i see the border.
– changed profile photo of admin: custom picture appeared.
– removed the picture: identicon appeared on the admin account.
-tried to do same thing with a dummy user. Nothing happened.
– create a new user from back office, with gmail address, identicon showed up
– all other dummy users comes with mystery man.

– manually created a identicons folder in /uploads/

– modified all dummy user mail address. Mystery man still showing.
– applied a custom picture to one, ok, then removed. Mystery man again.

– tried global settings to “empty avatar”. Nada ! Reverted to default MM setting and still no identicon.

By default, members that haven’t uploaded a profile photo are given a mystery-man avatar. This BuddyPress plugin automatically replaces default avatars.

BI seems to work only for newly users, with a big exception for the site admin.
gmail icon has no priority, even if it is not a “default” picture.

But it is not uploaded, which may probably be the logical disturbing point of this issue ?

On a dev site, using this plugin would really help to avoid calling an external avatar service.
Would also be true for a prod site, where specially gravatars are mentionned to be optimized as they slow down page speed.

Implementing some options to the existing WP avatar settings to allow/disallow gravatar, gmail, etc , or to let BI playing alone OR aside existing settings, would be a huge improvement.

😀

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

Hey @danbp

Thanks for the feedback. Before I answer your question, I just want to point you to question 4 in the plugin’s FAQ

Why is it that some members don’t have an identicon?
An identicon is used as a member’s avatar only if a profile photo hasn’t been uploaded. After activating the plugin, all new members will be allocated an identicon. Existing members will need to log in to get their identicon.

The reason existing users have to log in to get their identicon is simple. Imagine if a site had 100,000 existing users. At the point the website owner activated the plugin, there’s no way 100,000 fresh identicons could be created. It’d crash their server immediately. I needed a way of staggering the creation of identicons for existing users. The approach I decided on was to create existing user’s identicons on their next login.

Now, to answer your questions 😀

– first time i activated BI, all users showed the mystery man. And plugin works, as i see the border.

Great! That’s expected.

– changed profile photo of admin: custom picture appeared.
– removed the picture: identicon appeared on the admin account.
-tried to do same thing with a dummy user. Nothing happened.

The reason nothing happened for the dummy user is because you’re still logged in as admin. You will need to log in as the dummy user for his/her identicon to be created.

– create a new user from back office, with gmail address, identicon showed up

Great, that’s a new user created. Identicons are created for all new users so that’s expected.

– manually created a identicons folder in /uploads/

There’s no need to manually create folders. The plugin takes care of that for you automatically 🙂

– modified all dummy user mail address. Mystery man still showing.
– applied a custom picture to one, ok, then removed. Mystery man again.

Again, if you’re doing this logged in as admin, then nothing will happen. The actual dummy user will need to log-in in order for their identicon to be created.

– tried global settings to “empty avatar”. Nada ! Reverted to default MM setting and still no identicon.

Global settings aren’t taken into account by design. If you want to disable identicons, simply disable the plugin. Want them back? Re-enable it 🙂

On a dev site, using this plugin would really help to avoid calling an external avatar service.
Would also be true for a prod site, where specially gravatars are mentionned to be optimized as they slow down page speed.

That was one of the driving factors behind creating the plugin. The beauty of it (in my opinion) is there’s no need to make requests to an external service. Everything is stored locally which should improve page load speed.

Hope this info helps to clear up any confusion. If you need any more info then just give me a shout, and feel free to open a support ticket on the plugin’s forum if you find a bug.

danbp
Participant

@danbp

9 years, 9 months ago

Merci @henrywrigth for these explanation. 😉 You know now that i never read faq’s 👿 and i learned that BI is a nothing or all plugin.
In fact i read the faq, but haven’t remembered that point during my ~~very~~ nightly test…

Great work anyway !

danbp
Participant

@danbp

9 years, 9 months ago

Hi @bphelp, @rosyteddy, @peter-hamilton, @mcpeanut

think about to vote for this plugin. 😉

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

@danbp

You know now that i never read faq’s

Hehe 😀

A little secret of mine (neither do I very often 😉 )

bp-help
Participant

@bphelp

9 years, 9 months ago

Hi @danbp and @henrywright
When I used to have my plugins up on the repo I started writing in the description to “Please read the F.A.Q before installing this plugin” That helped a lot with support requests that were unnecessary. I followed my own advice when I installed Henry’s plugin and I knew the behavior to expect and therefor I didn’t have any issues. The plugin is pretty handy for development and earned my 5 star vote. Thanks again guys!

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

Hi @bphelp

I must admit the FAQ is a little tucked-away out of sight. So i’ll take your advice and add something to the description tab which is in full view for everyone to see.

rosyteddy
Participant

@rosyteddy

9 years, 9 months ago

@henrywright @danbp I think I already voted for this 🙂

@henrywright if you are accepting plugin *ideas* I will suggest a small thing. But first my apologies for using this thread. Feel free to delete.
Here goes:
Please see https://wordpress.org/plugins/ls-buddypress-activity-plus-tabs-extension/
This does it for the Groups only, can you please use the code to do it for the member profile page, that is, an Images tab on the member profile. Thanks.

danbp
Participant

@danbp

9 years, 9 months ago

Hi all,

star rating is nice for author’s ego. Telling IT WORKS with version XX is good for the plugin itself ! 😉

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

@danbp all constructive feedback is very welcome. Feedback that highlights areas that are in need of improvement or bug reports help to improve the plugin in the long run 🙂

peter-hamilton
Participant

@peter-hamilton

9 years, 9 months ago

I joint the list of non-faqqers, from now on I will be the mother-faqqer that reeds the faq out of all faq’s

Installed your plugin again and logged out, logged in with demo account…removed existing Avatar…and voila, my identicon is created and in place.

Only had to change the 10px padding that made all avatars and identicons tiny.

I will go and give the 5 stars it deserves, thanks @henrywright

See it in action here

Peter Hamilton

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

@peter-hamilton

Really cool to see the plugin in action and thanks for the review on wordpress.org! 🙂

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 9 months ago

@rosyteddy thanks for the idea. I’ve got my hands full at the moment but try opening a topic on the BuddyPress Ideas forum. There may be a developer looking to take up the challenge

Henry Wright
Moderator

@henrywright

9 years, 8 months ago

Hey @bphelp @rosyteddy @peter-hamilton @danbp and @mcpeanut

In version 1.0.2, I’ve addressed the problem of the mystery-man displaying for existing users when the plugin is first activated. There’s now no need to wait until their next login to get their identicon. Identicons are available for display for everyone when needed.