Avatar maintenance

[Alex Hirsbrunner]

Hi Folks,

One problem that Ron and I have discovered during the migration to VBulletin is getting the user avatars for existing users to scale appropriately. Last night I ran a photoshop script to create 100 x 100 and 80 x 80 versions for all existing custom avatars, but I could not make them active, as simply replacing the images does not cause them to be resized, and as a result creates a new problem - big *and* ugly scaled up avatars.

As such, the only practical solution is to ask everyone to re-enter their custom avatars after we remove the existing ones. Before this happens however, we will publish a link to a page that contains all of the appropriately scaled avatars. This way if you don't have your original (or don't want to use photoshop to get a nice scaled down image) you can grab it directly off this page whenever you have time to re-add your avatar.

I'll post an update once I get the new page(s) added.

Best Regards,

Al H

[Ron Earp]

That is one nice logo, I really like that! We can make all avatars the same size, 100 or 80, whichever looks best. Thanks much for doing this, you're bringing a lot to the forum and I appreciate your expertise.

Ron

[Alex Hirsbrunner]

Hi Ron,

Thanks very much, glad to do it.

The group's avatars are now available for those of you that would like to reuse your old avatar:

100 x 100 pixel versions [temporarily removed, see below]

80 x 80 pixel versions [temporarily removed, see below]

Even if you don't want to reuse your old avatar, it's kind of cool to see them all on one page.

I will post instructions here on how to re-add your avatars after I delete the old avatars tomorrow (for the reasons described in the first post in this thread).

Best Regards,

Al

[Alex Hirsbrunner]

Hi Folks,

I'm noticing that the forum is running a bit slowly today, so I am going to move the group avatar pages over to another server. Since one click to these links ends up loading 300 plus images in one shop, and I have no idea what kind of hardware we are running on, better to be safe than sorry.

I'm going to remove the above links and move the images over tonight. I have not yet removed any original avatars, so you should notice no impact.

Best Regards,

Al

[Alex Hirsbrunner]

100 x 100 versions

80 x 80 versions

Regards,

Al

[Ron Earp]

Al did you delete current avatars out of directories thus forcing the re-uploading? In my quick estimation this has to be done for this to work since you delete everything all at once, thus getting rid of all the large ones, and folks have to re-upload.

Oppps, answered my own question, I have no avatar so I've got to re-upload. Thanks, good job!

R

[Ron Earp]

Guys, will those with big X's in your Avatars take time to upload the new ones that Al has put out there for you? I for one am sort of getting tired of viewing post with folks that have not corrected their avatars at this point. Al has done the hard work and re-sized it for you, all you need to do is:

*Go to his page with all the avatars, find yours
*Right click on yours, save it
*Go to your User CP, Edit Avatar, and upload yours

That is all there is to it. Al said give it a few more days, after that the users who have not/won't correct would simply be put into another user group with no avatars to correct the problem entirely.

Thanks,
Ron

[Bill D]

This is a test

[40 Bud]

OK, so i am stupid. Ron, were do I find this magic page of all the Avatars?

[Bill D]

Click on your Private Messages. On the left side you will see a bunch of stuff, like "Edit Avatars"

[Ron Earp]

Scroll up six posts and have a look at what Al wrote.

[Malcolm]

You know, if all these avatars were printed into a poster, it would be a cool poster for the garage, or you could use it as a dart board or something positive!

[Ron Earp]

Folks,

Please upload your new avatars. There are still some very large ones out there and I think I will be replacing these large ones with whatever pictures I can find - you don't want that! So, please, if you have not updated your avatar do so before tomorrow night when I go on a hunt!

Thanks,
Ron

[Marcus]

I keep trying but all I get when I´m uploading my avatar (8 KB) is either
"This is not a valid image file." or
"This BMP image has incorrect file extension."

What´s going wrong?

[Chris P.]

The file I'm trying to upload is an 80x72 pixel 17Kb .bmp. It says it is not a valid image file.

??????????????

[BenL]

Originally Posted by aero

The file I'm trying to upload is an 80x72 pixel 17Kb .bmp. It says it is not a valid image file.

Just a WAG, try converting the file to a JPG.

[Chris P.]

While you were writing your reply Ben, I had changed mine to a GIF and it worked. Thanks.

[BenL]

Originally Posted by Ron Earp

Please upload your new avatars. There are still some very large ones out there and I think I will be replacing these large ones with whatever pictures I can find - you don't want that!

If you want to make good on your threat, how about these: http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overl...te_pack_2.html (they're 50x50)

[Marcus]

Originally Posted by aero

While you were writing your reply Ben, I had changed mine to a GIF and it worked. Thanks.

Aaaaah, working now!