User icons provided by Gravatar
A couple of times it has been asked that people be able to upload user icons (avatars). I have always resisted until now, because MyChores is not a social networking site. However, today i happened upon Gravatar (globally recognised avatar) which allows you to associate an avatar with an email address, and then it will appear on any Gravatar-enabled site. Instead of uploading the same avatar to every site, you just put it once on Gravatar, and the other sites can find it there. Of course, if you want to change it at any time, there’s also only one place to change it!
Gravatar has recently been aquired by WordPress, so the future is looking bright! They are planning to include OpenID support in the near future too. I think we’re going to see a lot more sites accepting Gravatar soon, because it makes so much sense.
So if you want to add an avatar on MyChores, just sign up with Gravatar and add it there. It will come through automatically to MyChores, and you’ll have it ready for other Gravatar-enabled sites!
I must acknowledge Douglas F Shearer’s easy peasy Gravatar-enabling code! Thanks! :)
January 9th, 2008 at 4:54 am
I’ve actually created a Gravatar class if you click the link in my name. Loosely coupled and works like a dream - it also has a cache with an expiration date for the avatar - to save on loading times. It can merely load the avatar in locally.
Adam @ TalkPHP.com
January 9th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Nice work, well done! Is there anything like that for Ruby on Rails, do you know?