Why does WordPress show generic Avatar that cannot be changed?

toddsdonald
(@toddsdonald)

14 years, 4 months ago

Trying to figure out how to upload an avatar to replace the generic gray one that comes with Word Press. I do not see anyway for me or my users to upload an avatar, (like you can at a forum), without using a half-baked plug-in, or going to some hokey third party site like gravatar to upload one that appears globally.

It is confusing to me why WordPress even shows an avatar if it cannot be changed by the end user… Dumb. You suppose this will be a future fix?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

Rev. Voodoo
(@rvoodoo)

14 years, 4 months ago

Because adding avatar upload support would bloat the code/core functionality of WordPress most likely. The purpose of plugins is to add specialized functions that not every, or even many users may want.

Gravatars may be hokey to you, but its easier for a lot of other people. Its widely supported, you don’t need extra code in the install, you don’t have to host the avatars on your server…..

thisisedie
(@thisisedie)

14 years, 4 months ago

toddsdonald

Go here http://www.gravatar.com/ and make an account. You upload your avatar there and then wherever you go on the web that uses gravatar (which is most places these days — wordpress is one of them) your avatar shows up, replacing the little gray guy. It goes by your email address. Pretty nifty.

@mercime
(@mercime)

14 years, 4 months ago

This plugin helps with avatars if users don’t want to use gravatar.com while also recognizing gravatar accounts.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-local-avatar/

Thread Starter toddsdonald
(@toddsdonald)

14 years, 4 months ago

Thanks Merci Me. The others simply don’t get it… It is not about ME. I am not building a website for ME, it is for OTHERS. As a web designer you cannot seriously expect your website visitors to go off of your website to go get an avatar account somewhere. That is just plain dumb.

buddha-trance
(@buddha-trance)

14 years, 4 months ago

I am also for the gravatar system, much better than uploading avatars on countless sites, and having to register in order to do it.

@toddsdonald – Maybe, what you are looking for, is a way to change the dull generic gray image being displayed when a user doesn’t have a gravatar, and use something that is more personalized to your site. I have done this. And it’s really easy to implement.

http://www.kremalicious.com/2008/12/how-to-set-a-custom-gravatar-image-in-wordpress-27/