Re-Sizing Avatars....

I've got a bunch of animated GIFs I'd like to ad as avatars.....

What I'm stumped at is where I might add CSS background-size: 100%; since some of these images are too big...

Perhaps I'm going about this wrong.

I figured I need to do something like this because If I bring them all into photoshop and resize them to 64 X 64, I think I'll break them :~

any ideas on how I should go about doing this little project?

Well.... I guess I found this---> http://toolson.net/GifResizer

That should get me by....hopefully I'll be able to do this project right

As you may know, Dolphin does not support animated gifs as avatars; at least not directly.  This may or may not be included in Dolphin 8 but since Dolphin 8 is a long ways out that is not a part of the equation anyway and it will probably not be in one's best interest to try and upgrade Dolphin 7 to Dolphin 8.

You can use animated gifs as avatars if you rename the animated gif extension to .jpg.  You create both the 32X32 and the 64X64 animated gifs, give them a name that Dolphin uses; which is 1001.jpg, 1001i.jpg, and upload to /modules/boonex/avatar/data/images; I think the i is the 32X32 avatar.  Most browsers do not use the extension to display the image, they look at the header of the file itself; which is why this will work.

Now, while some will curse and rant about animated gifs, members want them and we want our members to be happy.

It is time that the avatar module was rewritten to allow animated gifts; ImageMagick can resize animated gifs on the fly; so using it will allow one to be able to upload animated gifs and the module can resize them to the 32X32 and 64X64.

@ the mod developers; this modification would sell; my members are constantly asking about animated gifs for their avatars.

By the way, some of the versions of Photoshop will allow you to work with animated gifs, and resize them, and create your own.  I don't know which version this was first added to.

There are also the member owned avatars, I think the way I worked with that was to create an avatar, then I found the name it was given by the avatar module and over-wrote the file with the animated ones.  However, if you are going to provide some animated avatars that can be used by any member this is not an issue.

Yeah....I kinda wondered if I would get crap for wanting to something like this for my members, or actual answers on how to go about it......Go Figure, right?

I have Photoshop CS 5.5 I don't use it much, usually CS3 still.....So I'll give that a try, as this website I found for re-sizing is just too slow....I'd like to batch re-size or something.

And yeah- I do agree.....I think a mod for this would sell....I'd buy it anyway....It sure would beat the heck out of calling it a project.

Much Thanks geek_girl!

ughhhh Yeah...this is a big hassle even if I do pump out a boat load of correctly sized GIFs....

Once a person selects the Avatar they want, it gets converted to a jpg and moved to another folder where I have to manually replace with the GIF and re-name to jpg.....

That's just tooooooo much hassle

I have not played with site animated avatars.  I would think you choose from the list of site avatars it does not process them, they are already in the correct sizes.  I will take a look at this.  It should only do the conversion if they are creating the avatar.

OK, I told you wrong. site avatars are in /modules/boonex/avatar/data/ready and the i version does not exist.  So you are correct, it will rewrite the animated gif.

This goes back some time yet Boonex sees no need to address the problem.  Someone yells about apps, and I am sick of dmn apps, and they jump right on it as if anyone is going to be adding a blog post to your site with a dmn app.

 Yeah, that was kinda my thinking but that's what it did

I put them in the "Ready" folder as gifs.....deleted the # of jpg I wanted to remove (I figure I'll remove all the dolphin avatars they just too blah) and then changed the gif to that # with .jpg extension.

Then I went to avatars and found my animated image and selected it as one of my avatars....

Jumped out onto the site and there it was----No Animation....

Went to the data>images folder and there a new (different # .jpg- one with "i" and one without) and had to go through the same process as before but in that folder....ughhhh sux....

Oh Well....Perhaps someday a dev will lower their standards a bit and make nifty mod for this....LOL

Update.  OK, it copies the large 64x64 image, however, it creates the 32x32 i image.  The result is the large avatar will be animated but the small avatar will not be animated.  You would have to find the small avatar in /modules/boonex/avatar/data/images and replace it.

I rename them locally to .jpg and then uploaded the .jpg animated image to the /ready directory.  Cleared the cache, and yes, there is my animated image.  However, it has to create the smaller version and that one is not animated of course.

I think I kinda luck-out on the resizing thing....

I can upload the same 64X64 image and rename it to the "i" name.....

The way I've done my CSS, it automatically resizes the 64X64 image down to 100% 32X32 image....

That CSS I mentioned on the first post here---> background-size: 100%;

But still....it seems it wouldn't be THAT difficult for a dev to throw something together for the market here.

There just ain't no way to keep up with doing this manually for people with all we have on our plate as webmasters

OK, light bulb time.  We rewrite the code so that only one image is used, the 64X64.  Then instead of using the 32X32 i avatar, we have the code to resize the 64X64 avatar using css; presto, you can upload animated avatars for your members to use from the site's list of avatars and the 32X32 one will be animated as well.   The only thing is that they can not upload their own animated avatars they may find on the web or create in some programme.  The problem is that it may be a lot of work to rewrite where the 32X32 icon is used.

What is sad is that Dolphin should not be behind other social networking applications concerning animated avatars.

 yes ....The truth though---> I got a feeling images I put up as avatars to choose from will likely set there....

And now that I got an animated avatar of my wife up there, I'm sure the light bulbs are going to be going off in other member's head----

"HEY!!! I want to do that!" My community is the perfect example of people who WOULD prefer making animated GIFs of themselves I'll bet.

I'm sure I'll have a message or two before weeks end inquiring about her Avatar.

I don't mind helping them...but my web-time gets cut 80% within the next couple weeks I'm guessing...

"What is sad is that Dolphin should not be behind other social networking applications concerning animated avatars."

yeah...... huge sigh there too....It really bugs me---> Having a powerhouse and seeing wordpress pump-out apps and solutions like...well you know. ughhhh

I thought about having this as a "pay for the work" type thing for members to raise a bit of extra revenue for the site if the member had an animated gif they wanted to use.  My work would be to create the two sizes, upload them with a number, xxx.jpg, xxxi.jpg and then go into the database and set their avatar to that.  It is a lot of work for little return.

Maybe we can get a collective of coders here to work on the avatar module; then hand it back to the community as a free mod to replace the clunky avatar module that Boonex offers.

I'd like seeing a Unity like that

I'd pay $20.00 to allow animated gifs as a mod.

I dinked around in the code a bit and quite quickly was able to stop them being renamed to .JPG's.

I'm not good with imagemajik (however it's spelled) so, when they get resized they are flattened, however the original was left intact.

I am SO busy with work, I just don't have the time to jump in and "fix" it.

I was thinking of posting it in the jobs section and licensing it to the developer of the mod so the developer could sell it.

It's a $20.00 mod all day long if someone had a good (uninterrupted) 4 hours to do it.

Anybody want to take a stab at it?  PLEASE?

 I'll throw in $20

I saw a tutorial on the interweb that explained how to use ImageMagick to resize an animated gif.  I should be able to find it again.

convert Your.gif -coalesce temporary.gif 

then

convert -size <original size of Your.gif> temporary.gif -resize 30x30 small30.gif 

I found the tutorial I mentioned.  Since it is a bit long, I will just put the link to the tutorial.  I meant to look at the tutorial and then look at the avatar module to see if this method could be used to create the animated gifs used on the site; even if they have to have a .jpg extension.

http://lifetimedev.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-resize-animated-gif-without.html

Edit, the method they use does not require ImageMagick