Hikari Unicornified Gravatars

Gravatar is a nice service, it allows us, as users, to define avatars related to our emails, and then those avatars are used everywhere we comment and participate, automatically.

 

But not everybody know or bother with Gravatars, and when we have a site we end up with a bunch of comments with the same default avatar, for every commenter that didn't register on Gravatar, or in anonymous comments.

 

Hikari Unicornified Gravatars lets us "unicornify" these avatars, providing some more colors to our beloved sites

 

 

 

Introduction

 

Hikari Unicornified Gravatars converts avatars from people that don't have a Gravatar, into customized unicorns.

 

Commenters that have their email registered in Gravatar service are kept with their original Gravatars. But people not registered in Gravatar, instead of having a default avatar that always look the same, are provided with a variety of unicorns avatars, that are related and specific to their email.

 

And those anonymous commenters that don't provide any email, they receive randomized unicorns avatars, which change on every page load!!

That's possible thanks to StackOverflow (http://meta NULL.stackoverflow NULL.com/questions/37328/my-godits-full-of-unicorns), which developed a Gravatar-compatible algorithm that generates unicorns avatars (http://blog NULL.gravatar NULL.com/2010/04/01/unicorn-gravatars-stack-overflow/) in place of standard Gravatar ones.

 

 

Features

 

• Works instantly on any place where Wordpress get_avatar() function is used
• Uses Unicornify (http://unicornify NULL.appspot NULL.com/use-it) service to grab unicornified avatars, the same way Gravatar works
• Emails registered in Gravatar service are not changed, and their Gravatar is preserved
• Emails not registered in Gravatar, instead of showing a default avatar, show a unicorn related to their specific email
• When email is not provided (generally in anonymous comments), random unicorns are used, which change on every page reload
• Of course, emails are preserved inside Wordpress and never sent outside of it, privacy FTW

 

 

ScreenShots

 

A commenter with ugly default avatar

Now he is unicornified!

Hikari Enhanced Comments widget, with a bunch of equal avatars

Now they are all different!

 

 

License

 

© Copyright Hikari (http://wordpress.Hikari.ws), 2010

If you want to redistribute this software, please leave a link to this post together with it and mention me as its author

Parts of this code are provided or based on ideas and/or code written by others

 

If you want to extend the plugin features, please contact me so I can add your work to my official release.

 

 

Download

 

You can follow Hikari Unicornified Gravatars updates and older versions at Wordpress.org Plugin Directory (http://wordpress NULL.org/extend/plugins/hikari-unicornified-gravatars/), or you can get the last version from the direct link hikari-unicornified-gravatars.zip (http://downloads NULL.wordpress NULL.org/plugin/hikari-unicornified-gravatars NULL.zip).

 

 

Donate

 

If you enjoy Hikari Unicornified Gravatars please consider a donation. You can do it through Paypal:

 

 

There are also several ways you can show your appreciation:

 

• blogging about it
• linking it from your site (without using rel=nofollow, and of course not obfuscating the link )
• browsing the site sidebars
• suggesting it to your friends
• visiting other posts thru the site and adding valuable comments
• saying thanks on comments
• offering codes that add new features
• etc, use your imagination

 

 

Installation

 

Hikari Unicornified Gravatars requires at least Wordpress 2.8 and PHP5 to work.

 

You can use the built in installer and upgrader, or you can install the plugin manually.

 

1. Download the zip file, upload it to your server and extract all its content to your /wp-content/plugins folder. Make sure the plugin has its own folder (for exemple /wp-content/plugins/hikari-unicornified-gravatar/).
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress admin page.
3. Go to your comments and see those ugly default gravatars being unicornified!

 

 

Upgrading and Uninstalling

 

I consider very ambiguous the way some plugins should be upgraded and the proper way of uninstalling them, so I believe I should explicitly explain it for my plugins.

I've made an article just to explain in full details which options we have to upgrade and uninstall our plugins and what happens with each option, and how it works with my plugins: Uninstalling my plugins.

 

For upgrading, simply delete it and follow installation setps again.

 

 

Support & Requests

 

If you want to request any new feature, leave a comment on this post explaining it with as many details as possible. I can't assure it will be added, but if it is viable, I like it AND have the time, I'll do my best.

 

If something seems to not be working and you need help, first read the FAQ and then leave a comment explaining what's happening. If you need to post a picture, please link it instead of using an img tag.

 

 

FAQ

 

1. Can I unicornify Gravatar-registered emails too?

   At the moment it's not possible, but in future versions this feature will be added

2. Can I replace unicorns into other types of avatars?

   Well, if somebody develop an equivalent Gravatar-compatible algorithm, then yes, it could be possible. In future versions I'm gonna allow changing the service URL, so that the plugin can be used elsewhere in case other services like this show up.

3. Can I add unicorns in other places other than comments?

   Sure, just use the get_avatar() (http://codex NULL.wordpress NULL.org/Function_Reference/get_avatar) Wordpress function anywhere you want, as you do normally!

 

 

Cangelog

 

• 0.00
  • First public release.

 

 

Known bugs

 

• none ATM

 

To-do stuff

 

Here are my ideas that I wish to implement in the future.

 

• Provide unicornified gravatars to Gravatar-registered emails too, with option to enable or disable it
• Create option to set default, customized, avatars to anonymous emails, that can be rotated randomly, other than unicorns
• Create option to make Gravatar-registered emails be unicornified on defined special dates

 

 

Thanks

 

Thanks to StackOverflow (http://meta NULL.stackoverflow NULL.com/questions/37328/my-godits-full-of-unicorns) for developing this unicornify service, I loved it!

Thanks to Gravatar, for providing an easy way to add our avatars to all sort of sites, without having to register on them.

Thanks to Wordpress designers, for its great, powerful and simple hooks system!!

 

And of course thanks to all of you that use my plugins, come to my sites and take something useful from it .

 

I dedicate Hikari Unicornified Gravatars to Ju, my beloved frient ^-^

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