Zikula Blog

good stuff
I like what you have done with avatars on the foerdefluesterer.de site. I wish I could see the forums in action, but I get the idea.

Avatars have always been a mostly ignored thing for me. I don't build a lot of community site and so I have never had to learn much about them.

I actually am working on a project right now that will require me to build avatars built into pages and would like to see what you did with the plugin, if you feel like sharing.

I think square avatars are here to stay and I don't mind. The web changes so frequently, maybe boxy is coming back soon? :)

overflow : hidden is a good stuff too
Concerning this, if you don't want to bother with GD and smarty modifier you can use the css property "overflow:hidden" and fix a hard coded width and height which will perhaps easier to do :)

overflow:hidden
@mumuri: That is not really the same - that way you can always only display the upper left corner of an image. I made good experience in cutting out the center of it.

overflow:hidden ... with background
@kaffeeringe : no you can play with background position in order to center it;

For instance
background : url(pic.gif) no-repeat 50% 50% ;

If you wan 'na try

here is a small and uggly sample
<style>

img{

overflow:hidden;
background :red url(http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=f74d41f8653c22203131e6669b6c8746&size=80&default=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.zikula.org%2Fthemes%2Fblog%2Fimages%2Fgravatar_80.jpg) no-repeat 50% 50% ;
width:30px;
display:block;
height:30px;
}
</style>

<img src="http://www.pezet.de/images/1-pixel-transparent.gif" />

Css can be quite good in this situation too

Simple Standards Promote Dynamic Variation
Calling the avatar is first, then displaying it can be at the discretion of the designer.

If there is a method to call the avatar of a user that can be made a simple standard, would that be in the API? If it is there, what modules are using it and which are not?

There might be subtle variations that use the API in a unique way, complying to the API, but are other than a "standard." We are dealing with abstracted layers, in the end the "thing" in common, is simple and easily conveyed. That simplicity could be the standard.

Working with the templates that come with the modules I have run into a few things you might recognize as standard. But heck many modules even on the admin side don't even have the most common of links in their menu, and that is the one that returns you to the main administration page/tab. As far as standards go, it seems that when the admin menu system came into being many developers dropped this common web standard of providing a link back to the prior index.

In an abstracted system such as we have, those basic standards are as important as ever. Those basic standards are a common courtesy. If they were a necessity, or mandatory some folks would even complain that the system was too rigid. So to be egalitarian and open, some of the simple basic parts of a web page have been considered optional.

Yea, I remember the various avatar implementations. I also see currently the method wickula, dizkus, crpVideo, myprofile, (to name a few popular modules directly,) all call the avatar differently. It is like they have all had to reinvent the wheel.

It shows there is a flexible and dynamic system, sure. It could also be interpreted as Raw Creativity. Wow!

But it is our lovable Rube Goldberg Machine, our kluge! At worst it could also be viewed as unguided, lacking direction, a failure to share a common purpose.

For a long time good template designers have masked the psychotic, or to be a bit nicer, the sociopath underpinnings with a spit polish. My sympathies go out to all who have found excellent workarounds and made do.

The Avatar module is not part of the core, but the avatar is a value/attribute of a very core module! The consideration this attribute is given is indicative of the system as a whole, neglect.

There is a proverb "The shoemaker's children go barefoot." Answers.com had a great summation of the meaning of this, "A skilled or knowledgeable person commonly neglects to give his own family the benefit of his expertise."

Neglect in our case is a failure to deliver the basic standards the API was created for in the first place. Reusable code snippets like calling the avatar. Unless it is pure obstinacy on the part of module creators to be terminally unique, there has to be a reason it gets implemented differently so often, this to the rest of the world is called awkwardness. It could just be the age of the API, (i would like to give it an excuse, the benefit of the doubt,) but I have to wonder if it is allowed to move forward in this awkwardness without any training/limits/standards are we doing it more harm than good?

Harm in the sense of trading the good will of the user base who have been holding out hope that there will be a coalescence from abstraction, that the pair of shoes you are making will fit them as though it was made for them, because it was made for them. Harm in the sense that the claims that end users don't understand all the cool stuff inside are just not the people who the system is suited for and they should find something more appropriate.

I am not a coder, I enjoy graphic design and layout, but I see the code calls. I see where one layers abstraction/job meets my own abstraction/job. I read posts I don't fully understand or are beyond my own personal needs as part of understanding the varieties of abstraction.

I recently spent a month and a half, maybe two months, working on a basic theme that tries to eliminate the variances from all available modules' user templates. I created a standard for myself across 79 modules, and I can admit it is no where near pretty or elegant or complete in and of itself, but it allowed me to develop a variation in just 2.5 days that is not too hard on the eyes.

Instead of having to tweek 79 sets of templates that I cannot trust to conform to a page, that I have to reach into at every turn of the road, I have 5 basic page layouts, and 3-5 style sheets depending on the layout. And I want to streamline it more! (yes I have seen blank theme and I like it too, but even with it you have to go touch all the module templates.) Some modules have a header, others don't. Some, the menu returns you to the modules index, others don't. Some let the category list push your content half way down the page, others implement breadcrumbs.

Yea, I have seen the changes in Avatar(s) - but I still don't get how it is easily called in the News module. Maybe, in the next version... :)

I love this thing...

How about adding your changes as a patch?

as I said I want to refine what I have done so far - maybe this summer - I am a bit shy about being in over my head too. I think the core team has been working on these things too, so I what I am doing could already have been done, I have not been working on the svn level, just in releases. I think I read Carston did a great deal on cleaning up CSS recently and that will change what I have done...

Maybe I have been working on my own too long...

some stuff
well, some good stuff..