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Random idea: non-generic default avatars
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Arantor

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Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« on April 9th, 2012, 02:56 PM »
http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2008/12/instant-avatars

I think it might be cool to have this as an option, perhaps replacing an empty avatar by default. Not sure I want it in Wedge core but could be a neat plugin.

Of course, I'd probably rethink the distribution method slightly and have it be a setup whereby it would generate the avatars for users on the first call and thus make them stored thereafter.
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Norodo

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nolsilang

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Arantor

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #4, on April 9th, 2012, 04:39 PM »
What do you mean 'more library like this'? I just picked this up from the blog I linked. He has a bunch of quirky ideas but not quite so much in the way of actually shared code.

nolsilang

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #5, on April 9th, 2012, 04:48 PM »
Quote from Arantor on April 9th, 2012, 04:39 PM
What do you mean 'more library like this'? I just picked this up from the blog I linked. He has a bunch of quirky ideas but not quite so much in the way of actually shared code.
He shared not? What I mean, are there anything like this beside the standard(gravatar,identicon,monsterid). I liked the simple avatar.

Arantor

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Nao

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #7, on April 9th, 2012, 06:46 PM »
Saw your post on aaf. Was wondering if you'd suggest this for here. ;)
What is the license? I'm not on my pc.
We already have plenty of bsd or MIT code so as long as it's compatible...

Arantor

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #8, on April 9th, 2012, 07:08 PM »
There's no licence stated in the file itself, nor any stated on that page. Dominic's a pretty reasonable chap (as I know from discussing other licences with him in the past, as he's the guy who wrote ImpactJS), but in any case I don't think it matters. The font, however, is certainly free for any use and as far as I can tell can be safely redistributed (Regular is the variant used, but there's also a Bold and a Light variant)

The reason I suspect it doesn't really matter is that the code is actually very simple - but even then we'd be rewriting it to suit us a bit better. All that happens is that there are a selection of colour schemes which form two background colours and a text colour. The method is to fill the background with the first BG colour, draw a very large glyph as a background using the second BG colour (choices are 0, o, > or //) then draw the actual characters in the FG colour.

There's not really a lot of variation in the code (except possibly in the sizing proportions) but I'd think we'd want something a bit bigger than 40x40?

(There is also a glass.png file that is attached as an overlay but the visual difference is pretty small IMO)

Nao

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #9, on April 10th, 2012, 12:00 PM »
I don't like the font, actually... Might as well reuse our own embedded fonts, especially BebasNeue because it can fit more letters on a single line...
Heck, there's nothing preventing 'random' positioning of the user name in the avatar, as well as adjusting the size depending on the user name's length. And random font, too... Also for the background glyph. (Eh, why not a dingbat font even... or anything that accepts random unicode!)

The glass file supposedly adds an iOS icon effect but it's too subtle to be seen. He should have increased the contrast a lot...
Since our default size is 100x100, it would make sense to have something that size, plus it increases the chances of fitting the entire user name on the avatar.

Arantor

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #10, on April 10th, 2012, 12:07 PM »
I actually think I'd rather have only a small part of the name rather than the full name, I just think it'd look better that way, but won't know until I try it.

The other thing regarding fonts is that whatever we decide to use, we have to be shipping with Wedge itself, so the licence must allow for downloading and onward distribution, it's not like you can just use a web font for this one. And dingbat fonts tend to be heavier than regular fonts.

Nao

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #11, on April 11th, 2012, 08:17 AM »
Except that all OSes have a dingbats font somewhere... :) There's probably even a font stack ready for use for that use case. Or just turn to utf entities. Which will use the dingbats as needed. Maybe.
Or take a random avatar from the ones available, apply a color tinting and add the username :)

Arantor

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #12, on April 11th, 2012, 11:02 AM »
Two problems with using a dingbats font.

Firstly, some server OSes ship without a dingbats font (heck, on most VPSes, they ship without even font libraries installed by default), and secondly even if that were the case (which it isn't), you'd have to know the exact file path to them in order to actually use them, which means a lot of hassle, as compared to shipping a font ourselves. Even when you use UTF-8 you still have to reference the font file in order for it to work, and you REALLY do not want to be shipping a TTF with all the glyphs in it (there's a reason the Arial Unicode TTF is 24MB)

Nao

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #13, on April 11th, 2012, 03:54 PM »
I never suggested to ship with a dingbats font really! There are better uses for extra kilobytes in the package anyway... ;)

Arantor

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Re: Random idea: non-generic default avatars
« Reply #14, on April 11th, 2012, 08:15 PM »
How about if I mentioned that we already ship with multiple fonts anyway, so ditch the ones we're not using in CAPTCHAs currently and replace it with another font that we can use for this sort of thing - if you want it in core.

(Personally I'm cool with it not being core.)
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