Conditional display of avatar on forum home?

[user02934123123]

Dear all,

I'm attempting to customise the main forum display (i.e. the front end of the forum, FORUMHOME template) in vB 3.7, so that the following will happen:

• If the user is logged in, and has an avatar configured, this will be displayed.
• If the user is logged in, but doesn't have an avatar configured, a generic 'No Avatar Yet' avatar will be displayed.
• If the user isn't logged in, nothing is displayed.

Essentially, what I am looking for is the necessary conditional statements to check for an avatar outside of the Memberinfo template set.

From posts elsewhere in these forums and on vB.com, I gleaned the following bit of code which I've tested:

<if condition="$timestampnow = TIMENOW">
<img src="image.php?u=$bbuserinfo[userid]&amp;dateline=$timestampnow"
alt="$vbphrase[avatar]" border="0" align="right" />
        <else />
        <img src="/forum/images/avatars/guestavatar.gif" alt="$vbphrase[guest] $vbphrase[avatar]" border="0">
        </if>

(I've actually put this in my footer template, so as to appear in a right-hand column.)

I'm not sure why the recommendation was to use a timestamp in the conditional; but this works - though partially and unreliably. That is, it will accurately show the member's avatar if they have one; however the condition to show a generic avatar if they don't, doesn't work (it just shows nothing). Also, there are problems with the above template conditional: if a user doesn't have an avatar configured, it shows nothing; but then if they go in and configure an avatar, it doesn't seem to recognise this, and continues to show nothing. The same is true of they update their avatar: this is not recognized.

So, I would be particularly grateful for clear pointers on proper conditionals for seeing whether a user has an avatar configured, and showing it on the forum home. If this can be done. I've searched through vB.org's mods and template customisations for 3.7, and haven't found anything that does this, apart from mod's that use core hacks -- but it's quite possible I've missed something!

Many thanks in advance to any who can help.