Block animated avatars

On my forums we try to enhance the reading experience, and do not allow our members to use animated avatars. One of my members have written the following hack for my forums, and I got his permission to post it here on vbulletin.org.

What this hack does is to prevent your users from uploading an animated image. It does this by checking if the image contains more than one frame. It is not retroactive, and your current avatars will remain as is.

Hope you will enjoy this.

Changes:
1 New Phrase
1 File to edit (profile.php)

Installtime: 45 sec


In profile.php, find:

// ####################### SET PHP ENVIRONMENT ###########################

Above that, add:

// Block Animated Avatars Hack - by Scha at freakforum.nu
// start

function isAnimated($filename, $isurl = 0)
{
        $fp = fopen($filename, "rb");
        if(!$fp)
                return false;
        if($isurl)
                $whole = fread($fp, remote_filesize($filename));
        else
                $whole = fread($fp, filesize($filename));
        $i = -1;
        while($i = strpos($whole, 0x2C, $i+1))
        {
                if(strpos($whole, 0x00, $i-1) == $i-1)
                $c++;
        }
        if($c > 1)
                return true;
        return false;
}

// end
// Block Animated Avatars Hack - by Scha at freakforum.nu

In profile.php, find:

                if ($avatarid == 0)
                {
                        // begin custom avatar code
                      require_once('./includes/functions_upload.php');
                      require_once('./includes/functions_file.php');

REPLACE that with:

// Block Animated Avatars Hack - by Scha at freakforum.nu   
//start

                require_once('./includes/functions_upload.php');
                require_once('./includes/functions_file.php');

                if(isset($_FILES['upload']) && strtolower(substr($_FILES['upload']['name'], -3)) == 'gif' )    
                        if (isAnimated($_FILES['upload']['tmp_name']))
                                eval(print_standard_error('error_avataranimated'));
                if ( strlen($_POST['avatarurl']) && strtolower(substr($_POST['avatarurl'], -3)) == 'gif' )
                        if(isAnimated($_POST['avatarurl'], 1 && strtolower(substr($_POST['avatarurl'], -3)) == 'gif'))
                                eval(print_standard_error('error_avataranimated'));

// end
// Block Animated Avatars Hack - by Scha at freakforum.nu   
         
                if ($avatarid == 0)
                {
                        // begin custom avatar code

Add phrase 'avataranimated' under the category 'Front-End Error Messages' with the following content

We do not allow the usage of animated avatars on our forums. Please consider uploading a static image instead.

Done.


Please leave a comment if there is something you are wondering about, or if you encounter a bug.

[kevin_r1]

Originally Posted by nso

Polo: On my forums we value the information it contains above the package it is delivered in. Animated avatars steales focus from the content, and it is more intensive on 64K'ers since it in essense contains several images in one.

Then why do you allow avatars at all? Nice hack anyhow.

[Jolten]

FYI a 10k jpg takes up the same amount of space as a 10k animate gif.

[nso]

Sure, but a lot of forums allow crazyass filesize - mostly because the admins are too dumb to use the admcp
However the bandwidth has nothing to do with my descition to block animated avatars.

It is in my opinion, as earlier stated, screenspam which steales focus much more than a static 64x64 IMG (unless you do a goatse or something). My users love this rule, and there is never any complaints.

[Polo]

yeah... forums have different needs... every single forum is unique..

[nso]

Updated the second profile.php edit and I suggest that anyone using this script update their profile.php with the changes. Just delete the old code and add the new.

[trulylowcarb]

Thank you VERY MUCH for this mod!!

[trulylowcarb]

Note: having to uninstall this, as all avatar uploads stopped working. May have to do with the Geek Articles System 3.51 hack I installed afterwards? I will try installing it again and see what happens, but wanted to note this potential conflict.

[nso]

Please describe the actuall errors and/or errormessages you recieved and I might answer that for you.

Cheers.

there is not a single link between the Geek articles system and this hack... btw, if your php server is older than 4.3, you may encounter the problem related to detecting image size and content...

[trulylowcarb]

No errors, or at least no error messages at all ... the avatars appeared to save normally (regular files, not animated ones) but were not displayed/changed.
One user did report receiving the no animated images error message when trying to upload a static gif, but I couldn't reproduce that error myself. Sorry I can't be of more help.
*My php version is 4.3.10*

I'm sure it's probably just a conflict with another hack ...