Online/Offline Status with Avatar Opacity

This is our first hack, but it works very nicely.

This hack changes the way a user is displayed as online or offline when viewing a thread. It serves three purposes. One, it cuts down on a cluttered postbit. Two, it makes it very easy to distinguish who?s online and who?s not when viewing a thread. Three, it?s kinda cool.

If a user is offline his/her avatar?s opacity will be set to 20 (This is the setting we are using, you can change this number by editing the ?postbit_avataroffline? template, which is included in the attached zip file). A low image opacity gives an image a washed out sort of look. If a user is Online his/her avatar?s opacity is 100 of course.

See a live demo at our forums:

http://forums.otllive.com

This hack is fairly easy to install. You?ll have to edit three php files, add a new template, edit your ?Head Insert? under Styles, upload a small Javascript file, and make a small change to your postbit, announcement, and privmsg templates.

Included in the zip file is an install.txt document and one javascript file.

Creativity by Grendel
Coding by Nomb

BTW, This is the Official Merry Christmas Hack!

Don't forget to click install if you use this hack.

Merry Christmas.

**EDIT** (12/25/02 6:00 pm EST)

I've updated the install file. Users that don't have avatars will stay that way. Also, the coding is integrated into whether or not users select the option to "show" avatars or not.

Final release!

I will be adding something else to this hack in the future. For now, it works with no weird stuff.

[Grendel602]

Great job Nomb, BTW could someone tell me how to give the username Nomb priviliges here at vbulletin.org since he is an official staff member of my licensed vbulletin community?

Hope you all enjoy this!

[The Ghost]

cool hack but I don't need it. thx for share!

[Chris M]

@Grendel602 - Goto this page and enter your friend's email address

Nice hack - Will get back to you with any queries

Satan

[Courage]

Nice !!!

See exemple here:

http://www.softnews.ro/forum/showthr...1968#post61968

No registration needed !

BUG found

if the user has no avatar selected.. it apears like the avatar is missing .. 404 eror !

[Grendel602]

So does the entire page give a 404 error? We have people without avatars and have not experienced this.

We are looking into this and have thought about people without avatars.

As far as people not having avatars you can look at it 2 ways:

1) Who cares
2) Install our hack that sets up guest avatars which we are currently working on .

[Grendel602]

Originally posted by Courage
Nice !!!

See exemple here:

http://www.softnews.ro/forum/showthr...1968#post61968

No registration needed !

BUG found

if the user has no avatar selected.. it apears like the avatar is missing .. 404 eror !

It isn't a bug, it's more of a design decesion.

I will be releasing an updated version soon that will fix this issue as well as address what to do when there is no avatar (A method I've come up with). This hack was designed for those sites that use avatars. What's more, most members use them. At first I thought I wasn't going to do anything about it but soon I will.

Thanks

Nomb

[Courage]

Some (few) members does not use an avatar...

It is a problem..
I will remove this hack until a fix will come up !

Also.. i use opacity=75

[Velocd]

I use to do this with my forums for about 1 or 2 months: making a users avatar opacity lower when they are offline (hence the idea for my improved-buddy list hack), but after awhile it just made things look gloomy on the forums and in threads, because so many avatars were always faded :'(

[Chris M]

Couldn't you just modify the code a little bit to check to see if the user has an avatar?

Satan