BubblesSOC

Have you ever noticed on forums that some users’ avatars will be different each time the page reloads? I recently decided that I wanted to display multiple avatars on Snark, so I sat down and wrote this little script. (This method only works for forums that allow off-site avatars.)

Usage

First, create a folder on your server then upload your favorite avatars to that folder.

Copy and paste the following code into a .php file (you can name the file whatever you want):

<?php
/*******************************************************************************
*	PHP AVATAR ROTATOR
*******************************************************************************/

$path = "/images/avatars/";	// Path to your avatar folder relative to the root directory of your site

/******************************************************************************
*       DO NOT EDIT BELOW THIS LINE!
******************************************************************************/

$dir = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].$path;
$avatars = array();

// Open avatar directory and read its contents into an array
if (is_dir($dir)) {
	if ($dh = opendir($dir)) {
		while (($file = readdir($dh)) !== false) {
			if (filetype($dir.$file) == "file" && getimagesize($dir.$file)) {
				array_push($avatars, $file);
			}
		}
		closedir($dh);
	}
}

// Create random avatar
$img = $dir.$avatars[rand(0, count($avatars)-1)];
$info = getimagesize($img);

if ($info[2] == 2) {
	header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');

	$img = imagecreatefromjpeg($img);
	imagejpeg($img);
}

elseif ($info[2] == 3) {
	header('Content-Type: image/png');

	$img = imagecreatefrompng($img);
	imagepng($img);
}

else {
	header('Content-Type: image/gif');

	$img = imagecreatefromgif($img);
	imagegif($img);
}

imagedestroy($img);
?>

Be sure to change $path (on line 6) to the appropriate value (the path to your avatar folder relative to your site’s root directory).

After you upload the .php file you created to your server, the avatar rotation is available for use. In your forum’s profile control panel, type the URL of the file in the appropriate field. Example URL:

http://bubblessoc.net/images/rotator.php

Notes

• Only .gif, .jpg, .png images allowed.
• Other than making sure that the file is a valid image, this example does not check for errors.
• Check to make sure that your forum allows avatar rotations before using

Click here to see my avatar rotation