This post was written by me to provide more information to users on how avatars are presented and handled in UBB.Threads7 (since questions about effects of avatars pop up again and again, I'm hoping something definitive will help users with the answers they want to hear, and ways to get what they want done); I am not writing this all out to complain in anyway. However, at the end of this post I am also including several proposals on future ways that I could see avatar handling improved.

To some users migrating to the UBB from other products (or by trying to just "drop in place" new avatars) you'll sometimes notice that your avatars can come out looking skewed. There are a few things to keep in mind when this happens.

When you upload avatars via the control panel, a height and width is set via the internal workings of the system. When you try to just drop them in your avatars directory, the height and width isn't automatically set via the system as the avatar isn't run through the routines in the control panel.

When avatars don't have dimensions associated with them they default to the dimensions that you input as "maximum height and width" in the profile settings for allowing users to upload avatars. The problem with this is that not all avatars are the same height and width, and forcing them to resize can be a pain.

If you leave the maximum dimensions blank it will allow the avatars to show "as they are" when loading (no size is set for height or width), however IE7 will see "height='' width=''" and load it as 0px X 0px which will leave you with a 1px dot... The only "real" way to fix this (at the time of this writing) is to upload all avatars through the built in systems in the UBB one by one; this will set the height and width of the avatars as they're uploaded. The downside to this is that there is no "mass update", so if you have a lot of avatars, you'll be bored to tears with adding them.

It is my sincere hope that, in time, Rick will make it so that when there is no height and width associated with an avatar that it'll suppress loading the height and width attribute altogether so that no skewing occurs; I'd also like to see a way to set the height and width of avatars on the edit screen (possibly by clicking on the avatar itself and having an "edit avatar" screen pop up and have the ubb check the size of the image as its loaded if none is set, and allow users to set the height and width as that avatar is loaded; or enter their own height and width to where they want it).

Cross posted at UBBCentral: Clicky Clicky

Related Modifications:
Fix the Avatars is a modification which removes the size restraints of avitars, which was the UBB.C way of doing things.