Peter F. Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Posting this in response to this tracker entry. Whether or not members of a forum are allowed to have animated avatars should be a choice for the board admin imo, particularly since the reasons for removing it are to do with how the forum index/board index are skinned and the confusingness thereof. Design decisions should not be a reason to remove functionality/limit the scope of a feature that many board owners find enhances the experience in their community. Doing so needlessly bottlenecks those forums who choose not to use the default design. It should be feature decisions that inform the design of the forums not the the other way around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinkler Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Agree 100%. I'm quite disappointed by the removal of these, as my members use animated avatars for all sorts of things. This will simply upset my community. I also have plans to skin 3.2 so it looks the same as 3.1.4, so to me, the reason why they have been removed is a non-issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZakRhyno Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 I'm totally on this side of the topic. This choice should be made for the admins of the forums and not be taking away totally. As avatars give a sense of personality on the board of whom the person is an not just a number or name. It helps to ID them so that people known whom they are in their circles. Plus this was never stated in any post from IPB that I have saw even in the notes that have been push out on upgrades to IPB. NOW I do know the animation does work on your profile page but really there not much people go to profile page for. That feature of having it move on the board is something that forums have had for many a time when the internet came to be as well as a hallmark of a forums system. Taking it away because "We have removed it on purpose, if everyone has an animated avatar the board index becomes way too confusing." I have never seen such bologna in a reply, nor have I ever seen people get confused about using a board that had moving avatars. I mean no disrespect to IPB or it staff so you know. Just feel something more could be done then to take this out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevengeFNF Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Many of my board members, have Animated Avatars. Hope they will be back until 3.2.0 Final reach us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Ian Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Have to agree. I cannot access my test site at the moment (to confirm if this has been removed), but the removal of externally hosted avatars/photos does not make sense either. Fine to combine the two things, but removing the ability to have avatars and not photos (externally hosted, animated, select from a hosted collection) is a step too far IMHO. Having selected avatars in the upgrade, the same options should be available to members. Otherwise if someone currently hosts externally or has selected from a number of avatars/badges supplied in the forums, it will add to confusion when they try and replace the said avatar. On the flip side - the forums do need to move on and every feature cannot remain for ever - however in this case I think it would be better to have removed avatars all together rather than keeping giving the option and then removing the ability to use them as fully as before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 IPS Staff Please, make the animated avatars play in topic view! :unsure: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan H. Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Almost everyone on our site uses externally-hosted avatars... things will not be pretty if they can't continue doing so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥ Adam ♠ Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 I agree with everyone else here. This should be something that The Administrator should decide on and not Invision. I'm honestly counting this as a bug and not a feature being removed (and will continue to advertise it as so) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohio Riders Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Ditto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chito Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 This topic/suggestion has my vote as well. This should be the decision of the Owners/Admins not IPS. If they wish to implement not having animated avatars into these support forums, that's their choice. At the same time, give us the choice to enable them on our own boards. However, if we have the choice of enabling them or disabling them in the ACP, then never mind and thanks. Since I'm not upgrading just yet, I don't know whether that choice is in the ACP or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikadon Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 It should be the customers who decide what features they want... after all IPS is not a charity-company and I do think that they should ask us before making decisions and not base them upon their own investigations, statistics and studies that nobody ever sees. When I decided to move to IPS I did it for the community and the devs actually listening. Now suddenly everything changes with IP.Board 3.2 and they don't ask us anymore. (To be fair, they added and adjusted features due to feedback, but they take away features and if asked why they tell us that it's because "no one needs it" based on their statistics!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisha Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Knew merging photos and avatars would be a mistake. Of course merging was a lie. What really happened was that avatars were removed and photos were kept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Knew merging photos and avatars would be a mistake. Of course merging was a lie. What really happened was that avatars were removed and photos were kept. The functionality was merged, so that wherever it showed one or the other before, now it shows the same image everywhere. During the upgrade you get to choose which to keep. That was always the way it was presented, and after having done a 3.1 to 3.2 upgrade I've seen that that is how it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZakRhyno Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 The functionality was merged, so that wherever it showed one or the other before, now it shows the same image everywhere. During the upgrade you get to choose which to keep. That was always the way it was presented, and after having done a 3.1 to 3.2 upgrade I've seen that that is how it works. But Michael what about the issue about avatars? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisha Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 The functionality was merged, so that wherever it showed one or the other before, now it shows the same image everywhere. During the upgrade you get to choose which to keep. That was always the way it was presented, and after having done a 3.1 to 3.2 upgrade I've seen that that is how it works. The upgrade process can be considered a merge if you want to but functionality wise only the photo stuff was kept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 But Michael what about the issue about avatars? What issue, that they're not animated? You're asking the wrong person, I don't have a problem with them not being animated. I was merely responding to cdkey's claim that the merge was a lie. The merge was exactly as IPS advertised it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisha Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 The merge was exactly as IPS advertised it. Well to be technical, they didn't really advertise anything, huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhett Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Well to be technical, they didn't really advertise anything, huh? I think you really need to stop drinking the hateraid..... everything you post is negative.... having some troubles in life? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Well to be technical, they didn't really advertise anything, huh? The image is uploaded then resized and saved, so the actual file on your server is only around 20k or so (200x400 max). It also builds the square thumb. The square thumb is used around the site (comments, avatar, etc) whereas the full size is used on the actual profile page. Yes, we are "merging" avatars and photos in 3.2 and choosing to use the "Photo" labelling as we feel that more users relate tot his over 'avatar' which is starting to become an anachronism. As for the upgrade process, we haven't fully decided what we're going to do. The current thought is to allow the admin to select which to "keep" during the upgrade process. Source: http://community.inv...w-photo-editor/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisha Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 I think you really need to stop drinking the hateraid..... everything you post is negative.... having some troubles in life? It's not negative just because everyone disagrees with it. I post compliments too. Is it my problem that you don't see them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiretoX Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Please bring back animated avatars... I cannot think of a good enough reason to just get rid of them like that !? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisha Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Source: http://community.inv...w-photo-editor/ Well, yes, I read that too and saw it in that one topic in the customer lounge, but what I meant was the word merge wasn't used in the blog entry. Matt also put the word in quotes. If they were merging the two features then I'd like to think aspects of both would be kept meaning the galleries and the external hosting. In the upgrade process I don't see it as a merge, just that whichever you choose gets square thumbs generated for it. But if you're going to take that quote as an advertisement then you're correct I suppose. What I'm saying is that there was no real merge here, all the photo tools stay and the avatar tools were dropped, and all occurrences of avatars were replaced with the photo. Maybe my definition of merge is different than yours then? Please bring back animated avatars... I cannot think of a good enough reason to just get rid of them like that !? What if I made this my avatar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter F. Posted June 13, 2011 Author Share Posted June 13, 2011 [img] [/img] To be fair that is an extreme avatar and would like get removed by the relevant sites moderation team, just as a still picture of a nude woman or man in their avatar would be removed. That is not an argument for removing animated avatars as the majoirty are not like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aisha Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 To be fair that is an extreme avatar and would like get removed by the relevant sites moderation team, just as a still picture of a nude woman or man in their avatar would be removed. That is not an argument for removing animated avatars as the majoirty are not like that. I believe the reason animated avatars were removed was because someone on the preview forum pointed out the same example I just did. I agree with you 100%, I'm just trying to guess IPS's logic for this. The avatars were animated on the preview forum after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Taking a shot in the dark here, after a cursory glance at the code I'd say they were probably removed because of the image cropping code. I don't think it'd be possible to crop an animated gif. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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