IP.Board 3.1.0 Dev Update: Profile Customization

[Matt]

The IP.Board 2 series introduced a number of new profile features designed to make your profile page a little more interactive. Besides the usual stats and figures, we introduced a personal photo and the ability to leave comments and list recent visitors. This made your profile page a little more personal and encouraged repeat visits.

With the status updates feature in IP.Board 3.1, the profile page is becoming increasingly like a little user portal. With that in mind, we've extended the personalization options to include profile page background customization. You can allow your members permission to add a new background image or change the background color which instantly changes the feel of the page.

Here's an example of my own profile:


I've chosen a beach scene, so I've not tiled the image. This allows the image to not repeat and remain 'fixed' so that when you scroll, the background doesn't scroll with it.

You'll note a new menu item in the User Control Panel:


Naturally, you as the administrator can control which groups have permission to do this:


When the user adds a profile background, the margins on the profile page increase so you can see the background image. If the user doesn't have a background image set, the profile appears as normal with minimal padding. You can adjust this by editing the profile page CSS as normal via the Admin CP.

The profile page has undergone a few tweaks to make it a little neater. We've moved all the user's information into the left hand bar leaving more space to the right for other data such as the status updates, etc. We plan to develop user customization further in future releases.

Technical Notes:
- Group settings to enable / allow uploads / allow URL images / maximum upload size
- Ability to disable on a per-user basis
- Ability to tile an image, or to fix it (background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed)

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