Simple feature request/suggestion re: avatars

[Transcix]

Hi there. I'm a REALLY big fan of your forums!

I'm starting a professional website, but I noticed for people who would see my forum for the first time, they would see all the avatars next to the topics in the topic list. Once they become a member they can click the avatar logo to make all the avatar images disappear, however I'm trying to attract a professional grade of member and I'm worried the avatars might dissuade them from joining. Therefore I think it would be a great idea for the forum admin to be able to set the avatars to *not* appear as the default, and then if the individual user wants to toggle the option back on he's free to do so.

For another example in the same vein, I as the only admin created every one of the sub-forums, so next to each one is my avatar... from a professional point of view, this looks unprofessional, it looks as if I'm showing off almost, or trumpeting my role as the site's owner, because my personal avatar is plastered everywhere. I've deleted my avatar so for now it will be OK, although this means I have an ugly-looking bubble person (the default avatar logo) next to all my sub-forums.

I hope Nabble keeps going so well, it really saved my life when I found it, no other forum was as lean, simple and mean as it was! (Not to mention embeddable!)

Regards,,

[☪Not_A_Admin]

To be honest i dont think having avatars on a forum really moves people away from your forum, its make it look as its more active and more people are willing to join in.
Your an admin, its your job to keep it active.

Note:
you can remove your own avatar by clicking on your own name and going to 'change your personal settings'

however i dont think their is a way to completely remove this feature maybe it can be made smaller?

[GregChapman]

As suggested above, you can make them so small as to be almost indistinguishable. That will dissuade most members from not bothering to upload an avatar.

From the Home Page of your forum:
OPTIONS > EDITOR > CHANGE APPEARANCE
and select:
Avatar size in classic view: Small
(Avatars don't appear in List or Threaded views.)

To remove your avatar from all sub-forums, consider changing your application to "Mixed":
OPTIONS > EDITOR > CHANGE APPLICATION TYPE

This will remove your avatar from the forum.  For an example of both these mods take a look at:

http://www.seahawk17.plus.com/forum.htm

[Transcix]

Thanks very much for the response!

I know I can make the avatars small, but unfortunately they're still very visible. Unfortunately even in mixed mode I can see the avatars, for instance on your example of seahawk17.plus.com/forum I can see many avatars featuring a bird head and the numbers 267 below it. If I want to inform potential forum members on my site that they can click the +/- avatar icon to hide the avatar images--and I would have to inform them as it's not initially obvious (to the uninitiated, at least)--then it would certainly seem to them that I'm having to take an extra measure due to an inherent shortcoming in the forum software I'm using.

In the context of the website I'm making, I just couldn't have these little images, especially since I'm the only one who created the sub-forums which means my avatar will be displayed excessively. Keep in mind I'm dealing with professional scholars here... for many of them social media in the first place makes them cringe, and avatars are just out of the question.

If I refrain from using any avatar though, I would get the default image of an empty avatar, and although this isn't ideal I think it's passable.

I'm still in love with Nabble. I just think (and I may be wrong) that it would be relatively simple to change the software to allow the forum admin to toggle the avatar visibility on or off; it would still be the same for forum members, they could also toggle it on or off themselves, but now there would also be control over the default of what is seen by people visiting the forum for the very first time. I think one of the great aspects of Nabble is it's simplicity and flexibility, and because of this it can be particularly appealing to professionals or people from the older generation who just want something simple, basic and clean, that also takes advantage though of social media--something that's connected into web 2.0 but that doesn't necessarily look like it is. For this type of person, I think it would be a great improvement to be able to hide the avatar from the outset.

This is just my $0.02! :)

[GregChapman]

Transcix wrote

If I want to inform potential forum members on my site that they can click the +/- avatar icon to hide the avatar images--and I would have to inform them as it's not initially obvious (to the uninitiated, at least)--then it would certainly seem to them that I'm having to take an extra measure due to an inherent shortcoming in the forum software I'm using.

I understand that!

Of course, it may be you are more concerned about appearing "professional" than your audience. If you don't add an avatar, and your audience feel as you do then presumably no one will bother to add one and no problem! However, if people start adding them then clearly they don't feel it it demeans their professional status and it proves it's just your worry. Just a thought! No more!

Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the problem so I have been experimenting with:
OPTIONS > EDITOR > CHANGE APPEARANCE
and added some CSS to a "test" forum of mine:

=======================================================
.nabble span#avatarA-hide, .nabble span#avatarA-show, .nabble span.avatarB, .nabble span#avatarB-hide, .nabble span#avatarB-show, .nabble div.avatar-outer {
        display: none;
}
=======================================================

On my "test" forum this seems to remove all the avatars except the one associated with the "Created by" line. Because it's only turning off parts of the display it doesn't shift the text around to compensate, so I regard this as a "work around" rather than a full solution to your concern, but it may be enough for you.

Copy the code between the === lines and paste it after any code you already have in your "Look and Feel" box.

NOTE: I haven't tested it in all possible applications/pages generated by Nabble. If it doesn't work let me know the the URL of the pages where avatars appear and I'll see if a bit more CSS makes them as easy to remove as well.




LATE EDIT: The code above assumes that you are using large icons. The version below should also hide avatars on sites with small icons:
=======================================================
.nabble span#avatarA-hide, .nabble span#avatarA-show, .nabble span.avatarB, .nabble span#avatarB-hide, .nabble span#avatarB-show, .nabble div.avatar-outer, .nabble img.avatar {
        display: none;
}
=======================================================

[Transcix]

GregChapman wrote

Of course, it may be you are more concerned about appearing "professional" than your audience. If you don't add an avatar, and your audience feel as you do then presumably no one will bother to add one and no problem!

In this case as I stated previously there would still be the icon for avatars, but it would be filled with the default empty avatar image.

Anyways, thanks a lot for your CSS recommendations, I definitely wouldn't have been able to figure that one out on my own. If you don't hear back from me again on this thread then consider your CSS an excellent success, otherwise if there are problems I'll take up your kind offer and post about it here. Either way, thanks very much for your work, I really appreciate it!

EDIT: It works great! One last thing I tried to do is remove the little ball that normally is located at the bottom-right corner of the avatar (the ball indicates if the user is currently online). The code I find is: img src="/images/online.png" class="online323930 online invisible" title="User is online" but unfortunately I cannot manage to eliminate the ball from my forum after trying various lines of CSS. Any ideas how to get rid of the ball?

I'm also trying to eliminate where it says "People" in the blog on the right-hand column, since normally it lists the people by their avatars and if there are no avatars then it appears empty and strange. But I understand if you don't have time to tackle this issue. :)

[GregChapman]

I'm about to leave for a weekend away. I think I know how to get rid of the online ball but I won't be able to test things until my return next week. As some things are coded slightly differently from page to page it would help if you could give me permalinks of the affected pages (Send them in a private mail if you don't want to share them on the forum).

In the short term you can remove the "People" section by going to
OPTIONS > EDITOR > CHANGE APPEARANCE
and switching to:

Blog page format: Narrow (hide sidebar)

(I must admit I always thought that feature was confusing should read "Wide (hide sidebar)" as when the main body of the blog is wide then it hides the sidebar.)

However, this option will also remove the "Monthly Archives" links, though that may not matter in the early stages of your blog. (Shame there couldn't be a horizontal list of archives following the last displayed entry for this format of blog.)

My own blog at:
http://www.gregafloat.plus.com/index.html#blog
uses this format.

[Transcix]

Well if you could get rid of the ball that would be great. There's no rush, as my website hasn't been launched yet. I have a forum and a blog together in a 'mixed forum', so if I understand correctly you'd like the permalinks for the blog and the forum? Here they are:

http://tmd.986545.n3.nabble.com/TMD-blog-f2332449.html
and
http://tmd.986545.n3.nabble.com/TMD-Forum-f2285416.html

I guess there's also the main parent category for both the blog and the forum, but I never would see that page as I just embed the forum and blog onto respectively unique pages of my website and I never use the parent category they're both in.

As for the people section I'd definitely like to retain the monthly archives, so I think I'll wait a bit until a solution comes from you or elsewhere, like I said my website still isn't launched so I have time.

Much appreciated for any assistance you can continue to provide. :)