My favorites | Sign in
Project Logo
                
Search
for
Updated Dec 28, 2007 by janpolsen
Labels: Featured
FAQ  
Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to install a Gravatar plugin in order to use MBLA's Gravatar features?

No, MBLA is a stand alone plugin, which doesn't require any additional plugins to run.

I have created/uploaded a cache folder, but it's empty and no avatars are showing up

Does the webserver have write access to the cache folder? This can usually be checked (and changed) with a FTP program. If you have created a cache folder specifically to MBLA, then you can safely change the folder permissions to 777 (rwxrwxrwx)

The avatar does show up on my comments page, but the page looks very messed up

Make sure that you use well formed HTML on the HTML option page. Remember to close all HTML tags you use.

Can I add these avatars to a page as well as comments?

Yes, of course. While you don't need to add any code to the comment template, then you need to do it to the page template. The following is what you should add where you want the page HTML code to show up:

<?php if(function_exists('MyAvatarsNew')) MyAvatarsNew(); ?>

How do I use the debug function

Navigate to the page you wish to debug and finally add ?debug=xxx or &debug=xxx where xxx is your secret debug key to the URL.

This should load the page in debug mode and place a file called mbla_xxx.log (where the xxx is the name of the current script file you are debugging) in your MBLA cache directory.

How do I remove the link tags on the avatar image?

Just remove the link tags you see in the HTML code from something like this:

<div style="float: left;">
  <a href="{URL}" title="{NAME} commenting on {TITLE}">
    <img src="{AVATAR}" alt="" style="height: 32px" />
  </a>
</div>

... to something like this:

<div style="float: left;">
  <img src="{AVATAR}" alt="" style="height: 32px" />
</div>

Comment by Splazhe, Nov 17, 2007

Great Plugin...the first avatar I could get to work. I was wondering what I needed to do in order to change the code or html options so that when the avatar is hovered over, it actually referenced a website or a default of something else. My page is http://spiewgels-labyrinth.com/blog/ and if you look at any of the comments you'll notice that when the avatar is highlighted a http:/// shows up...yes, I meant to type the third slash...thanks in advance

Comment by janpolsen, Nov 18, 2007

I believe the reason why there isn't a link for you (the admin) is because you haven't typed anything on Wordpress' general option page at "WordPress? address (URL)" or "Blog address (URL)".

Are any of those text fields empty?

Comment by Splazhe, Nov 18, 2007

Oh hey, how are you Jan? Okay, so what I've found out so far is that making a dummy account and giving it a website, it works...so it definitely is an admin thing. I've checked my general options page and both fields are filled in...until you respond, I'll be fumbling around with it seeing if I can see what the problem is

Comment by Splazhe, Nov 18, 2007

Voila!!! Okay, so here's the scoop: Everything works according to the url put in at the Profile Update section...but for whatever comments were made prior to any website being put there, the image will not correspond to the website.

Okay, let me try to be clearer: Let's say you mak a comment on a Thursday and you've NOT already filled out a website under your profile, then Friday you install the plugin and THEN fill out a website...Every comment you make Friday and after will show your website link on your avatar, but the comments made prior to that will not...HOWEVER, if you had a website filled out all along, it will show the website link for those comments too.

Thanks again, Jan - love the plugin

Comment by janpolsen, Nov 19, 2007

Wordpress is storing the user information in each comment and therefor the URL will only show up on comments after you have filled out the profile.

I'm afraid that there is not much I can do about that :(.

Comment by Splazhe, Nov 19, 2007

No biggie...Fortunately and unfortunately my blog is unpopular enough that I can go back in and edit the comments (a majority of them by myself) with the updated info...And for my whopping 3 other users I know them and can update it if they ever get websites...

Comment by cityrooms, Dec 31, 2007

Hello Jan:

Your plugin add an avatar with another clickable URL to a comment. In other words there are 2 links for each comment now: One traditionnal link on the name of the commenter and one on the avatar. Is there a way to remove the link that comes with the avatar?

Comment by janpolsen, Jan 03, 2008

Hello and sorry for the late reply

It is indeed possible to remove the link on the avatar and it is quite easy. The default HTML code that is used is something like

<div style="float: left;">
  <a href="{URL}" title="{NAME} commenting on {TITLE}">
    <img src="{AVATAR}" alt="" style="height: 32px" />
  </a>
</div>

All you need to do is removing the link around the image tags so it looks something like this:

<div style="float: left;">
  <img src="{AVATAR}" alt="" style="height: 32px" />
</div>

I hope that answers your question :)

Comment by michel.fortin, Jan 06, 2008

Just a small bug. When an item in trackbacks has a zero-byte preview thumbnail, it shows up as a broken image in IE (Firefox is fine). It would be nice to have the ability to replace it with "none" or a custom avatar, too.

Comment by michel.fortin, Jan 10, 2008

Just an additional note on my comment above. The "broken image" is actually the web page itself. I tried opening up a "blank" image file in notepad, and there it was ... the exact code of a web page on my blog.

Comment by janpolsen, Jan 10, 2008

Could I persuade you to add it as a bug on the issue list? Then it's easier for me to keep an eye on things to do :).

... and I will look into this problem - I just don't have much time at the moment :(.

Comment by michel.fortin, May 30, 2008

I'm trying to submit an issue but the "submit issue" button is grayed out.

I keep getting this error in the admin panel with 0.42:

Warning: filemtime() function.filemtime?: stat failed for /usr/www/users/folder?/wp-content/cache/2e8edd5a48ac02807be9b750f1e408c4 in /usr/www/users/folder?/wp-content/plugins/mbla.php on line 624

Comment by janpolsen, Jun 01, 2008

To me it looks like you either don't have read access to that folder or that the file has been deleted or never written.

Have you tried to use the debug option to see what that tells you?

Comment by michel.fortin, Jun 06, 2008

Still doesn't work. File and folder permissions are correct, but it's within my Wordpress wp- folders. I tried it in another directory, and it seems to work now. Let's wait and see. (Debug showed nothing.)

Comment by michel.fortin, Jun 06, 2008

Spoke too soon. The error still comes up.

Comment by janpolsen, Jun 08, 2008

I must admit, that I can't figure out what might be wrong. The only reason why filemtime() might fail is when it doesn't have read access to the file. Have you checked that the file "2e8edd5a48ac02807be9b750f1e408c4" is in the directory?

Do you have an URL where I can check it?

Comment by michel.fortin, Jun 17, 2008

It does this with that file and many others. And yes, the folder is 777 and all the files in it. I cleared my cache many times, and it still does this.

Comment by michel.fortin, Jul 09, 2008

Update: I figured out that this error happens when it tries to load the cache with avatars that are zero-byte files. So the zero-byte files may be the problem... If I "delete anonymous avatars," they get deleted and the error goes away. (Until someone loads the page with the zero-byte avatar in it.)

Comment by janpolsen, Jul 10, 2008

I will this as an issue and look into it for the next release


Sign in to add a comment
Hosted by Google Code