Integrate WP User Avatar with WP-Members User Profile

Good eye!

I think I probably added the two variables later and didn’t get them changed in the rest of the snippet. I’ve updated it accordingly.

No problem – glad to hear it’s working now.

If you’re using BuddyPress, the best thing you could do is rely on Gravatar for user avatars (and encourage users to set up a gravatar image if they don’t already have one). WordPress is built to use Gravatar, and so is BuddyPress, bbPress, and a host of other tools. WordPress’ default functions for displaying an avatar assume using Gravatar.

Gravatar is “G”lobally “R”ecognized “Avatar” – it is connected to the user’s email address. If the user has one set up, it will display on any site that uses gravatar – which means any WP site, BuddyPress site, wordpress.com, and a host of others.

That’s not really a possibility as the WP User Avatar features (at least their front facing shortcodes) need to have a user associated with them. That’s not available when the user is registering.

I believe it is possible. In doing a little digging in WP User Avatar, it does seem that it follows a somewhat similar approach as WP-Members in handling this information for a user. It stores the image as a WP attachment post type and saves the ID of that post in a user meta field. This is also how WP-Members handles image fields tied to users.

So, in order to switch over, you don’t really need to do much. Create your image field in WP-Members as a custom field. Make sure to use the meta key “wp_user_avatar”, replacing “wp_” is the database prefix used in your installation. That’s all you need to do in terms of switching the field information, and you could switch back if needed since the data storage is pretty much the same.

In terms of actually using this as the user’s avatar, you’ll need to filter the avatar value. WP User Avatar is running a function attached to the get_avatar filter hook. If you’re going to deactivate that plugin, you’ll need your own filter to make sure that the avatar used is the user’s custom avatar image stored locally. The following filter function should do it:

add_filter( 'get_avatar', function( $avatar, $id_or_email, $size, $default, $alt, $args ) {

	$custom_avatar_meta = 'wp_user_avatar';

	if ( ! is_numeric( $id_or_email ) ) {
		$user_obj = get_user_by( 'email', $id_or_email );
		$user_id = $user_obj->ID;
	} else {
		$user_id = $id_or_email;
	}
	$custom_avatar_id = get_user_meta( $user_id, $custom_avatar_meta, true );
	if ( $custom_avatar_id ) {
		$custom_avatar_image = wp_get_attachment_url( $custom_avatar_id );
		$avatar = "<img alt='{$alt}' src='{$custom_avatar_image}' class='avatar avatar-{$size} photo' height='{$size}' width='{$size}' />";
	}
	return $avatar;
}, 10, 6 );

Change the value for $custom_avatar_meta accordingly (default “wp_” stem is used, but it should be whatever your db prefix is).

This filter checks to see if the user ID passed is an ID or an email. If it’s an email, it converts it to the ID (so that it can get the user meta for the avatar.

Then it checks to see if a meta value exists for the custom avatar, and if so, creates the image HTML using the custom avatar.

Then it returns the filtered result.

Hope that helps.

This script is for integrating the plugin WP User Avatar into the WP-Members profile links. It requires that WP User Avatar also be installed. Do you have WP User Avatar installed and activated? If not, you’ll need that for this to work.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Chad Butler.

If the plugin is installed and active, and the script is correctly added, it should be working. The integration is a basic one – essentially running the WP User Avatar [avatar_upload] shortcode. I’ve tested it locally to confirm it’s working correctly. So if it’s not working for you, I would need to take a direct look at things to see why that is. If you can send me a login to review, I’ll get it looked at. But don’t post credentials here – use the support contact form (where I am the only person who will see it).

Actually no – sorry if I confused the issue – the snippet is what adds that shortcode – you don’t need to do it (although you could if you just want it on the profile page below the profile links). The snippet is for adding a custom process to the user profile page so that you get a screen with only the avatar upload, and the snippet runs that shortcode.

So… at the risk of confusing things again, I was merely saying the script doesn’t do very much. It does basically two things: if the user is on the profile links page, it adds the links, otherwise it creates a screen for updating the avatar and runs that shortcode. I was only mentioning that to point out that it’s a simple script so if something is not working, it is likely that I’ll need to review it for you since there’s not much to it and if something’s wrong I don’t know what it could be.

Hope I didn’t “muddy the water” here… if you want me to review it, let me know and I’m happy to.