Add cover to profile

Before starting to develop a plugin, I'd like to make sure this has not been done yet. I'd like to have users add cover photo's on top of profile pages

If is has not been done yet, I'd like to have some starting help. It should work with profile manager. Should I register a page handler to the orignal profile and add the ability to upload files ?

How to best scale the uploaded image ?

  • wow, tom talk about re-inventing the wheel........i can change 1 line in customstyle code and make an image chosen/uploaded by a user appear as the header.  Then its just a matter or cropping or resizing.

  •  @ costakisc The benefit of using Elgg Profile  example just like facebook timeline is that, Elgg sites can have their own Elgg timeline or Elgg one profile page for all the contents that the user has set public and each user will be able to set or upload their own header images or pictures.

     

  • you are right if the point of the plugin is to be a facebook clone.  but if the point of it is just to upload a header image, it can be done a lot simpler. and i for one am tired of Facebook this, Facebook that.  why would i want my site or my users profile to look like facebook, i would rather have something original

  • @ costakisc , Thanks for your suggestion. We are not trying to clone FaceThyBook. The example I just gave is suppose to be a starting point. I was just trying to give a rough thought or was just brainstorming on how Elgg profile can be built by using the existing scripts instead of inventing the wheel. The room for creativeness is always wide open and cloning is not part of it!

  • @Tom, how do you integrate wordpress with Elgg ? It does not seem as simple. I do not want two databases just for this purpose. Maybe I can reuse the code of the plugin, or is that not allowed ? Which plugin is it ?

    @costakisc. I do not want to copy facebook, definitely not. But if you look at websites in general, there is a patron of a header, navigation and below that a (mostly flash) or image. People are just to such a design of a page and my users are actually asking for it, to create a more distinctive look to their profile.

  • @Tom, how do you integrate wordpress with Elgg ? It does not seem as simple. I do not want two databases just for this purpose. Maybe I can reuse the code of the plugin, or is that not allowed ? Which plugin is it ?

    @costakisc. I do not want to copy facebook, definitely not. But if you look at websites in general, there is a patron of a header, navigation and below that a (mostly flash) or image. People are just to such a design of a page and my users are actually asking for it, to create a more distinctive look to their profile.

  • i like the header images, i think it brings a bit of personal touch to a profile.  but i do not believe it is as difficult as everyone thinks.  between the avatar cropping from the profile and a little bit of code from customstyle the code already exists, its just a matter of putting the two together.

  • First of all, I think a large cover photo plugin would be awesome.  I love the look of a profile photo over a larger picture of interest.  I actually like the Google+ implementation better, they support larger cover photos and scale the image according to the size of your window.

    The Tidypics plugin makes use of GD/ImageMagick to scale/resize/crop on upload.  That might be a place to start.

    Also, I would look at a set dimension of the cover photo (say 800x400), and then scale the uploaded image to fit the constrained width or hight.  That is, a 16:9 photo would have to scale down until within 600 pixel hight, and then crop width... etc...  If you can allow the user to select the crop, that of course would be fantastic.

  • Any luck on this amazing plugin? I really want something like that for my users profiles.

     Please experts specially costakisc do let me know if you guys are successful to making something like that and bug free.

    Look forward to the reply, 

    Many thanks in advance

  • i am in the middle of an xbox live plugin update, but its driving me crazy, might take some time away from it and work this plugin out in the custom profile plugin, so people can control background, colors and "profile cover".