Laravel4-Getgravatar

An avatar is a graphical representation of a user . It could be the person’s picture , or a random icon they want to be associated with . All a user has to do is to register an account based on their email address and upload an avatar to associate with that account . On the other side of the coin , webmasters that want to let their visitors graphically identify themselves have to implement a REST request to Gravatar's API . The request is just an URL encoded string with the email address of the user . If Gravatar's servers recognize this email address as a registered user , the user's associated Avatar is send back . Webmasters can also configure their system to automatically display an Identicon when a user has no registered Gravatar . This library is meant to be used as a Laravel 4.0 / 4.1 package and help PHP developers be concentrated on more important parts of their Laravel project .

Prerequisites :

It is assumed that you already have a working Laravel 4 project . Basic knowledge with Laravel's concepts are also required . For instance : Route , Controller , Blade or Authentication-adapter shouldn't be "strange" words to you .

##Installation :

• 1. Update your Laravel's composer.json file

{	
		"require": {
		"laravel/framework": "4.0.*" , 
		"tournasdim/laravel4-getgravatar": "dev-master" 
		}	
	}

• 2. Run a composer update command from your project's root
• 3. Add the Gravatar Service Provider and an alias to your configuration file app/config/app.php:

'providers' => array(
		'Illuminate\Foundation\Providers\ArtisanServiceProvider',
		'Illuminate\Auth\AuthServiceProvider',
		'Illuminate\Cache\CacheServiceProvider',
		'Illuminate\View\ViewServiceProvider',
		'Illuminate\Workbench\WorkbenchServiceProvider',
		` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
		'Tournasdim\Getgravatar\GetgravatarServiceProvider'	),

'aliases' => array(
		'App'             => 'Illuminate\Support\Facades\App',
		'Artisan'         => 'Illuminate\Support\Facades\Artisan',
		'Auth'            => 'Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth',
		'Blade'           => 'Illuminate\Support\Facades\Blade',		
		'View'            => 'Illuminate\Support\Facades\View',
		````		````		````		````			````		````
		'Gravatar' => 'Tournasdim\Getgravatar\Facades\Getgravatar' , 

• 4. Optionally "transfer" the configuration file of this package into "app/config/packages" directory . This will give you the option to customize basic features of this package . Run php artisan config:publish "tournasdim/laravel4-getgravatar" and open the file "app/config/packages/tournasdim/getgravatar/config.php" to customize basic functionality (size , customGravUrl , defGrav , authAdapter , maxRating) . Every option is explained in the configuration file , drop me an issue if you need specific help though .

##Un-Installing the package :

1. Remove this package's registration from Laravel's composer.json file
2. Remove Gravatar Service Provider from config file app/config/app.php
3. Remove the alias from the config file app/config/app.php
4. If step 4 of the installation process was implemented , manually remove the "tournasdim" directory from app/config/packages directory . Instead of manually removing this directory , alternatively use the CLI : php artisan gravatar:uninstall
5. Run a composer update command .

Basic usage :

The "Gravar" Class accepts three optional parameters .

• $size : Expresed in pixels , if defined then it will overwrite the value defined into the configuration file .
• $randomize : This feature is enabled by default ,the Class will randomly select a name from a Pool of accepted names ('mm' , 'identicon' , 'monsterid' , 'wavatar' , 'retro') . If the email send to Gravatar's server is not recognized then this specified Avatar will be returned instead . By setting the value of this option to "false" , random is turned off , and the value of defGrav will be used as parameter (a predefined fallback avatar) .
• $email : Default is set to null . Logged-in user's email is resolved by using the current Auth's adaptor Interface . Which adapter is currently used by the application is defined into a key ("authAdapter") of the configuration file . By specifying an email , we actualy force the Class to use this as value into the query string . This feature is handy for non registered users , we will use their specified email (on comment sections) to build our query string .
• Another important configuration option is made directly into the configuration file "app/config/packages/tournasdim/getgravatar/config.php" (supposed that step 4 of the installation process was applied ) . If you'd prefer to use your own default fallback-image (perhaps your logo , a funny face , whatever), then you can easily do so by supplying a custom URL to an image . Just set your prefered Url into the "customGravUrl" variable of this package's configuration file . If the email send to Gravatar's server is not recognized , an image from the custom Url will be returned instead . Keep in mind though that the "size" attribute isn't active anymore because Gravatar's server won't crop our custom image (make sure you have uploaded the right size for the custom fallback image) .

Practical examples :

Calling an Avatar from a Route

• Example 1 :

/*
Defining an Email address  :
1) If recognized by Gravatar's server , its accompanied image is returned , else
2) An alternative Avatar is returned (randomly chosen from a "pool" )  
 */ 
Route::get('/' , function() 
	{

	return Gravatar::get( null , false , 'johndoe@gmail.com' ) ; 

	});

• Example 2 :

/*
* No Email address defined : For logged-in users , their email address will be send to  Gravatar's API . 
*/ 
Route::get('/' , function() 
	{

	return Gravatar::get() ; 

	});

• Example 3 :

/*
Disable "random image" , which Avatar is returned depends on :
1) if "customGravUrl" is defined , then return the image from that Url
2) if "customGravUrl" was not defined then use the image specified in "defGrav". 
 */ 
Route::get('/' , function() 
	{

	return Gravatar::get(null , false) ; 

	});

• Example 4 :

// Defining an Avatar from a Route and passing it to the View 	
Route::get('/' , function() 
	{

	$gravatar = \Gravatar::get() ; 
	return  View::make('welcome')->with('gravatar' , $gravatar) ; 

	});

Calling an Avatar from a Controller

• Example 1 :

<?php namespace Tournasdim\Admin\Controllers ;
	class AdminController extends BaseController {
// No Email specified , Auth's adapter Interface will try to resolve user's Email address . 
		public function showWelcome()
		{
			$gravatar = \Gravatar::get() ; 
			return  View::make('admin.dashboard')
			->with('gravatar' , $gravatar) ; 

		}

	}
?>
	// admin/dashboard.blade.php
		@extends('layouts.admin'))
		@section('header')
		<h3>
        <i class="icon-dashboard"></i>
        Dashboard  {{$gravatar}}
        </h3>
		@stop

• Example 2 :

<?php namespace Tournasdim\Admin\Controllers ;
	class AdminController extends BaseController {
// Email is specified , this will be used into the query-string 
		public function showWelcome()
		{
			$gravatar = \Gravatar::get(null , false , 'johndoe@gmail.com') ; 
			return  View::make('admin.dashboard')
			->with('gravatar' , $gravatar) ; 

		}

	}
?>
	// admin/dashboard.blade.php
		@extends('layouts.admin'))
		@section('header')
		<h3>
        <i class="icon-dashboard"></i>
        Dashboard  {{$gravatar}}
        </h3>
		@stop

Calling an Avatar from Controller's constructor

• Example 1 :

<?php namespace Tournasdim\Admin\Controllers ;
	class BaseController extends Controller {
	
    protected $gravatar ; 

    public function __construct() 
    {
 
       $this->gravatar = \Gravatar::get() ; 
    }
?>
// A controller that extends the base controller 
	<?php namespace Tournasdim\Admin\Controllers ;
	class AdminController extends BaseController {
	    public function index()
		{
		return View::make('admin.dashboard')
		->with('gravatar' , $this->gravatar);
		}
		
		public function profiler()
		{
		return View::make('admin.profiler')
		->with('gravatar' , $this->gravatar);
		}
	}
?>
		
		// views/admin/dashboard.blade.php
		@extends('layouts.admin'))
		@section('header')
		<h3>
        <i class="icon-dashboard"></i>
        Dashboard  {{$gravatar}}
        </h3>
		@stop

Where to get help :

Open a new issue on this repository and I'll try to help . Please limit your question(s) only to issues related to this project . Laravel's forums / IRC are more suited places to get general information about the Framework . Reports about bugs are welcome , but also , I would be glad to hear about your experience and suggestions of this repository .

Special thanks to :

Of course the creator of the Laravel Framework (Taylor Otwell) and all active members of Laravel's forum / IRC channel .

Things to do :

• Based on user's feedback , improvements will be applied accordingly .
• Users may optionally enter a variety of profile information to associate with their Gravatar account. This information is openly-accessible by Gravatar's API . Probably , a future release of this package will implement this functionality .
• Completing the Unit testing Class

Tools used during development :

• An headless Linux box (CentOs 6) as web-server (Apache 2 , PHP5.4)
• Sublime Text 2 (Free version)
• Phing for automated deployment to GitHub and for FTP to the Linux box
• Git-Bash for versioning of the code
• Windows 7 with WAMP stack (Apache2.2.2 , PHP5.4.3)

License :

Getgravatar

My Blog

@copyright Tournas Dimitiros 2013

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

@author Tournas Dimitrios tournasdimitrios@gmail.com @version V1.0.0