plugin for external avatars...

i'm trying to get rpx to play nicely with cb and so far, so good. the last hurdle is getting the user's avatar brought in. the nice thing is that rpx has a generic attribute called "photo" which is a URL to the profile photo. the challenge is that cb uses a relative local path for avatars.

here's what makes sense to me (in super lay terms):
1) sniff out when an avatar from the db is a full URL (starts with http://)
2) render that with the full img src= path from the DB field
3) if avatar field was just an image name (gobbledygook.jpg), prepend the local path

does something like that already exist?

where in CB code does it have a generic accessor/builder for avatar URL? i can't find it anywhere. if the src= path is build in one spot, might be real easy to implement.

thanks!

not sure if this was the best way to do it, but i edited plug_cbcore/cb.core.php and changed this:

in function _avatarLivePath...
[code:1]
function _avatarLivePath( &$field, &$user, $thumbnail = true, $show_avatar = 2 ) {
global $_CB_framework;

$oValue = null;
$col = $field->name;
$colapproved = $col . 'approved';
if ( $user && $user->id ) {
$avatar = $user->$col;
$avatarapproved = $user->$colapproved;
$live_site = $_CB_framework->getCfg( 'live_site' );
$absolute_path = $_CB_framework->getCfg( 'absolute_path' );
$tn = $thumbnail ? 'tn' : '';

$oValue = null;
/*****TD51 RTA add new flag variable to check if avatar is a full URL path (pulled in from RPX)*/
$oValueExternal = 0;
if ( ( $avatar != '' ) && ( $avatarapproved > 0 ) ) {
/*****TD51 RTA check to see if avatar starts with http:// and if so, use the DB field as the full URL*/
if ( strpos( $avatar, 'http://' ) === false ) {
if ( strpos( $avatar, 'gallery/' ) === false ) {
$oValue = 'images/comprofiler/' . $tn . $avatar;
} else {
$oValue = 'images/comprofiler/' . $avatar;
}
if ( ! is_file( $absolute_path . '/' . $oValue ) ) {
$oValue = null;
}
} else {
/*****TD51 RTA use the db field for avatar and set flag*/
$oValue = $avatar;
$oValueExternal = 1;
}
}
if ( ( $oValue === null ) && ( $show_avatar == 2 ) ) {
if ( $avatarapproved == 0 ) {
$icon = 'pending_n.png';
} else {
$icon = 'nophoto_n.png';
}
return selectTemplate() . 'images/avatar/' . $tn . $icon;
}
}
if ( $oValue ) {
/*****TD51 RTA oValue is full path, don't need to prepend live_site
$oValue $oValueExternal) ? $oValue : $live_site . '/' . $oValue;
}
return $oValue;
}

[/code:1]

Best approach is if your extension supports plugins and has triggers within it to plug code before the photo is rendered on frontend. You could then include the CB API, build the $user object, and be able to obtain the avatar field value. Please see tutorials in signature as to how to do all 3.