modules

I'm one of those people who thinks that people need another web login like they need a whole in the head. At the same time I like to give people the option to have their identity represented on my sites. I've previously mentioned Google Friend Connect as one way to do that. Another way to do that is to use the Gravatar module.

Gravatar is a service that provides users a globally recognized avatar which is an image that can represent you.on websites that support the service. Gravatar is supported on WordPress.com blogs and on sites that have the appropriate Gravatar plugin installed. The Gravatar module for Drupal works well and will allow you to add user pictures in comments without a user needing to sign up for an account with your site.

Here are the steps that I took to get Gravatar working so that user Gravatar images would show up automatically in the comments of this site.

Step 1: Install the Gravatar module.

Step 2: Set permissions and configure the Gravatar module. I allowed anonymous users to use gravatar which enables the display of images on non-logged in users based on their email address. The Gravatar settings (pictured below) are pretty basic. Most notably you have the option to specify a default avatar for those commenters that aren't on the Gravatar service. You can upload one to your site or choose (pictured below) from several standard options.

Step 3: Check your site settings to make sure that user pictures are enabled correctly. Go to '/admin/user/settings#edit-user-pictures-0-wrapper/' and select the 'enabled' radio button.

Step 4: Check your theme settings at 'admin/build/themes' to make sure that 'user pictures in comments' are enabled.

Step 5: Check comments settings per content type. Since the display of the Gravatar is based on a check of an email address, you'll want to be sure that the setting 'anonymous posters must leave their contact information' is selected in the comment settings for each content type where you want the Gravatars to be seen in the comments.

When all that is done you should see either the Gravatar images or the proper image place holder show up in the comments section of your site. If you're the admin of a Drupal site and you want the appropriate Gravatar to show up you should associate the email address you are using for your admin profile with the correct picture on the Gravatar service.

One of the nice things about Gravatar is that you can set up an different image for different email addresses so your Drupal site admin identity can differ from other identities.

Related Images

Gravatar In Comments	Gravatar Settings

The ability to cross post from other publishing platforms is one of the hidden killer features in Drupal. I say that this feature is hidden because I rarely ever hear anyone discussing it in the Drupal forums. The feature is activated by a core module called Blog API.

Once activated, the Blog API module allows you to publish content from other sites to your blog on Drupal. The other site must support this type of cross posting in order for the process to work properly. The benefit in utilizing this feature is that you save time by not having to publish something twice.