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 Visual Guide for installing an Avatar Gallery 
Description: Step by step instructions on how to install a working Avatar Gallery, with screen shots to make every step clear.
Author: SER
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2005 9:55 pm
Type: HowTo
Keywords: avatar,gallery,install
Category: Administrating
A Visual Guide To phpBB Avatar Galleries

This is my answer to a question that is repeated just about everyday at the phpBB website. This is very simple to implement, but you must make sure that paths and such are accurate.

Most of the problems that people have trying to get them to work are small things that get over looked.

So look carefully at this guide, and make sure everything is as it is shown here, and your avatar gallery should work just fine.

Avatar Gallery
Note: Screenshots are from the SubSilver template.

Here is how we proceed:

  1. What are Avatars and Rank Images?
  2. Getting Images
  3. File Structure
  4. Connect to your FTP site
  5. Make the correct folders for uploading
  6. Upload the images
  7. Logon to your site
  8. Set the permission and path
  9. Check out your new gallery



1. What are Avatars and Rank Images?

Avatars are small images that are used in the forums. They appear below your user name on the left side of the screen in your post or reply.

Avatars are not to be confused with RANK IMAGES. Ranks and rank images also appear below your name. We will leave ranks and rank images for another guide. In the mean time, take a look at Figure # 1 to see where each one goes.


Figure # 1: Locations of Avatar and Rank Images.


2. Getting Images

There are a lot of places on the web to get Avatar images. Try searching GOOGLE with the word "AVATAR". Of course you can find quite a few at the phpBB website.

You can see a preview of the images, and download the Avatar Image packs from the phpBB website by Clicking Here.

The main page for downloading images and templates for your forum can be found at the phpBB website HERE.

Save your Avatar images to your hard drive. Make sure you remember where you put them!


3. File Structure

Okay, so now you've got yourself a nice collection of images, now what?

"Let's upload them NOW!" WHOA, hold your horses there Tex! We need to get a plan together first. Maybe you have .ZIP files and various assorted images that you have saved. You need to extract or un-zip any .ZIP image packs that you may have downloaded, you can't just upload a .ZIP file to your site and expect it to work. So while you are extracting your files, now would be a good time to set up your file structure.

You need to determine if you only need one folder or multiple folders. If you have a small amount of images, say 30 or less, you may only need one folder. If you have any more than 30 images, I find it best to use multiple folders with names that describe the contents of each folder. Like putting images of bugs bunny in a folder named Bugs_Bunny, and images of Elmer Fudd in a folder named Elmer_Fudd.

Let's go through this step by step:

Create a new folder somewhere on your hard drive called gallery.


Figure # 2: Create a gallery folder on your hard drive.


Now that you have made a gallery folder, you need to make one or more subfolders inside the gallery folder. You images will go inside these subfolders.


Figure # 3: Create one or more folders inside the gallery folder.

The reason that I had you do all of this is because this is the structure that phpBB needs on the FTP site in order to work correctly.


4. Connect to your FTP site

Now you are ready to upload the images. You need to connect to your website's FTP site. Since there are so many different FTP clients, I'm not going to go through how to do this, besides you should already know how to do this since you have phpBB installed at your site. So we will jump to the next step.


5. Make the correct folders for uploading

Okay, you are now connected to your FTP site. Now we have to get all of those cool images uploaded to the right folders.

phpBB does NOT create all of the folders you need for this when you install it. So you need to add some folders.

On your FTP site:

  1. Go to your phpBB folder and open it.



  2. Open the images folder.



  3. Inside the images folder, make a new folder and name it avatars



  4. Open the avatars folder and inside it, make a new folder and name it gallery


The file structure on your FTP site is now set up and looks like this:

  • phpBB

    • images

      • avatars

        • gallery




Now you are ready to upload your images!


6. Upload the images

Remember back in step # 3 when we saved all of our images into one or more folders? Well now it's time to upload the folder(s) to your newly created gallery folder.

The specifics for each FTP client may be a little different, so I will not be able to go into specifics for each client.

But the short story is this: Upload your subfolder(s) with avatar images in them into the gallery folder. Make sure that you use binary mode.

Once you are done uploading your images, the file structure on your FTP site should look like this:

  • phpBB

    • images

      • avatars

        • gallery

          • subfolder1

            • image1
            • image2
            • image3
            • image4
            • ect.

          • subfolder2

            • image1
            • image2
            • image3
            • image4
            • etc.






7. Logon to your site

Now you need to logon to you phpBB 2.0.18 Forum (You did upgrade to version 2.0.18 didn't you?) so that you can make your newly created gallery available to your users.


8. Set the permission and path

Now that you have logged onto your Kick Butt Forum, you need to go to your ADMINISTRATION PANEL

Click on the text link at the bottom of your Forum.




Next, you need to go to the GENERAL ADMIN section of the panel and click on CONFIGURATION.




Next, scroll down to the 5th section in the right panel titled Avatar Settings.

Since we are only covering the avatar gallery in this guide, the only settings that concern us are the following:

  • Enable gallery avatars: Set this to YES
  • Avatar Gallery Path
    Path under your phpBB root dir for pre-loaded images, e.g. images/avatars/gallery
    Make sure that it is exactly as pictured here, because just one extra "/" at the front of the path will stop the gallery from showing up to your users.



Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the submit button.



Congratulations, you now have your avatar gallery!


9. Check out your new gallery

Now it's time to check it out. Scroll to the top of the Left panel and click on either the phpBB logo or the text that says Forum Index



This will take you back to your forum index page.

Now go to the top section of the index page where all of the links are and click on the Profile link.




Scroll all of the way to the last section titled Avatar control panel and click on the Show gallery button.




The first gallery (alphabetically) will open automatically.
The result will be something similar to the following screen shot.



When you click on the drop down box arrow it will show a list of "categories". The categories are the folders that you uploaded into your gallery folder.
Note that your categories will be different than those shown here.




Click on a category, and the drop down box will collapse and show the category that you clicked on.
Click on the Go button and it will show you the contents of the category you selected.

Click on a radio button under the image that you want displayed by your posts, then click on the Select avatar button.

If you decide that you don't want an avatar displayed next to your posts, you can just click on the Cancel avatar button.




You will then be taken back to the Avatar control panel, but now it will show the image that you selected.




Click on the Submit button, and you are done!

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