The Shiba Gravatar Plugin allows you to cache gravatar images locally on your server as well as use your own set of gravatar images.
This release updates the plugin for WordPress 3.1. We also expanded the plugin so that in addition to custom gravatar images, it will now cache generated (e.g. monster, identicon, wavatar) and non-generated (mystery man, blank, default logo) WordPress gravatar images.
Here is a detailed description of the Shiba Gravatar Plugin.
1. Set Gravatar Settings
After installing the plugin, first go into Settings >> Discussion. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, to the gravatar settings section. There should now be a new option called Shiba Gravatar. If you select Shiba Gravatar you can assign your own default images to comment authors that are not registered with gravatar.com.
Select the gravatar setting of your choice and Save Changes.
Note – If you select one of the generated gravatars the plugin will try to cache ALL of the generated gravatar images. Depending on the number of unique comment authors on your site, this may end up being a lot of cached images. Only select generated gravatars if you have a manageable number of comments.
2. Assign and Cache Gravatar Images
Cache your gravatars by going into Comments >> Cache Gravatar.
From this Cache Gravatar screen, you may cache or update your blog gravatar images. If you are using generated gravatars, make sure to always Clear Cache before doing Cache Gravatars.
To use your own custom images, make sure that your gravatar settings is assigned to Shiba Gravatar in step 1. Then, assign your own set of custom gravatar images by clicking on the Assign Gallery link.
Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to set your own custom gravatar images.
Hi Guys
We’ve been using your Gravatar Plugin for some time (for which, many thanks) but it’s broken in WP 3.5. Do you have any plans to update it, or do we need to try and fine an alternative?
Regards
John
I plan update all active plugins (including Shiba Gravatar), but it will take a bit of time to go through it all.
I’m having a similar problem actually – the cache doesn’t seem to be uploading and I’m guessing it’s a folder that hasn’t been CHMODed correctly. What folder do the cached images go into? Do I need to CHMOD that folder to 777 to get this to work? I looked through the documentation but I couldn’t figure out what folder the cached images were supposed to be saved to.
The gravatar images are cached in the plugin directory – shiba-gravatar/cache. Try creating a cache directory and see how it goes. 755 should be sufficient.
Let me know how it goes.
Bummer, Im at a loss then. I did all you said to do and it still seems to be overwriting everything ;-(
Let me see first if Im not confused 😉 What I was hoping this would do would be to cache gravatars for those users that have a gravatar attached to their email that’s in wordpress, and then for all others that dont match a gravatar record, I wanted to show a custom image. Does this plugin do that?
Yes that is what it is supposed to do.
I am using it on this blog so you can see the end result here.
Is this plugin supposed to replace gravatars that people already have associated with their accounts? It did so on my site and now those that had gravatar images, are getting replaced with the defaults. Any help possible?
Hello Mark,
Did you run cache? Try going into Comments >> Cache Gravatar. Then click on Cache Gravatars. After caching, those with associated gravatars should be properly assigned.
It should show the assigned avatar images in the Cache Gravatar page. If nothing is shown, it means that something is preventing the cache process from running.
As for assigning your own default pictures, you want to create a standard WordPress gallery by associating the images with a post or page. Then you can link the post or page to the plugin.
http://shibashake.hubpages.com/_srec/hub/WordPress-Photo-Gallery
I did clear the cache and that’s when it somehow overwrites all those that had gravatars active. For example, it replaced my own author gravatar with the faces, even though I had one. I really want to use the plugin cause it definitely speeds things up but I have to have our writers’ gravatars showing and it seems to be replacing everything with the faces… ;-(
Hello Mark,
Sounds like the cache is not getting populated. Did you click on the “Cache Gravatars” button? (Not clear cache) When you do that, what shows up on the Cache Gravatar screen?
It could be that file permissions are preventing the plugin from caching the avatar images.
If you post a new test comment, does it show up with the assigned avatar image?
FYI- the plugin does not overwrite existing data. It is simply looking in the cache to see if it has a cached avatar. If it does, it will use the cached avatar, and if not, it uses a default image. If the cache is empty, it will end up using default images for everything.