How to map buddypress avatar on registration.

Hello Alex,

BuddyPress Avatar is very complex. WordPress default avatar doesn’t works with BuddyPress unless you use Gravatar.
My suggestion is –

1. do not add Avatar field on registration form.

2. Allow your users to upload Avatar from BuddyPress Settings
Navigate to Dashboard >> Settings >> BuddyPress >> Settings tab and check the box that says “Allow registered members to upload avatars”.

Regarding BuddyPress Avatar , you can find more info here: http://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/guides/customizing-buddypress-avatars/

Hi Mahi,

Thanks for your reply. I’m familiar with using BuddyPress avatars which people are already doing on my site.

My issue is that I want to make it mandatory for new registrants to upload an avatar. This would need to be part of the registration process, if possible.

Even though it’s complex, any other ideas of how to do this?

Has anyone else ever succeeded in making avatars mandatory upon registration via other ways?

thx,
Alex

Unfortunately, i can’t see any other way right now.

BuddyPress code developer doesn’t recommend this as well. ( http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-buddypress-avatar-upload-in-registration-form )

What buddypress does for avatars is pretty crazy. So I am not sure if WPUF
will ever support that!

Hi Mahi and Tareq,

Thanks for your comments. I read the post you linked to and I understand the reasoning behind it.

I’m running a website (http://www.trekkingpartners.com/) where I need to have as many layers to authenticate people’s identity as possible, personal photos being a big one. If they aren’t required to do it upon registration, many don’t take the time to do it later.

Guess I’ll figure out another way around this for now, as it doesn’t seem possible/wise to do it upon registration.

Thanks!
Alex

PS. Tareq, what do you mean, “What buddypress does for avatars is pretty crazy. So I am not sure if WPUF will ever support that!”

Avatar upload process in buddypress very complex. It creates an avatar folder in your wp-content directory and for each user, it creates a directory for storing avatars. When showing the avatar for a user, it reads all the files from that directory and selects the correct one. I am not sure why they choose to do all these troubles, but to me it’s pretty crazy.

Gotcha. So it would be hard to hook in to…

The BuddyPress Profile Integration add-on actually has a form field for “avatar”, whereby members can upload a photo. However this form field does not show up under the BuddyPress mapping tab.

Is this field supposed to work?

thanks,

Alex

Hello Alex,

We already have lots of discussion about this! unfortunately, its not possible to manage BuddyPress user’s profile picture with wpuf. Its very complex the way BuddyPress handle users profile picture.

I know there has been… I was just checked because I hadn’t noticed the avatar field before so I got excited that it might work.

Thanks Mahi.

Alex