Using django-avatar
===================


Basics
------

To integrate ``django-avatar`` with your site, there are relatively few things
that are required.  A minimal integration can work like this:

1.  List this application in the ``INSTALLED_APPS`` portion of your settings
    file.  Your settings file will look something like::

        INSTALLED_APPS = (
            # ...
            'avatar',
        )

2.  Add the pagination urls to the end of your root urlconf.  Your urlconf
    will look something like::

        urlpatterns = patterns('',
            # ...
            (r'^admin/(.*)', admin.site.root),
            (r'^avatar/', include('avatar.urls')),
        )

3.  Somewhere in your template navigation scheme, link to the change avatar
    page::

        <a href="{% url 'avatar_change' %}">Change your avatar</a>

4.  Wherever you want to display an avatar for a user, first load the avatar
    template tags::

        {% load avatar_tags %}

    Then, use the ``avatar`` tag to display an avatar of a default size::

        {% avatar user %}

    Or specify a size (in pixels) explicitly::

        {% avatar user 65 %}

5.  Optionally customize ``avatar/change.html`` and
    ``avatar/confirm_delete.html`` to conform to your site's look and feel.


Views
-----

There are only two views for this application: one for changing a user's avatar,
and another for deleting a user's avatar.

Changing an avatar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The actual view function is located at ``avatar.views.change``, and this can
be referenced by the url name ``avatar_change``.  It takes two keyword
arguments: ``extra_context`` and ``next_override``.  If ``extra_context`` is
provided, that context will be placed into the template's context.

If ``next_override`` is provided, the user will be redirected to the specified
URL after form submission.  Otherwise the user will be redirected to the URL
specified in the ``next`` parameter in ``request.POST``.  If ``request.POST``
has no ``next`` parameter, ``request.GET`` will be searched.  If ``request.GET``
has no ``next`` parameter, the ``HTTP_REFERER`` header will be inspected.  If
that header does not exist, the user will be redirected back to the current URL.

Deleting an avatar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The actual view function is located at ``avatar.views.delete``, and this can be
referenced by the url name ``avatar_delete``.  It takes the same two keyword
arguments as ``avatar.views.change`` and follows the same redirection rules
as well.


Template Tags
-------------

To begin using these template tags, you must first load the tags into the
template rendering system:

    {% load avatar_tags %}

``{% avatar_url user [size in pixels] %}``
    Renders the URL of the avatar for the given user.  User can be either a
    ``django.contrib.auth.models.User`` object instance or a username.

``{% avatar user [size in pixels] %}``
    Renders an HTML ``img`` tag for the given user for the specified size.  User
    can be either a ``django.contrib.auth.models.User`` object instance or a
    username.

``{% render_avatar avatar [size in pixels] %}``
    Given an actual ``avatar.models.Avatar`` object instance, renders an HTML
    ``img`` tag to represent that avatar at the requested size.


Global Settings
---------------

There are a number of settings available to easily customize the avatars that
appear on the site.  Listed below are those settings:

AUTO_GENERATE_AVATAR_SIZES
    An iterable of integers representing the sizes of avatars to generate on
    upload.  This can save rendering time later on if you pre-generate the
    resized versions.  Defaults to ``(80,)``

AVATAR_RESIZE_METHOD
    The method to use when resizing images, based on the options available in
    PIL.  Defaults to ``Image.ANTIALIAS``.

AVATAR_STORAGE_DIR
    The directory under ``MEDIA_ROOT`` to store the images.  If using a
    non-filesystem storage device, this will simply be appended to the beginning
    of the file name.

AVATAR_GRAVATAR_BACKUP
    A boolean determining whether to default to the Gravatar service if no
    ``Avatar`` instance is found in the system for the given user.  Defaults to
    True.

AVATAR_DEFAULT_URL
    The default URL to default to if ``AVATAR_GRAVATAR_BACKUP`` is set to False
    and there is no ``Avatar`` instance found in the system for the given user.

AVATAR_ALLOWED_MIMETYPES
    Limit allowed avatar image uploads by their actual content payload and what image codecs we wish to support.
    This limits website user content site attack vectors against image codec buffer overflow and similar bugs.
    `You must have python-imaging library installed <https://github.com/ahupp/python-magic>`_.
    Suggested safe setting: ``("image/png", "image/gif", "image/jpeg")``.
    When enabled you'll get the following error on the form upload *File content is invalid. Detected: image/tiff Allowed content types are: image/png, image/gif, image/jpg*.

Management Commands
-------------------

This application does include one management command: ``rebuild_avatars``.  It
takes no arguments and, when run, re-renders all of the thumbnails for all of
the avatars for the pixel sizes specified in the ``AUTO_GENERATE_AVATAR_SIZES``
setting.