Question

slightly strange request, but does anybody know of any cool jquery plugin that changes the design or shape of its picture, based on a number (i.e. like reputation points)?

Similar to the StackOverflow user icons, they seem to change and morph every now and then (possibly based on reputation), I was wondering if someone knew of a similar way to do that.

Thanks for your input!

Answer 1

I don’t know of any jQuery plugins, however it’s not beyond reasonable to suggest that you could create something to that effect which would convert either a string, or a hash into an image (perhaps even within a canvas element), though it’s probably best to keep that away from the client machine and perform such actions on the server.

Some time back Stack Overflow launched a custom gravatar-ish alternative to “unicornify” everybody’s avatars. You can learn more about that particular setup at http://unicornify.appspot.com/use-it, and the history of it here: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/37328/my-godits-full-of-unicorns. This was the work of @balpha.

Gravatar keeps their algorithm under lock and key, understandably. Avatarco is an open-source PHP alternative that seeks to provide functionality similar to that of Gravatar. I would encourage you to peruse their source to for a better understanding of how you might accomplish something similar.