Activity with Images

This is really all about theming the activity output and there are a number of other issues that are similar to this. To that end I am going to rework the default activity output pages to make them themable to a greater degree than they are now.

I'll revisit this issue once those changes have gone into the new branches.

could even just pull user picture to start (if present)

@lelizondob - if you DO find something, please let us know! just pulling a user picture would be extremely cool and would make the layout look really nice...

Please help me!! I can't theme user pictures on activity page. All I made was default picture. Plese give some example with theming...

i'm beginning to think that for some reason it is the taxonomy image module that will bridge this path - specifically for the 'show a calendar icon' comment way up above in original post

..and alongside that, a call to the user picture - privatemsg module is now doing this for messages, perhaps a quick look into their code will show how it was done? i can't understand it, but the original thread is here: http://drupal.org/node/170387

but activity module - unlike privatemsg - has nothing like "theme_privatemsg_username" to override directly, we'd need a theme_activity_username to override that would inherit for all contrib modules

here are the core d6 themeable elements: http://api.drupal.org/api/group/themeable

here's one possible solution, but it's a HEAVY hackup: http://drupal.org/node/170387#comment-879371

Ok for the activity pages as seen in /activity or /activity/mine you can now customize the output of the table by using a theme override.

The table is generated in the latest snapshots by the theme_activity_table() function as invoked by activity_page() as seen here:

 ...snip...
  else if ($page == 'all') {
    $activities = activity_get_activity(ACTIVITY_ALL, NULL, variable_get('activity_page_pager', 20));
    $table = theme('activity_table', $activities);
    $feed_url =  url('activity/all/feed');
    drupal_add_feed($feed_url);
    $feed = theme('feed_icon', $feed_url);
    return theme('activity_page', $activities, $table);
  }
 ...snip...

theme_activity_table() was formerly just activity_table() and so was not able to overridden:

function theme_activity_table($activities) {
  $display_headers = array(
    'created' => array('field' => 'created', 'data' => t('Date')),
    t('Message'),
  );

  $rows = array();
  foreach ($activities as $activity) {
    if ($activity_message = activity_token_replace($activity)) {
      $rows[] = array(
        theme('activity_timestamp', $activity['created']),
        theme('activity', $activity_message, $activity),
      );
    }
  }
  $output = theme('table', $display_headers, $rows);
  $output .= theme('pager');
  return $output;
}

So if you wanted to say remove the table header, add in a picture and move the time to the end of the activity record then you could add a theme override to your template.php like this:

function phptemplate_activity_table($activities) {
  $rows = array();
  foreach ($activities as $activity) {
    if ($activity_message = activity_token_replace($activity)) {
      $rows[] = array(
        theme('user_picture', $activity['data']['author-uid']),
        theme('activity', $activity_message, $activity) .' - <em>'. format_interval(time() - $activity['created']) .'ago</em>',
      );
    }
  }
  $output = theme('table', array(), $rows);
  $output .= theme('pager');
  return $output;
}

You'd probably want to use something other than theme('user_picture') to draw your user avatars if they are as big as one would normally have. Instead you might have your own custom theme override for theme_user_picture so that you can make use of imagecache for example.

this is excellent, though i'm a bit of a novice when it comes to this - some quick questions:

is this in current dev/release (or over coming days)? for D6 or D5 (this original thread is all about the D5 version)

where is that template.php file? is this the main core template.php file or within a theme folder for site theme?

within template.php, where should such a snippet be pasted? top, bottom, does it matter?

The change in the activity page to allow for better theming is changed in both d5 and d6. As far as theming goes and how to handle adding theme overrides to your theme, that's outside the scope of this issue. I suggest you start with the Drupal documentation for theming.

http://drupal.org/theme-guide

And specifically for theme override concepts:

http://drupal.org/node/173880

@lelizondob

with the new theme override possibilities you could change the output as you mentioned to show any arbitrary image based on each row in the table of activity records. For example you could show an image for activity entries for votes, another image for buddylist/User relationships actions, create/update/delete of nodes or comments or even for specific node types.

thanks - it's a bit beyond me so i'll need to read up on it...if it winds up in here as a contrib module (like 'display user pictures in activity'), that would be sweeeeet.....

You can get access to the tokens available for a particular activity message type from the activity array that is available in the last example theme override

function phptemplate_activity_table($activities) {
  $rows = array();
  foreach ($activities as $activity) {
    if ($activity_message = activity_token_replace($activity)) {
      $rows[] = array(
        theme('user_picture', $activity['data']['author-uid']),
        theme('activity', $activity_message, $activity) .' - <em>'. format_interval(time() - $activity['created']) .'ago</em>',
      );
    }
  }
  $output = theme('table', array(), $rows);
  $output .= theme('pager');
  return $output;
}

For example if I dump the values of the $activity array that is part of this loop:

  foreach ($activities as $activity) {
    // $activity array is full of data for this record and available to the theme function here

    if ($activity_message = activity_token_replace($activity)) {
      $rows[] = array(
        theme('user_picture', $activity['data']['author-uid']),

        // $activity array is also passed to theme_activity_message() so that theme function also gets the full data of the record
        theme('activity', $activity_message, $activity) .' - <em>'. format_interval(time() - $activity['created']) .'ago</em>',

      );
    }
  }

I have access to these values (for this particular activity record which happens to be votingapiactivity):

array
  'aid' => string '324' (length=3)
  'module' => string 'votingapiactivity' (length=17)
  'type' => string 'vote' (length=4)
  'operation' => string 'mark' (length=4)
  'created' => string '1224519711' (length=10)
  'data' => 
    array
      'author-uid' => string '1' (length=1)
      'content-id' => string '52' (length=2)
      'content-type' => string 'blog entry' (length=10)
      'content-title' => string 'Wisi Olim Pertineo Brevitas' (length=27)
      'content-link' => string '<a href="/node/52">Wisi Olim Pertineo Brevitas</a>' (length=50)
      'created' => string '1224519711' (length=10)
      'activity_id' => string '324' (length=3)
      'module' => string 'votingapiactivity' (length=17)
      'type' => string 'vote' (length=4)
      'operation' => string 'mark' (length=4)
  'target_uid' => string '-1' (length=2)
  'target_role' => string 'all' (length=3)
  'activity_history_new' => string '' (length=0)

So when you are in theme_activity_table or theme_activity_message you have access to all the data that is available for a particular activity record.

I cannot get this work with D6, I copied the phptemplate function into template.php, but it does not overright the existing one :(

Edit: Got it work, sorry, was a caching problem...

Well, I avoided touching any of the files (which perhaps has some advantage) but just do it via the administrative interface.

For example :

come to /admin/settings/activity

click Tokens for nodeactivity

click on Messages visible to the "All" role.

come to Blog entry: Create:

Fill the box with something like

<image align=absmiddle src=whatever_path/whatever.gif> [author] penned [node-title-link] [time-ago] ago

I do not get this at all. I placed the phptemplate_activity_table function in my template.php and all it did was switch up my /activity page a little and not add the user's picture.

Just to test i took off the

        theme('user_picture', $activity['data']['author-uid']),

in the

function phptemplate_activity_table($activities) {
  $rows = array();
  foreach ($activities as $activity) {
    if ($activity_message = activity_token_replace($activity)) {
      $rows[] = array(
        theme('user_picture', $activity['data']['author-uid']),
        theme('activity', $activity_message, $activity) .' - <em>'. format_interval(time() - $activity['created']) .'ago</em>',
      );
    }
  }
  $output = theme('table', array(), $rows);
  $output .= theme('pager');
  return $output;
}

And no difference. The user name stayed on there.

What am I doing wrong?

Also what I'm looking for is to change this in the block not the page. Doesn't matter to me if it shows it or not on the page but in the block is where I could like to see this change

Please help.

:o(

So what's the best way to do this? I'm stunned that no one's worked out a way to do this yet. Activity feeds are becoming widespread on the web....and Drupal doesn't seem to have one that can do it just yet. Check out the one on the home page of http://www.faniq.com to see a pretty nice one. Would be great to be able to replicate that in Drupal.

Did you read the details in #9?

Jaydub,

I did exactly that. Please read #21 and the picture didn't show up.

What can I be doing wrong?

Do we need to rewrite the "phptemplate" part in the function declaration when adding it to our template.tpl.php file?

I pasted in the code from #9 and saw no change on my /activity page or my activity block.

@bflora
I saw a change but I didn't see any user picture and I only saw it in my Activity PAGE, not the block.

What I did was just past that code from #9 in my template.php. Nothing else.

I wish Jaydub would stop ignoring me.
:o(

Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Can someone tell me how to do this correctly?

#28 I know it's hard for you to wait but the reality is that the developers are busy right now with their day jobs. I myself will have a window of time to work on activity over the holiday so if you can be patient and wait for development to proceed eventually you'll get what you need :)

Thanks, jaydub. This will be an awesome addition to the module. I see this is tagged for 5.x. Is it planned for 6.x as well?

Michelle

Both 5 and 6. The Version drop-down only allows for selecting a single item so what can you do...

Yeah, I have the same problem. AF is getting developed in parallel between the branches so I just set them all to 6.x.

Thanks for the info. I'll be watching for it.

Michelle

subscribing

I'm going to be working on the APK / activity integration later today and this is something I need. If you had a chance to work on anything that isn't committed, I'd appreciate a heads up. The more already done, the less I have to do. ;)

Michelle

I'm working through the holidays on this and others. I've added user pictures as a feature but the actual implementation of a user image is most likely going to have to be a custom theme override for the average site since all activity can fall back on in the base module is theme('user_picture') which out of the box will likely return a fairly large size avatar.

Oh, good, because I only got as far as the panels integration yesterday. Didn't have as much time to work as I'd hoped.

What I plan on doing with my modules (advanced forum, advanced profile kit) is to make use of imagecache if the site has it installed. I haven't decided, yet, if I just want to set a preset name in code or make it an option in settings. Probably the latter. At any rate, wherever I do theme_user_picture, I would check for imagecache and use imagecache instead if it's set. You might want to consider that for this. Then someone just needs to make an "activity" preset with a smaller avatar.

Totally OT to this issue but thought you might be interested in http://groups.drupal.org/node/17847

Michelle

Yeah the way I've got it is to define an activity theme function for images:

function theme_activity_user_picture($account) {
  return theme('user_picture', $account);
}

So a site can provide whatever image implementation they want by overriding the theme function. I don't want to get into having to account for whether or not imagecache is installed, what is an appropriate imagecache preset etc...

This leaves it all in the hands of the site which is where it belongs I think.

That makes sense. It does "belong" on the site but I was planning on adding it to my modules just because it makes it easier for the end user and anything that makes it easier cuts down on support requests. :)

Thanks for adding this. I'll grab the latest dev and give it a whirl.

Michelle

[Edit: Actually... The last dev was on Dec 15th and there's no commit messages since then. Am I missing something?]

not committed to CVS yet! still working on UR integration and other stuff before I do a code dump...

Code dump? Tsk... Whatever happened to discrete commits? :P

Ok. Will wait. Hope it's soon, though. I've got to get this project done this weekend. Got a Monday deadline and my son's having surgery on Monday so I won't be working that day.

Michelle

New -dev snapshot has better support for activity user pictures now. Please checkout the handbook page on theming activity: http://drupal.org/node/353445 for details.

Hi jaydub, thanks for the great module. Can you give me a little more instruction on how to use this please? :D

I have:

function myzensubtheme_activity_user_picture($account) {
return theme('imagecache', 'tinyavatar', 'user_picture', $account);
}

in my template.php.

I see no changes at all.

The imagecache stuff comes from imagecache profiles: http://drupal.org/project/imagecache_profiles

What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

Ahh I get it, I didn't refresh cache.

But still, my return theme is incorrect. It looks in the imagecache folder but doesn't grab the picture.

I tried return theme('imagecache', 'tinyavatar', $user->picture); as well, but that's also a no go. What are the correct settings?

Thanks.

Well rather than try to delve into your specific problem, here is an example theme override that I used. This is basically a tweak of what you might see in the old default theme_user_picture theme function.

function phptemplate_activity_user_picture($account) {
  if (variable_get('user_pictures', 0)) {
    // If there is a user image then fetch it
    if ($account->picture && file_exists($account->picture)) {
      $alt = t("@user's picture", array('@user' => $account->name ? $account->name : variable_get('anonymous', t('Anonymous'))));
      $picture = theme('imagecache', 'user_picture_tiny_square', $account->picture, $alt, $alt);
    }
    // otherwise check for a default image and fetch it
    else if ($picture = variable_get('user_picture_default', '')) {
      $picture = theme('imagecache', 'user_picture_tiny_square', $picture, $alt, $alt);
    }

    // If we have a picture then make it link to the profile and return it
    if (isset($picture)) {
      if (!empty($account->uid) && user_access('access user profiles')) {
        $picture = l($picture, "user/$account->uid", array('attributes' => array('class' => 'user-picture-link', 'title' => t('View user profile.')), 'html' => TRUE));
      }
      return $picture;
    }
  }
}

of course you would substitute your own imagecache preset where applicable.

Thanks, exactly what I need.

re #44: If this is for D6, you don't want to use phptemplate_user_picture() or you'll prevent any preprocesses from running.

Edit: Nevermind that. I just realized this is overriding the activity theme function, not the core theme function. Sorry.

Michelle

To prevent anyone else from spending an obscene amount of time missing the obvious, you actually have to add the "[author-picture]" token for this to work. Doh! I can't believe I missed that.

On the plus side, I'm a lot more familiar with the activity codebase now...

Michelle

Actually no you don't HAVE to use the [author-picture] token to show a user picture but you CAN use it to show a picture. It's provided as a convenience in case you want the picture to be inside or at the beginning or end of the activity message, i.e. as part of the message.

If you wanted the picture outside of the message such as in a different table cell or in front of both the activity timestamp and the activity message then you can show the picture as described in this issue and in the theming docs.

Well, my mistake was that, when you said you added picture support, I assumed you had added a call to theme('user_picture') in the code somewhere. And I couldn't figure out where you had done that. Then it finally dawned on me that what you added was the token. So to use this without the token, we'd need to add theme('user_picture') to theme_activity, I'm assuming? That's where I originally looked and got totally confused that theme_activity is never called. Took me a lot of hunting thru code before I finally realized it was because I have Morbus's comment activity on that same site. So it's been a crazy trip thru the activity source code today. LOL

Michelle

I added the theme function theme_activity_user_picture() to be used in any case where you want to get a user picture. The implementation is left up to the user as stated in this issue since there is no one solution that is going to work for everyone. The author-picture token simply calls this theme('activity_user_picture') with a minimal user object returned from activity_user_load().

In the theming docs: http://drupal.org/node/353445 you can see an example at the bottom where the user picture is shown via the theme call rather than as a token.

I know this is for version 6.x but how could I add this for 5 beta 2?

The issue is set as 6.x branch but the same applies for 5.x. The Drupal project module only allows for a single 'Version' tag so when an issue concerns a 5 and 6 branch of a module one has to go ahead and select one even if both apply....

Has anyone.. that's NOT a developer, gotten this to work?

I mean I'm able to get the user-picture to display in the list on the activity page but on the block all it shows is 1 image and no activities.

???????? :o(

To build on that last comment, can someone sum up the steps to add images to activity for D5. There are now 50+ posts in this thread, and it appears a solution has been posted, but I'm not sure exactly what it is or where the solution is in the thread.

I know jaydub wants to leave this up to the themer but, given that it can be confusing for a non dev, I thought I'd toss in the code I just added to advanced forum that could easily be adapted to activity. Pretty much just S/R for 'advanced_forum' to 'activity'.

On the settings form:

  if (module_exists('imagecache')) {
    $options = array('' => '');
    $presets = imagecache_presets();
    foreach ($presets AS $preset) {
      $options[$preset['presetname']] = $preset['presetname'];
    }

    $form['advanced_forum_user_picture_preset'] = array(
      '#type' => 'select',
      '#title' => t('User picture preset'),
      '#options' => $options,
      '#description' => t('Imagecache preset to use for forum avatars. Leave blank to not use this feature.'),
      '#default_value' => variable_get('advanced_forum_user_picture_preset', ''),  
    );
  }

This lets them choose what preset, if any, to use for the avatars in the forum.

Then the specialized theme function, which already exists in Activity:

/**
 * Theme function to return user picture.
 */
function theme_advanced_forum_user_picture($account) {
  $preset = variable_get('advanced_forum_user_picture_preset', '');
  if (variable_get('user_pictures', 0) && !empty($preset) && module_exists('imagecache')) {
    if ($account->picture && file_exists($account->picture)) {
      $picture = theme('imagecache', $preset, $account->picture);
    }
    return '<div class="picture">' . $picture . '</div>';
  }  
  else {
    return theme('user_picture', $account);
  }
}

So what this does is lets the admin pick a preset on the settings page if they have imagecache installed. When it's time to theme the user picture for the activity item, it checks that picture support is enabled, that the user has chosen a preset, and that imagecache is enabled. If these things aren't true, then it just does the normal core function.

There is a slight gotcha here if they select a preset in AF, then go delete that preset, so a case could be made for checking that the preset still exists. But given the amount of times this function can be called on a given page, I decided to risk an error for foolishness. ;)

Michelle

@bflora and others asking about pictures. The code posted here are only about using imagecache with pictures or theming pictures in general. To simply add a picture it's one of the tokens available in the activity settings. Just look at the token list and include it, quite simple.

i tried installing imagecache but it says there's a problem with my php version

no solution without imagecache installed?

@lost305: You could use CSS to squish the images smaller.

Michelle

@lelizondob: And that started working without imagecache when? ;)

Michelle

@lelizondob: Yes, but I was directing that at the person who said they are unable to use imagecache. So telling him to use imagecache_profiles really isn't going to do him any good.

Michelle

@lelizondob: I didn't even see your post as it was at the same time as mine. Anyway, my #57 was intended as an addition to activity, not something for the average person to be writing. If they add that to activity, then people would be able to choose an imagecache preset from settings and then just add the token to their activity line, also in settings, and be good to go. Docs are nice but easier to use modules are better.

Michelle

@Michelle

Thanks I finally got it working. I didn't know I had to add the IMG to the previous stated class and then I was able to manage the size of the picture.

Now for the initial dilema...

How do I get the user image to display block function?

I'm still trying to add the user picture to the activity block.

In the following code found in the activity.module file....

        case 'all':
          if (user_access('view public activity')) {
            $activity =  activity_get_activity(ACTIVITY_ALL, NULL, variable_get('activity_block_'. $delta, 5) + 1);
            if ($count = count($activity)) {
              drupal_add_css(drupal_get_path('module', 'activity') .'/activity.css');
              if ($count > variable_get('activity_block_'. $delta, 5)) {
                $more_link = theme('activity_more_link', 'activity');
                array_pop($activity);
              }
              $activities = array();
              foreach ($activity as $item) {
                $activities[] = theme('activity', activity_token_replace($item), $item) . activity_delete_link($item);
              }
              return array(
                'subject' => t('Recent activity'),
                'content' => theme('activity_block', $activities, $more_link)
              );
            }
          }
          break;

I added 'user_picture' to the line
$activities[] = theme('activity', activity_token_replace($item), $item) . activity_delete_link($item);

like this
$activities[] = theme('user_picture', 'activity', activity_token_replace($item), $item) . activity_delete_link($item);

and the picture shows up in the block but not the activity. So it's the user picture plus the X to delete the activity.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks for you time.

Setting back to active since there are still a lot of folks needing help with this

tagging

would anyone be able to give an example of correct code to pull user picture if present, and where to put it?

thx

Hi,

This is so close to being perfect ..

I've added the following to template.php, but the delete activity link is missing, as well as the image_cache preset, in my case called 'profile_small'.

Please how do I alter the following to add activity link and image_cache preset?

function phptemplate_activity_table($activities) {
  $rows = array();
  foreach ($activities as $activity) {
    if ($activity_message = activity_token_replace($activity)) {
      $rows[] = array(
        theme('user_picture', $activity['data']['author-uid']),
        theme('activity', $activity_message, $activity) .' - <em>'. format_interval(time() - $activity['created']) .' ago</em>',
      );
    }
  }
  $output = theme('table', array(), $rows);
  $output .= theme('pager');
  return $output;
}

Look forward to any reply, and thank you!
Lilian

@lelizondob - Thank you for contributing your solution! Hopefully we'll get this all summarized and properly documented at some point.

@lelizondob: You could adapt the second bit of code in http://drupal.org/node/323380#comment-1217686

Michelle

Are you loading the $account variable with a user object before running that code? If not, that's the problem.

Michelle

Yes, that would be the problem. global $user gets you the user object for the logged in user, which you are then re-loading into the $account variable. You need to load the $account variable with the user object of the person you want the picture for. For that, you need their ID. I can't tell you how to get that without knowing what variables are available to that snippet.

Michelle

subscribing

Hi lelizondob,

Your screenshot is beautiful and wondering if you perhaps have an updated phptemplate override for 6.x-2.x-dev?

I've tried #75, but has made no difference and presuming it's to do with a newer version.

Look most forward to your reply.
Lilian

phptemplate override for 6.x-2.x-dev?

Because 2.x uses Views, you should use the Views theme information link to figure out how to theme it. The first step is to add the Activity: User relationship. Then add the User: Picture field. Then you can use the theme: Information to figure out how to theme up the picture. For information on how to theme up Views: http://drupal.org/node/352970

http://skitch.com/supermanscott/dy4ei/picture

You can also look into using: http://drupal.org/project/imagecache_profiles

You also shouldn't write a phptemplate_X function, it should be MY_THEME_X function.

I've seen a lot of code pass by, this is a solution to get this done trough views.

• Download and install - activity - http://drupal.org/project/activity
• Download and install - views_customfield - http://drupal.org/project/views_customfield

• Create a new activity view
• Add the field: Customfield: PHP code
• Add the field: Activity: Type

In the Customfield: PHP code, set the following php code.

<?php
if( $data->activity_type== 'node' ):
  $img = '/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/assets/img/icons/image1.png';
elseif( $data->activity_type== 'comment' ):
    $img = '/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/assets/img/icons/image2.png';
else:
  $img = '/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/assets/img/icons/image3.png';
endif;

return '<img src="'. $img .'">';
?>

In the Activity: Type field, check the Exclude from display option.

Now if you want to add another option, let's say user relationships. You just alter the code in the php code field and add another elseif().

<?php
if( $data->activity_type== 'node' ):
  $img = '/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/assets/img/icons/image1.png';
elseif( $data->activity_type== 'comment' ):
    $img = '/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/assets/img/icons/image2.png';
elseif( $data->activity_type== 'user_relationships' ): // OR whatever the activity_type is called
    $img = '/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/assets/img/icons/image4.png';
else:
  $img = '/sites/all/themes/yourtheme/assets/img/icons/image3.png';
endif;

return '<img src="'. $img .'">';
?>

How to know what the activity_type is? Just uncheck the Exclude from display option in the Activity: Type field and it will show what type it is.

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