how do I add gravatar/identicons into ruby on rails?

Question

I have looked at the following, but they aren't clear, particularly the reference to DataMapper and gem dependencies.

all I want as an outcome is to be able to take my @user.email value that is in a |do| loop and display a gravatar where identicon is set to "y" -- in other words, those cute seemingly random drawings!

But when I look at what is available, it isn't clear what to do -- particularly the references to DataMapper and gem dependencies.

http://github.com/chrislloyd/gravtastic/tree/master

I am playing around with this but wanted to get feedback from others before diving too deep!

http://www.thechrisoshow.com/2008/10/27/adding-gravatars-to-your-rails-apps

I installed woods gravatar plugin:

http://github.com/woods/gravatar-plugin/tree/master which is the same as the one referred below...however, I get an error when I type in:

<%= gravatar_for @user %>

The error is:

undefined method `gravatar_for' for #<ActionView::Base:0x474ddf4>

Answer 1

You need to md5 hash the email address and then put it into a gravatar URL. That will give you the image url. Below is an example of how to do it.

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/  md5(email)  ?s=128&d=identicon&r=PG

If you want those random drawings that appear you can use and md5 hash to get them. You could hash the key value in a loop and obtain a list that way.

Answer 2

There's a Gravatar Rails plugin that can be found here:

http://gravatarplugin.rubyforge.org/

Install the plugin like this:

  ruby script/plugin install svn://rubyforge.org//var/svn/gravatarplugin/plugins/gravatar

After installing the plugin, if your model responds to an 'email' method, this tag will show the Gravatar:

  <%= gravatar_for @user %>

Answer 3

Not to repeat too much, but instead to give a more detailed answer:

As Sam152 said, you must create an MD5 hash from the user's email address which is then used in a GET request to the gravatar server.

The easiest way to gain access to MD5 hashes is through Digest, part of the ActionPack (inside ActionView) gem. Place the following in 'config/environment.rb':

require 'digest'

Now you only need to use the following where you wish to display the user's gravatar:

image_tag("http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=#{Digest::MD5::hexdigest(@user.email)}", :alt => 'Avatar', :class => 'avatar')

This requires no additional gems and you can create a helper as needed if all you require is pulling in the user's gravatar.