Emoji syntax gravatars

[cameronmcefee]

I'm not sure if this is a good idea or if this is actually the place to suggest it, but it'd be cool if you could put something like :cameronmcefee: in any gfm field and have the person's avatar appear, probably linked to their profile and maybe tool-tipped with their name.

[rtomayko]

Kind of love it personally. 👍 Some will conflict with real emoji so I wonder if it'd be better to use a different syntax. :@cameronmcefee: or something?

[jbarnette]

Pretty cool secret feature. :)

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 5:12 PM, Ryan Tomayko notifications@github.comwrote:

Kind of love it personally. [image: 👍] Some will conflict with real
emoji so I wonder if it'd be better to use a different syntax. :
@cameronmcefee https://github.com/cameronmcefee: or something?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/56#issuecomment-19487983
.

[cameronmcefee]

:@cameronmcefee: or something?

I wonder if that would play nicely with current @mentions

[jch]

I'd pick some unused syntax like jch

[cameronmcefee]

since it's going to be an image and a link, what if we just used an already expected syntax?

![Cameron McEfee](@cameronmcefee)

[skalnik]

But that doesn't usually form a link does it? I thought it was just embed the image.

[cameronmcefee]

They come in as a link to the source. Since we'd be modifying the behavior a bit to link it to a profile that may not be ideal

[simeonwillbanks]

Hello All,

May I help by implementing this filter?

As I see it, the filter is responsible for parsing the document, locating ~cameronmcefee~ (or similar) strings, and replacing those with an avatar linked to a profile (using context base_url). It's very similar to the current MentionFilter.

Also, the filter can depend upon a service, and the service is responsible for converting a profile string into an avatar. This way, an application can implement cameronmcefee to in any manner.

I hacked up a prototype to review.

Thanks for considering my idea, and any input is appreciated!

[yury]

I'd like :@cameronmcefee:

[jch]

@simeonwillbanks happy new years! Just revisiting old issues lying around. Are you still interested in turning your prototype into a pull request?

As far as feedback, I'm not a fan of the indirection of passing in a service. Yes, it is more flexible, but at this level, the code does nothing and leaves all the work to be done by the service. I'd rather just have common gravatar features passed in.

[jch]

Also, ~ may not be a good delimiter because ~~ are already used for strikethroughs by github-markdown. edit: maybe the delimiter can be a passed in option that has a sane default.

[simeonwillbanks]

@jch happy new years to you! Yes. 😄

I suggested a service for two reasons:

1. Flexibility (Gravatar, home grown solution, etc)
2. Likelihood of login to avatar being non-deterministic

With Gravatar, login to avatar isn't deterministic. 😦 Gravatar requires an email hash for the avatar URL.

However, you make a solid point. Let's review a Gravatar URL, and see what a Filter could build. I grabbed mine from this comment.

https://0.gravatar.com/avatar/a624cb08e20db3ac4adb6380928a7b11?d=https%3A%2F%2Fidenticons.github.com%2Fde0265f943d367c375979d1fed48bf65.png&r=x&s=140

It can be simplified. Notably, we can replace my GitHub user ID hash with my login.

https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/a624cb08e20db3ac4adb6380928a7b11?d=https%3A%2F%2Fidenticons.github.com%2Fsimeonwillbanks.png&r=x&s=140

The new Filter could receive Gravatar params and have sensible defaults like &r=x&s=25.

The Default Image is a bit trickier. Maybe the Filter defines a constant which aids a search and replace?

login = "simeonwillbanks"
class Filter
  TOKEN = "__login_token__"
end
# default_image_url sent to Filter and references Filter::TOKEN
default_image_url = "https://identicons.github.com/#{Filter::TOKEN}.png"
default_image_url.sub Filter::TOKEN, login
#=> "https://identicons.github.com/simeonwillbanks.png"

The email hash requires a simpler service than the prototype service.

# Filter receives service
# Service defines login_to_email
email = service.login_to_email "simeonwillbanks"
# => "sfw@simeonfosterwillbanks.com"
email_hash = Digest::MD5.hexdigest email
#=> "a624cb08e20db3ac4adb6380928a7b11"
basic_gravatar_url = "https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/#{email_hash}"
#=> "https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/a624cb08e20db3ac4adb6380928a7b11"

Thoughts?

Also, 👍 for passed in delimiter with sane default.

Thanks!

[jch]

Flexibility (Gravatar, home grown solution, etc)

That's a good point. If that's the case, I'd suggest naming your filter something more descriptive. Maybe just AvatarFilter for the generic interface that takes a service, and GravatarService or GravatarFilter for the concrete implementation.

I like that this filter doesn't add any external code dependencies. Normally, I wouldn't want to depend on a 3rd party external service either, but Gravatar's been around for a long time and feels like the common choice.

[simeonwillbanks]

@jch Thanks!

An interface with a concrete implementation is a good idea.

Agreed. I'll start a branch, and commit early and often. We can hammer out the specifics.