is there a library to fetch user avatars?

Question

Let's suppose we are adding users to a platform using the email address.

Until the invited users don't upload an avatar or a profile picture, the best we can display is either a generic "user icon" or a identicon (or similar).

I assume that given the email address, there's a possibility that the user is on LinkedIN, Google plus, facebook, twitter and who knows where.

Is there a library or do you have experience in writing an algorithm that will try to fetch a profile picture from multiple channels?

--edit--

I am aware of automatically generated avatars (identicon), but what I am really trying to achieve is personal avatar that belongs to the user.

Can you use Gravatar to get the profile picture with the email address? It's an incredibly popular platform and I've used it successfully myself. Also, there are libraries available! — lewiguez, Nov 05 '13 at 14:51
gravatar.com only displays automatically generated avatars for users that haven't uploaded their own yet. Try plugging in the MD5 hash of my email address: ac01d8d04fdbc53742f47257473a8a1e — r3mainer, Nov 05 '13 at 15:38
But it means that you uploaded your avatar on Gravatar? My typical user will definitely not upload an avatar on Gravatar — Rdpi, Nov 05 '13 at 17:13

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 05 '13 at 14:52

1

The gravatar API is the simplest option:

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef?s=80&d=identicon&r=g

Result:

enter image description here

The long hex number is the md5 hash of the user's email address (trimmed and lowercase). s is the avatar size.

answered Nov 05 '13 at 14:52

r3mainer

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is there a library to fetch user avatars?

1 Answers1