Participant avatar/user_picture in place of participant username in PM lists

Thanks for your notes.

Following this. To suit my own needs, I'm going to be modifying the code we discussed in: https://www.drupal.org/node/1549540.

I'll see if I can't (50/50) make it generic enough for others to adapt for their own needs. I'll post back if/when that happens. At least a week away at this point.

JPW

Haven't looked at it yet.Wading through a commerce project ATM, but hope to return to this in a few days. Sorry for delay.

hahahaha. Have been sidetracked on another project. Will look at this today. I just did some sanity check searching, came across this: https://www.drupal.org/node/1573000. Haven't investigated yet, but if it offers views integration, it may be a great starting point. I'll try to post back later today with an update.

Noted. I'm working through some of this now. For me personally, I'd rather have the views integration, but this patch is for a privatemsg version that I don't think I can use (I don't remember why). So I'm still looking at just getting the users/pictures as discussed.

Out of curiosity, is there a technical reason you want to avoid views for this? Not trying to advocate one way or another, just wondering if there's something I'm not aware of (performance, etc)...

Will be in touch.

@systemlord: here is a hackity-hack-hack for my privatemsg module (7.x-1.4) that appears to do what you want. In privatemsg.module, locate the function privatemsg_recipient_format(). In 7.x-1.4 that's at line 2657. In 2.x it looks like it's at 2730. Find the line that reads:

return theme($type['format'], array('recipient' => $recipient, 'options' => $options));

and change it to say:

return theme('user_picture', array('account' => $recipient)) . theme($type['format'], array('recipient' => $recipient, 'options' => $options));

It should be pretty self explanatory. I didn't create a patch because I can't test it on my installed version and I don't want to offer untested patches -- though I'm apparently okay with hacking modules. If I upgrade to 2.x I will try to submit said patch, along with testing the views integration, which I think would be a better long term solution, especially for dashboards, etc.

Please report back if this does the trick for you. HTH

As an aside, I now believe you can use this code:

theme('user_picture', array('account' => $user_object))

to generate a user avatar wherever you want it. You just need to make sure that the user_object is properly initialized/named. In this case, it the user_object was already available in that function, passed in as the argument $recipient. That's my understanding anyway.

Missing semi colon at the end of the "theme" line.

Also, you need a return statement, and where it says "$user_object" it should say "$recipient" instead. Like so:

function privatemsg_recipient_format($recipient, $options = array()) {
  if (!isset($recipient->type)) {
    $recipient->type = 'user';
    $recipient->recipient = $recipient->uid;
  }
  $type = privatemsg_recipient_get_type($recipient->type);
  if (isset($type['format'])) {
    return theme('user_picture', array('account' => $recipient));
  }
  return NULL;
}

I'd used the "$user_object" as an example variable, that you need to change according to what is available in context. In this case, the function is receiving the user object as an argument called "$recipient", shown in the first line:

function privatemsg_recipient_format($recipient, $options = array()) {

As a result, you need to refer to the object variable by that name.

I think I see what's happening. We need to add a check to make sure we're looking at the "messages" list, otherwise it should be default behavior (because I have no clue what other features may call this function).

Can you confirm that it's working as expected on the messages list, eg: inbox?

I'll work on an if statement.

Try replacing your function with this one. I added an if statement to check if you're on the page called "messages", in which case you'll get the avatar. If you're not on that page, it should fall back to default behavior. You can change the page name "messages" to be whatever your actual inbox page name is. If you have multiple pages where you want to see the avatar, you'll need to amend the if statement to include those page names. eg: if ($_GET['q'] == 'messages' || $_GET['q'] == 'otherpage') {

function privatemsg_recipient_format($recipient, $options = array()) {
  if (!isset($recipient->type)) {
    $recipient->type = 'user';
    $recipient->recipient = $recipient->uid;
  }
  $type = privatemsg_recipient_get_type($recipient->type);
  if (isset($type['format'])) {
    if ($_GET['q'] == 'messages') {
      return theme('user_picture', array('account' => $recipient));
    }
    else {
      return theme($type['format'], array('recipient' => $recipient, 'options' => $options));
    }
  }
  return NULL;
}

This code would be adding the avatar to the recipient's list, not replacing the "author" avatar on the subject line. Sorry I wasn't clear about that, I was going from your comment #1. It's working well for me right now, showing the avatar in the messages list on the "messages" page, but falling back to default behavior on other pages...

It's built on the fly, so it should work on old messages too (it is for me). Don't forget to clear cache, though you shouldn't really need to.

This is what I'm seeing, in unstyled, rough draft format, of course. My understanding is you'll want to back out the original changes from the previous thread.

It's Dizzle, actually, that was a typo :)

Is this working okay for you? I'll be looking at the views integration in a couple of weeks, but wanted to close out this thread.

@System Lord: No worries, HTH.

@System Lord: Good call. Edited and reposted for posterity.

@Future readers: If you're looking to include the user picture/avatar in the participants list, you should be able to piece together a working, temporary solution using comments:

#11 to locate the function in question, *adds* photos to recipient list wherever the recipient's list is used, which may be problematic in some uses, such as composing new messages
#19 *replaces* the name with a user avatar, adds an if statement to only show the avatar on the "/messages" page, so that default behaviors continue to work on other pages.

It is highly recommended that you move these into your own module, which is beyond the scope of this thread.

@System Lord-

I'm pretty far away from private messages at the moment, but will be returning to it in a few weeks. I'll be happy to see what I can do then. In the meantime, please post back if you make any progress elsewhere.