If you want to integrate your website or app with Gravatar, that’s great!
With the new API, you can now easily import detailed user profile data alongside the regular avatars. Whether you are an experienced developer or a newcomer to web integrations, Gravatar’s API simplifies the process, making it straightforward to increase user engagement on your platform.
Here, we provide an essential collection of resources to help you understand the functionality of Gravatar, the benefits of its implementation, and detailed guidance on how to integrate it into your project.
Understanding applications of the Gravatar API
Gravatar’s mission
Gravatar’s mission is enhancing user profiles, simplifying onboarding, and personalizing user experiences using just an email address. The platform allows developers to craft tailored experiences by leveraging profile data such as avatars, account verification, display names, biographies, locations, languages, pronouns, work info, and interests.
Automattic, the company behind Gravatar, champions an open, connected, and user-centric internet. It encourages developers to join its community and utilize its tools.
If you want to read more about it, check out our manifesto.
Importing user avatars: Gravatar’s traditional service
Traditionally, the Gravatar API has been used to import user avatars onto Gravatar-enabled sites. This feature is commonly used in blog comment sections, forum posts, and user profiles, where it enhances user recognition and helps build a sense of community. By displaying user avatars next to their content, websites can create a more engaging and personalized experience.
Gravatar prioritizes user privacy and control. Users can easily manage their avatars through their Gravatar account, ensuring their desired image is consistently displayed across all integrated platforms. Additionally, Gravatar ensures the privacy of user data by utilizing secure hashing techniques, which protect email addresses from being exposed while still allowing for avatar retrieval.
Profiles as a Service: The core of Gravatar’s new REST API
Profiles as a Service (PaaS) is a model that lets developers access and integrate comprehensive user profile data into their applications. Gravatar’s new REST API embraces this concept, allowing developers to retrieve a wealth of user information beyond just avatars.
The REST API provides access to a wide range of data, including display names, avatar information, verified accounts, biographies, locations, languages, pronouns, work info, and interests. This rich profile data empowers developers to create highly personalized user experiences within their applications. For a complete list of accessible data points, refer to the official Gravatar documentation.
By leveraging Gravatar’s REST API, developers can create a more efficient user onboarding process, reduce friction, and enhance user engagement. Personalization becomes more accessible, allowing applications to tailor content and interactions based on user preferences and characteristics. Moreover, Gravatar prioritizes user privacy by ensuring that profile data is securely managed and shared only with authorized applications.
Guides on importing user avatars
Creating the hash
To retrieve a user’s Gravatar image, developers need to create a hash from the user’s email address. This resource explains the process of generating the hash, which serves as a unique identifier for the user’s Gravatar profile.
The hash is obtained by taking the user’s email address, trimming out the whitespace, converting it to lowercase just to be safe, and then applying the SHA-256 hashing algorithm. This hash acts as a key to look up the user’s profile data without exposing their actual email address, preserving privacy and security.
echo hash('sha256',strtolower(trim('MyEmailAddress@example.com')));
//'84059b07d4be67b806386c0aad8070a23f18836bbaae342275dc0a83414c32ee'
Avatar requests
The Gravatar API provides a straightforward way to request avatar images for your users. To fetch an avatar, you simply need to make a request to the Gravatar URL with the hash you generated from the user’s email address grafted onto the end. Here’s what that looks like wrapped inside an <img> tag:
<img src="https://gravatar.com/avatar/84059b07d4be67b806386c0aad8070a23f18836bbaae342275dc0a83414c32ee"/>
In instances where you have to specify the file type, you can add .jpg as an extension.
<img src="https://gravatar.com/avatar/84059b07d4be67b806386c0aad8070a23f18836bbaae342275dc0a83414c32ee27205e5c51cb03f862138b22bcb5dc20f94a342e744ff6df1b8dc8af3c865109.jpg"/>
The API offers various options to customize the avatar request, allowing you to specify the desired image size, default image, and rating.
For more precise sizing, you can request square avatar images ranging from 1px to 2048px wide. However, keep in mind that requesting larger sizes may result in lower image quality for some avatars. The default size is set to 80×80 pixels, but you can easily change this by appending the s= or size= parameter to the request URL.
https://gravatar.com/avatar/84059b07d4be67b806386c0aad8070a23f18836bbaae342275dc0a83414c32ee?s=200
In cases where no Gravatar is found for the provided email address, the API will return a default image. Gravatar offers built-in default options, such as Identicons, MonsterIDs, and retro-style images.
Additionally, you can specify your default image by using the d= or default= parameter in the request URL.
Implementing Gravatar with different languages and frameworks
To make integration even easier, Gravatar provides a collection of guides for various programming languages and frameworks. Whether you’re working with PHP, Python, Ruby, Node.js, or other popular technologies, you’ll find comprehensive resources to help you get started.
These guides cover the essential steps for implementing Gravatar in your chosen language or framework. They provide code samples, installation instructions, and best practices to ensure a smooth integration process.
Guide on how to import profile data with the new REST API
Gravatar’s new REST API allows you to import rich profile data for your users. To learn how to make a base request to the API and retrieve various profile information, take a look at the REST API guide.
This guide will walk you through interfacing with the API to simplify user onboarding with access to Gravatar’s comprehensive collection of profile details.
Aside from avatars, you can instantly populate new users’ profiles with their display names, bios, location and language info, pronouns, and more. Authentication gives you access to higher rate limits and even more endpoints, including contact details, gallery images, and payment and wallet info.
By following this guide, you’ll gain a solid understanding of how to leverage the Gravatar REST API to enhance user profiles and personalize your application’s user experience. You’ll be able to retrieve valuable user data and integrate it into your platform.
Guides on importing profile data in specific formats
Gravatar offers flexibility in terms of the data formats you can use to import profile information. Whether you prefer JSON, XML, PHP, VCF/vCard, or even QR codes, Gravatar has you covered.
The guides linked above provide detailed instructions and code examples for each supported format. They walk you through making API requests, handling responses, and parsing the received data into a usable structure within your application.
These guides aim to accommodate different development preferences and requirements. By catering to a variety of data formats, Gravatar ensures that you can integrate profile data in a way that aligns with your existing codebase and infrastructure.
Guide to integrating Gravatar with your mobile app
Android SDK
Integrating Gravatar into Android applications happens through the Gravatar Android SDK. Developers can follow the detailed setup instructions in this section to incorporate user avatars into their apps successfully.
The SDK includes comprehensive code examples demonstrating how to fetch and display Gravatar images effectively, as well as adding the Maven repositories, dependencies, and syncing your project.
// Add the following to your root ‘build.gradle’ at the end of the repositories:
repositories {
maven {
url "https://a8c-libs.s3.amazonaws.com/android"
}
// Jitpack is used to fetch the uCrop library. Required only for gravatar-ui module.
maven {
url "https://jitpack.io"
content {
includeModule("com.github.yalantis", "ucrop")
}
}
}
// Add the following dependency to your module’s ‘build.gradle’ file (replace '<version>' with the latest release tag of the SDK):
dependencies { implementation ("com.gravatar:gravatar:<version>") implementation ("com.gravatar:gravatar-ui:<version>")}
iOS SDK
The Gravatar iOS SDK offers a robust solution for integrating Gravatar functionality into iOS applications. The documentation covers all necessary setup steps and provides usage guidelines to assist developers in implementing the service.
// Add Gravatar-SDK-iOS as a dependency of your project. It's recommended to use the latest tagged version
let package = Package(
name: "Package Name",
dependencies: [
// 1.
.package(url: "https://github.com/Automattic/Gravatar-SDK-iOS.git", from: "x.y.z")
],
targets: [
.executableTarget(
name: "Target Name",
dependencies: [
// 2.
.product(name: "Gravatar", package: "Gravatar")
]
)
]
)
Through practical code examples, developers can learn how to efficiently retrieve and display user avatars, enhancing the personalization of their iOS apps.
Leveraging Gravatar’s GitHub repositories
Automattic maintains several Gravatar-related repositories on GitHub, providing a wealth of tools, libraries, and code samples for integrating Gravatar across various platforms and applications. These resources support developers in enhancing their applications with Gravatar’s capabilities.
- Gravatar-SDK-Android: An Android library tailored for seamless Gravatar integration.
- Gravatar-SDK-iOS: A dedicated iOS library that simplifies adding Gravatar features to iOS apps.
- django-gravatar: A helper library for integrating Gravatar into Django projects.
These repositories provide essential tools and code samples that enable developers to incorporate Gravatar into their apps and websites efficiently, regardless of the platform or language they are working with.
Other useful resources for developers
In addition to the guides and repositories mentioned above, Gravatar offers several other valuable resources for developers looking to integrate the service and enhance their applications.
Feature request portal
Gravatar provides a dedicated feature request portal where developers can submit ideas and suggestions for new features or improvements to the Gravatar platform.
This portal serves as a direct line of communication between the developer community and the Gravatar team, facilitating engagement and ensuring that the platform continues to evolve in line with user needs. By submitting feature requests, developers can actively contribute to shaping the future of Gravatar and help prioritize the development of new functionalities.
Gravatar changelog
Gravatar maintains a comprehensive changelog to keep developers informed about the latest updates, new features, and bug fixes. This log provides a chronological record of all the changes and improvements made to the Gravatar services.
By regularly checking the changelog, developers can stay current with the latest developments and ensure that their applications are compatible with the latest version of the Gravatar API.
Gravatar’s GitHub Discussions forum
Gravatar now has a new GitHub Discussions forum. This will provide a dedicated platform for developers to connect, share their experiences, and seek support from the community.
This forum will serve as a hub for discussions on various Gravatar-related topics, including integration best practices, troubleshooting, and showcase projects. By fostering interaction and collaboration among developers, the GitHub Discussions forum aims to create a vibrant and supportive community around Gravatar, enabling developers to learn from each other and find solutions to common challenges.
Get started with the Gravatar API today
By now, you should have a solid understanding of the Gravatar API and how it can enhance your website or web application. With the resources provided in this article, you’re well-equipped to start integrating Gravatar into your project.
Whether you’re looking to import user avatars, leverage the power of Profiles as a Service, or customize your integration using the various guides and SDKs available, Gravatar has you covered. And with the latest updates to the API, such as the ability to access even more user profile data, the possibilities are endless.
So what are you waiting for? Start your new Gravatar application today and join the community of developers working towards an open, interconnected, and user-focused internet. Happy coding!
Gravatar Blog
Leave a comment