No Thanks Personal User Badges

There's something that's been bothering me for a while now. It's hard to keep track of users when they change their usernames. So, I took the time to make this little modification that serves as a solution.

Personal User Badges by Nights

What this does is it creates a slot under the username and user title for a personal badge. Users can set this badge via the user control panel. If it's set to 'Editable only once' then users will only be able to set this field one time. If not, users can change this field whenever they please.

It's not only something that would solve the inability to recognize who is who, but it would also be a fun little feature for users to enjoy.

No sort of html code required to upload/link an image. All you need is a link to the image like so: http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t448/Nights18/Graphic Shop/SaddenedDerpySignature_zps4a8cf3ae.png

Let me know what you think. Questions or concerns about the code, etc.

EDIT: It'd probably be about 180 pixels for the width on the default style here, in case you were wondering. ^^

 

Hmm, when I click the link, I get directed to the Youtube on Profile Page mod?​

 

*facederp* My bad. I copied that link for something else and forgot about it. It's fixed now.

 

There we go, haha. No worries.
Is there any way you can screenshot what it would look like? XenForo won't let me view the full post, pff. I'm sorry. Dx​

 

Sure, no problem ^^ Here's what the end result would look like. (Probably should've added it to the thread on XenForo >.<)

EDIT Thrice: Cause I thought you might want to see a totally, not lame, original banner rather than some crappy stock I made in like ten seconds.




EDIT: The badge here is one I threw together to test that it worked. I just linked it from my photobucket page.

Double Massive EDIT: Just updated, and it now has a functioning 'pick your own link' option for the badge. Who knew you could do so much with a few custom profile fields?

 

I'd be up for this. It's a nice way to keep track of who's who, and people that don't care about it wouldn't be affected.

 

Finally! There are so many people on here who change their name and don't bother filling in the "Previous Usernames" field on their profile. It's very annoying, especially when you like knowing who you're talking to. Would people have to make their own badge? Because my art/photoshop skills aren't that good.

 

I'm down for this. It's a great way to figure out who Is who

 

That is one of the downsides. The bright side is your in a community of artists who'd be more than happy to help you make a badge, myself included. They're not really difficult to make, but if you don't know what you're doing it could become more complicated. If anything, you could probably make a request in the Graphic Shop. I could also do basic stocks for users to use until they find/make/get their own.

 

Anybody up for making this a premium perk? Especially considering how everybody is saying that it'll be easier to identify those of us who change their name a lot which only applies to Premium Members.

 

I'm neither for nor against this idea. I created this modification solely for the purpose of being able to tell who is who, yet I never intended at any moment (well, until now of course) for it to be anything but openly free to use by all users. If this makes it through and is installed, that'll be something for everyone to decide.

 

I think it makes more sense as a premium perk because normal users can't excessively change their names to begin with.​

 

Agreed. And iirc, there have been complaints about the Xenforo move nullifying a lot of the previous prem perks.

 

From my understanding [ someone pls correct me if I'm wrong ], he's suggesting a personal badge / banner for each user [ well, prem+ ] that will be a consistent thing everyone can be identified by. The banners can either be set to change whenever we want, or once.

For instance, let's say I make a 'badge' that reads ~ jayn ~. Even if I change my name to SHANIQUANDA, y'all would know it was me by my badge.

While I do think it's a cute and a nice idea for a prem perk, I believe that the only way this would be useful for identification is if we could only do it 'once'. But as someone who doesn't like being stuck with something forever [ especially with changing color schemes ], I would prefer it being able to change whenever -- like a user title.

That being said, I'm not exactly sold on the idea or totally against it. I think it's cute and a nice idea for a perk, but I also think that it could get a little cluttered with a badge, usertitle, and avatar. I would personally prefer us being able to change our user title to an image or something -- but that's already been rejected and also has nothing to do with the intended purpose of this suggestion.

I wonder if there is a mod now or in the future similar to our previous name change history mod?​

 

Sorry to rain on the parade but I'm going to say no to this.

For one, clutter. If anyone keeps up with Xenforo development, Xenforo 1.2 will have usergroup/staff banners, which we will be utilizing when we upgrade. Adding badges on top of the banners will add an immense amount of clutter to the posts, imo.

Secondly, this is the goal of avatars & signatures. Now usually when someone changes their username, they'll also switch their avatar & signature to match, which is mitigated by the suggestion of making these editable only once. However, as Jayn brings up...

That's simply not feasible on this site, where users change avatars/color schemes often, and where we get new styles often.

I do know that the lack of a username history is an issue and I will do another search for a username history add-on. But this seems like a really roundabout & impractical solution, to me.

Edit: found an add-on for username history. I won't install it right away because we'll be updating to 1.2 shortly after its stable release, and I want to ensure compatibility.