[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #21930: Allow hooks to define avatar before Gravatar processing

[WordPress Trac]

#21930: Allow hooks to define avatar before Gravatar processing
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 Reporter:  jakemgold        |       Type:  enhancement
   Status:  new              |   Priority:  normal
Milestone:  Awaiting Review  |  Component:  General
  Version:  trunk            |   Severity:  trivial
 Keywords:  has-patch        |
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 The get_avatar() function allows for developers to override avatar output
 in two ways. You can replace the function (pluggable) - not a good idea in
 my view, especially if you still want the ability to fallback and use
 Gravatar sometimes. You can also filter the output at the very end of the
 function with the 'get_avatar' hook. This works fine, but in highly common
 instances where a plug-in might want to override the avatar on a case by
 case basis, this forces each get_avatar call to needlessly process through
 the entire default avatar / Gravatar "construction".

 Admittedly, that processing is mostly trivial string manipulation and
 conditionals with an md5 in the mix, but it still seems like needless
 overhead in instances where many avatars might get called in a comments
 thread or authors list.

 Proposing a pretty trivial change that allows an avatar to be defined by a
 filter hook before proceeding through Gravatar / default avatar
 processing, skipping over all of that if one is, in fact, defined.

 My inspiration for this is an attempt to improve the performance of my
 fairly popular Simple Local Avatars plug-in, that allows users to upload
 local avatars: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-local-avatars/

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21930>
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