Rocket.chat: Add Avatar for channels

[bazarnew]

Your Rocket.Chat version: (make sure you are running the latest)
HI
The proposal for channels
Avatar set to channels that have more beauty
Example: See photos

[Nemra1]

i love it....i hope to get that soon

[Maqsyo]

+1

[hniemann]

+1

[RemizZ]

+1

[Nonymus]

+1

[djschilling]

I also would like to have the opportunity to add avatars/images to channels.
Currently the channels are really collerful and i cannot distinguish good enough the different channels.

Choosing an channel avatar would really improve that.

[CBrunsch]

+1

[cedrikv]

+1

[mwlang]

+1

[kvaps]

Please don't noise by leaving +1 comments, use github reactions instead :+1:

[mwlang]

hmmm...thats a new feature to me. +1 on an issue subscribes me to the issue and I can begin tracking, perhaps even contributing a PR if I figure out how to do it. Does the thumbs up feature auto-subcribe one to the updates on the issues?

[graywolf336]

@mwlang it doesn't auto subscribe to this issue, however using the reactions plus hitting the subscribe button works just as good and doesn't send notifications to everyone - as we do pay attention to the activity and if someone comments something other than +1, it could be useful. :)

[fishnexj]

+1

[Timer91]

Hey, Is there any predicted date for this issue ?

Thx

[Xerionty]

I'd also love to see avatars on (private) channels.

[dasfuu]

This would be very nice to improve the channel list clarity

[dg-skolberg]

+1

[agisbert]

We want this! +1 :)

[keithhenning]

+1

[lindalindap10]

+1

[MarekRzewuski]

+1

[fjakop]

+1

[juzejunior]

+1

[johanneszink]

+1

[forresthopkinsa]

Can someone in charge please delete all these +1 comments?

[localguru]

+1 :)

[SteveUNSW]

+1 💃

[appelmoesje]

Would love this feature!

[Marcel-123]

this would be very helpful

[dsroot]

We are waiting, but he is not ((((

[igor-binaryanvil]

+1

[Breina]

+1

[faz1993]

+1

[srpatel]

In case anyone is interested in looking into this, here's what I've found so far:

• Avatars for channels are loaded from a url like: /avatar/%40channel-name?_dc=0 (%40 being an encoded @)
• The endpoint for getting avatars is at Rocket.Chat/server/startup/avatar.js

In avatar.js, I believe we'd just need to add an alternate case for the if (username[0] !== '@') { ... } condition. I'm not sure what the best way would be to store room "avatars", but if anyone has a good solution I could take a look at implementing this.

[MarekRzewuski]

Dear fellow rocketers!

This problem can be solve quite easy. You need some programming skills, but not much.

If using apache add this line to your VirtualHost configuration, like this:

RewriteRule "^/avatar/@(.*)" "/avatar.php?p=$1" [PT]

avatar.php can look like this:

` $urlArr = parse_url($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
$pathArr = explode("/",$urlArr['path']);

if (isset($pathArr[2])) {
$roomName = str_replace("%40","",$pathArr[2]);
}
$roomNameArr = array(
'room-a' => 1,
'room-b' => 2,
'room-c' => 3
);
$id = 0;
if (isset($roomNameArr[$roomName])) {
$id = $roomNameArr[$roomName];
}
if ($id == 0) {
$host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
$uri = str_replace('@','',$_SERVER['SCRIPT_URI']);

$opts = array(
  'http'=>array(
      'method'=>"GET",
  )
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);

header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *");
header("Content-Type: image/svg+xml");

echo file_get_contents($uri, false, $context);
exit;

}
$size = 290;
$file = "gfx/avatars/".$size."x".$size."/avatar".$size."-".$id.".png";

header("Content-type: image/png");
header("Accept-Ranges: bytes");
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
header("Last-Modified: Fri, 03 Mar 2004 06:32:31 GMT");
readfile($file);
?>`

This way you can add custom avatars to your rooms. Hope this can lead you on a right way. You probably need to adjust the .php file to your needs and place it in right place according to your configuration.

[ghost]

@marz71
Thanks for the suggestion of this solution.

This may be a solution if the operator of the rocket.chat installation and the administrator of the chat are one and the same person.
We seperated these responsibilities so when an administrator adds a new channel he has to contact the operator to add a new icon and adjust the script.

For private channels it is even worse since in our organisation anybody can create private channels.

So yes, this solution may work for some of us but does not reduce the usefulness of this feature request.

[thawn]

@marz71 you seem to have dived into this quite a bit and you also seem to have the necessary programming skills. Any chance, you could adapt the rocket.chat source code to implement this feature and create a pull request?

[timoknapp]

Besides the endless +1 comments, I'd also like to see that feature. That would make our endlessy growing amount of RC channels more easy to distinguish between

[agisbert]

+1

Having multiple channels is definitely a reason

[Xarkam]

Hello, this is a css workaround based on aria-label. If you change the channel name, you need to change the value of aria-label in your custom css.

The result:

How to:
in rocket.chat admin, goto appearance -> custom css
for each channel add

a[aria-label="general"] img {
  border: 3px orange solid;
}

Simply change "general" between double quote marks by the name of the channel.

And save.

Note: It will not work with a browser too old

[joshmartindev]

@Xarkam This is a nice workaround, but would not allow the proper separation of Administrator and User roles. Your solution would require the user to contact the admin to update css for each new channel which introduces more work for the administrator. The end user should be able to set an avatar after they create their channel without the need to contact the administrator.

[qiangzhao]

+1 👍

[qiangzhao]

Ich kehre zurück am 21.05.2019. Bitte wenden Sie sich in dringenden Fällen an den Support: http://www.veda.net/customer-service oder zentral an die Nummer 02404/5507 0. Viele Grüße, Torsten Mingers Hinweis: Dies ist eine automatische Antwort auf Ihre Nachricht "Re: [RocketChat/Rocket.Chat] Add Avatar for channels (#3582)" gesendet am 17.05.2019 8:20:08. Diese ist die einzige Benachrichtigung, die Sie empfangen werden, während diese Person abwesend ist.

When I trying to translate in Google, I nearly can't catch anything your meanings. So I think maybe comment in English will help foreigners easier to understand. :-)

[Maqsyo]

When I trying to translate in Google, I nearly can't catch anything your meanings. So I think maybe comment in English will help foreigners easier to understand. :-)

This is just an autoresponder. So it hasn't any meaning for this issue 😁
It means, that this person isn't reachable at the moment and you could call the office-number if it is really important 😂

[qiangzhao]

When I trying to translate in Google, I nearly can't catch anything your meanings. So I think maybe comment in English will help foreigners easier to understand. :-)

This is just an autoresponder. So it hasn't any meaning for this issue grin
It means, that this person isn't reachable at the moment and you could call the office-number if it is really important joy

Okay, then, Thanks for the explain, so appreciate!

[merskip]

So on every comment on this thread, we'll get a new free comment form him :D

[agisbert]

@tmiveda, thanks for keeping this feature alive! We really needed a strong supporter like you.

This feature will help us both organize our ginormous channels as well as boost our developers mood.

Bring this soon!

[Maqsyo]

So Rocket.Chat only has time until the 21.05.2019 to develop this feature, because @tmiveda will be back then. Right?

[merskip]

@mass10 Yes! We don't want for @tmiveda will back to the office and see the feature isn't done.

[forresthopkinsa]

@tmiveda please clean up your comments.

[agisbert]

@forresthopkinsa I strongly disagree. No deletion!

PLUS! @tmiveda is one of the biggest supporters of this feature.

[ghost]

@tmiveda please clean up your comments.

Yep. I deleted all "autoreply" messages. Sorry for the spam!

[ramrami]

Here we go #14618 a WIP

[engelgabriel]

https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/issues/14621

[gcommit]

When will this be published? Waiting for more than one year O.o

[agisbert]

I cannot believe that Microsoft teams has this feature and the RocketChat Team hasn't take this seriously for more than 3 years.

This is really disappointing.

[ankar84]

When?

[kromonos]

When?

It's done, when it's done.

[ankar84]

It's done, when it's done.

Answer is true, but the meaning in it is zero

[thawn]

@ankar84 @gcommit @agisbert @kromonos since this feature appears to be important to you: this project is open source. You can start implementing it right away or hire someone to do it for you. Then submit a pull request to get your implementation into the mainline source.

Edit: at the time of writing this comment, I was unaware of the existing pull request (thanks @Compatech for pointing that out) in that case I do understand the frustration

[CoMPaTech]

@thawn

Then submit a pull request to get your implementation into the mainline source.

Just note that there was a PR but the author deleted his branch last week: https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/pull/14618

[ankar84]

@ankar84 @gcommit @agisbert @kromonos since this feature appears to be important to you: this project is open source. You can start implementing it right away or hire someone to do it for you. Then submit a pull request to get your implementation into the mainline source.

Yes, @CoMPaTech right. There was PR for that.

[thawn]

Apparently noone found the time to do a code review. That is indeed a pity. Although I don't quite understand why the author deleted his PR.

[knarrff]

Although I don't quite understand why the author deleted his PR.

I guess also the author of a PR might get tired of waiting for something else to happen to a PR than adapting milestones from time to time. After all, it is the PR author that has to keep the PR in-line with upstream during all that time. Once the PR isn't important enough to the author anymore, and it is apparently not important to the dev-team as well, the author might as well abandon it and not keep it in their active PR list.

It is not that the code got deleted. It's all still there for anyone to pick up. It's just that the original author apparently didn't want to keep hanging in there for so long.

And yes, this is a pity.

[reetp]

An ongoing management & communication problem that has existed for a long time, and lost Rocket a lot of code, developers, and good will.

You'd think they would have got on top of this by now...... clearly not.

[forresthopkinsa]

@ankar84 @gcommit @agisbert @kromonos since this feature appears to be important to you: this project is open source. You can start implementing it right away or hire someone to do it for you. Then submit a pull request to get your implementation into the mainline source.

Yes, @CoMPaTech right. There was PR for that.

If you're so impatient then just build that PR and use that

[dimm0]

It's not even a year since the PR was submitted... So impatient..

[agisbert]

@ankar84 @gcommit @agisbert @kromonos since this feature appears to be important to you: this project is open source. You can start implementing it right away or hire someone to do it for you. Then submit a pull request to get your implementation into the mainline source.

Yes, @CoMPaTech right. There was PR for that.

If you're so impatient then just build that PR and use that

So much hate and anger! Easy going.

Not that a PR (that already existed) will solve this issue.

[gcommit]

Wow that escalated quickly. There was a PR for this FOR A WHOLE YEAR and nothing happend. But since the community is asking for it, you guys start blaming us. Good job 👍

[thawn]

It seems that I have contributed to escalating this thread. At the time of writing my comment above, I was unaware of the existing pull request. I have edited the comment accordingly and apologize to anyone who felt offended.

Also, I am not affiliated with rocket chat in any way - just a member of the community who feels that unless a software/service/feature has been paid for - or significant time was invested in writing good code - there is no right to be annoyed or _demand_ anything.

[forresthopkinsa]

I'm also not a member of the RC team, I'm just annoyed by weekly notifications coming from this thread with obnoxious comments like "+1" and "when?" over and over again.

Should they have reviewed that PR a year ago? Totally. But seeing as they didn't, stop whining about it and appreciate that there is a PR, and just go use that code branch. There, you have your channel avatars.

Like thawn said -- it's open-source. This is how open-source works. Sometimes PRs are neglected and go stale. Making a fuss about it might help in some circumstances, but it consistently pisses people off.

I guarantee you that if someone had put some money behind that PR, it wouldn't have gone stale. Seeing as they didn't, you just have to deal with the time of volunteers.

tl;dr chill out

[agisbert]

I'm also not a member of the RC team, I'm just annoyed by weekly notifications coming from this thread with obnoxious comments like "+1" and "when?" over and over again.

Should they have reviewed that PR a year ago? Totally. But seeing as they didn't, stop whining about it and appreciate that there _is_ a PR, and just go use that code branch. There, you have your channel avatars.

Like thawn said -- it's open-source. This is how open-source works. Sometimes PRs are neglected and go stale. Making a fuss about it might help in some circumstances, but it consistently pisses people off.

I guarantee you that if someone had put some money behind that PR, it wouldn't have gone stale. Seeing as they didn't, you just have to deal with the time of volunteers.

tl;dr chill out

Dude, really? Notifications annoy you? Here is a small tip ->

+1 is a valid way of showing interest. I don't know why we need multi paragraph comments only.

I remember the auto reply messages some months ago. That made my week! I really have fun with this thread, plus, it exposes the slowness of RC changes.

[forresthopkinsa]

There have been valuable contributions in this thread, but you wouldn't know it at a glance, because they're lost in a sea of useless comments.

This discussion right now is also irrelevant, and is sending the thread even further off-topic. I'm glad you're having fun, but diluting the thread with all this garbage only makes it harder to track the issue you're so passionate about.

[agisbert]

There have been valuable contributions in this thread, but you wouldn't know it at a glance, because they're lost in a sea of useless comments.

This discussion right now is also irrelevant, and is sending the thread even further off-topic. I'm glad you're having fun, but diluting the thread with all this garbage only makes it _harder_ to track the issue you're so passionate about.

Yet you keep on answering. I think you love the discussion too 😉 😘 ...

[agentlibre]

In the meantime, is there any option to display no avatar for the channels? Otherwise, this could be another option to add.

[TDzyne]

https://forums.rocket.chat/t/channel-avatar-generator/5882

[Xerionty]

https://forums.rocket.chat/t/channel-avatar-generator/5882

Okay and how do we use this?

[johnnydement]

Also notice these generator icons don't work in phone.

[evilrussian]

any updates?

[ghost]

Ich kehre zurück am 15.07.2020.

Bitte wenden Sie sich in dringenden Fällen an den Support:
https://www.veda.net/support-center/
oder zentral an die Nummer 02404/5507 0.

Viele Grüße,
Torsten Mingers

Hinweis: Dies ist eine automatische Antwort auf Ihre Nachricht "Re:
[RocketChat/Rocket.Chat] Add Avatar for channels (#3582)" gesendet am
08.07.2020 20:27:56.

Diese ist die einzige Benachrichtigung, die Sie empfangen werden, während
diese Person abwesend ist.

[agisbert]

@tmiveda, thanks for you support.

[ghost]

Ich kehre zurück am 15.07.2020.

Bitte wenden Sie sich in dringenden Fällen an den Support:
https://www.veda.net/support-center/
oder zentral an die Nummer 02404/5507 0.

Viele Grüße,
Torsten Mingers

Hinweis: Dies ist eine automatische Antwort auf Ihre Nachricht "Re:
[RocketChat/Rocket.Chat] Add Avatar for channels (#3582)" gesendet am
09.07.2020 7:57:53.

Diese ist die einzige Benachrichtigung, die Sie empfangen werden, während
diese Person abwesend ist.

[Maqsyo]

Oh! He's on vacation again!
Thanks @tmiveda again for your Support!

[ghost]

Ich kehre zurück am 15.07.2020.

Bitte wenden Sie sich in dringenden Fällen an den Support:
https://www.veda.net/support-center/
oder zentral an die Nummer 02404/5507 0.

Viele Grüße,
Torsten Mingers

Hinweis: Dies ist eine automatische Antwort auf Ihre Nachricht "Re:
[RocketChat/Rocket.Chat] Add Avatar for channels (#3582)" gesendet am
11.07.2020 9:33:58.

Diese ist die einzige Benachrichtigung, die Sie empfangen werden, während
diese Person abwesend ist.

[lelvisl]

3.5.0 already released. may be add this feature in 3.6.0?

[frdmn]

@lelvisl You are right - it'll drop with 3.6.0: https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/pull/18443

[ggazzo]

closed by https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat/pull/18443