*cough* and stuck it on here... why? because I can

Yahoo! Avatars is kind of cool because if you have a little spare time on your hands you can play dress up for as long as you want and then, when your work of art is complete you can make it.. your super cool avatar .... available for all your friends to see via Yahoo! Messenger or through many of the Yahoo! services. Now I don't get to spend a great deal of time at Yahoo! Avatars but when I do, it's wide variety of offerings tend to way outlast my very limited attention span .. simply because you can select from skin colour to eye colour to hair colour to clothes (full outfits, tops, bottoms, accessories) backgrounds, pets etc on and on it goes through pages and pages of different styling options... it can be a great way to de-stress or just kill a few minutes over your lunch break... which is how I ended up there the other day.

I was adjusting my (then) avatar, to suit my new hair colour.. which changes more often than a teenagers mood swing ...I had it just about to near perfection and immediately thought of one of my friends on WLM... I knew they would kill themselves laughing if they ever saw it... but as they aren't a Yahoo! user and have no intention of becoming one... I knew there wasn't a fat chance in a snow storm that they would ever get to see it.....so it got me thinking... I wonder if I can extract my avatar outside of the Yahoo! network... I wonder if there is a way I could plonk it on here ...

Displaying your avatar isn't too difficult.. in fact Yahoo! provides full instructions for How do I export my avatar? and How do I download my avatar? ... both sounded close to what I was looking for so I logged into Yahoo! Avatars and sure enough there is a way to export your avatar... but it's static.. and only static... and I didn't want static.. and I wanted a larger portrait shot than what was on offer and the standard full length one had no appeal...

export: small, JPG file using HTML code	export: large, JPG using HTML code

...it was close...the concept was... but I wanted the (Macromedia) Flash version of my avatar and I wanted more options regarding size and crop.. clearly more plonking was required... but I got there in the end

I eventually stumbled across the Yahoo! Widgets Gallery, tucked away in there was my answer.. well not quite the perfect answer but it was without doubt the leg-up I needed... in the gallery is widget called Avatar Buddies which allows you to "Display your Yahoo! avatar, and a friend's, on your desktop! Uses static PNG images. You can set their moods, how close they are standing, and add a caption." hmm.. closer... and upon reading the User Feeback comments I hit paydirt! There are 3 posts by SteveJohnSteele where he provides the information...

Ive now cracked how to get the real Flash animated avatar
1. enter this directly into your browser address bar ...
edit the stevejohnsteele replace with your yahoo ID
http://lookup.avatars.yahoo.com/wimages?yid=stevejohnsteele&size=large&type=png
2. the page will load and you will see a static PNG image
3. the address bar should change to something like this ...
http://img.avatars.yahoo.com/wusers/1TwDn6N5dAAECQeFGoAutQXcA.large.png?.intl=us

and code...

<OBJECT ID="swf0" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase= "http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=5,0,0,0" align="center">
<EMBED name="swf0" src="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf" quality="high"
bgcolor="#ffffff" width="120" height="180" menu="false" wmode="opaque" flashVars="zoom=0,0,100&avtkey=1TwDn6N5dAAECQeFGoAutQXcA=="
swliveconnect="true" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-
shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>
<PARAM name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/>
<PARAM name="movie" value="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf">
<PARAM name="quality" value="high"/>
<PARAM name="menu" value="false"/>
<PARAM name="wmode" value="opaque" />
<PARAM name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/>
<PARAM name="scale" value="exactfit"/>
<PARAM name="flashVars" value="zoom=0,0,100&avtkey=1TwDn6N5dAAECQeFGoAutQXcA==">
</embed></OBJECT>

change 1TwDn6N5dAAECQeFGoAutQXcA (occurs 2x) and replace it with the code in the browser address bar

...for extracting your flash avatar to use on a webpage. I follow his instructions, sourced my ID code 1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA (1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA) and set about embedding my flash avatar into a standard HTML page to check in my browser.. and sure enough there it was.. it looked good in FireFox.. but Internet Explorer (v7) didn't like it one bit... and then when I fiddled with the code to make it look right in IE it altered the view in FF...

orginal code by SteveJohnSteele
screenshot FireFox v1.5.0.7 view...	screenshot Internet Explorer v7 ( RC1) view...

and I still wanted a portrait view not a full image view.. more plonking was required so I hailed on Andy's expertise.. he threw me the code required to make it work properly in IE complete with zoom (for portrait) ....

<OBJECT ID="flashStatusImg" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#
version=5,0,0,0" align="center">
<EMBED name="swf2" src="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="120" height="180" menu="false" wmode="opaque" flashVars="avtkey=1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA==" swliveconnect="true" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="
application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>
<PARAM name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/>
<PARAM name="movie" value="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf">
<PARAM name="quality" value="high"/>
<PARAM name="menu" value="false"/>
<PARAM name="wmode" value="opaque" />
<PARAM name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/>
<PARAM name="flashVars" value="avtkey=1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA=="></OBJECT>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.getElementById("flashStatusImg").SetZoomRect(1350,1000,2300,1300);
</script>

but FF wasn't listening ...

original code by SteveJohnSteele, modified by Andy...
screenshot FireFox v1.5.0.7 view...	screenshot Internet Explorer v7 (RC1) view...

so armed with SteveJohnSteel's original code and Andy's modified version I set about plonking ... it took a lot of buckets of coffee and oodles of browser refreshing but I got there in the end... my modified code works.. for me at least.. under FireFox v1.5.0.7 and Internet Explorer v7 (RC1

original code by SteveJohnSteele, modified by Andy, modified by me...
FireFox v1.5.0.7 actual code used ...	Internet Explorer v7 (RC1) actual code used ...
screenshot...	screenshot...

so heres the end result... code originally provided by SteveJohnSteele, modified by Andy and then.. me

<OBJECT classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=
6,0,29,0" width="180" height="180" align="middle" ID="flashStatusImg_testff">
<EMBED src="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="180" height="180" menu="false" wmode="opaque" flashVars="zoom=-300,-100,500&avtkey=1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA==" swliveconnect="true" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>
<PARAM name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/>
<PARAM name="movie" value="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf">
<PARAM name="quality" value="high"/>
<PARAM name="menu" value="false"/>
<PARAM name="wmode" value="opaque" />
<PARAM name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/>
<PARAM name="flashVars" value="avtkey=1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA=="></OBJECT>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.getElementById("flashStatusImg_testff").SetZoomRect(1350,1000,2300,1300);
</script>

I could go into all the in's and out's of what part of the code impacts on which... but I'm far to lazy... if you compare Andy's IE happy code to my FF friendly version you will be able to work out for yourself which bit speaks to what but check out the below for some basics...

codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version
=6,0,29,0" width="180" height="180" align="middle" ID="flashStatusImg_testff">
<EMBED src="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="180" height="180" menu="false" wmode="opaque" flashVars="zoom=-300,-

for multiple instances on a single page, give each a different ID
width="180" height="180" align="middle" ID="flashStatusImg_testff">
<EMBED src="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="180" height="180" menu="false" wmode="opaque" flashVars="zoom=-300,-100,500&avtkey=1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA==" swliveconnect="true" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>
<PARAM name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/>
<PARAM name="movie" value="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf">
<PARAM name="quality" value="high"/>
<PARAM name="menu" value="false"/>
<PARAM name="wmode" value="opaque" />
<PARAM name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/>
<PARAM name="flashVars" value="avtkey=1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA=="></OBJECT>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.getElementById("flashStatusImg_testff").SetZoomRect(1350,1000,2300,1300);

bourbon_bee
from http://lookup.avatars.yahoo.com/wimages?yid=bourbon_bee&size=large&type=png
which gives...
http://img.avatars.yahoo.com/wusers/1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA.large.png

flashVars="zoom=-300,-100,500&avtkey=1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA==" swliveconnect="true" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>
<PARAM name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/>
<PARAM name="movie" value="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf">
<PARAM name="quality" value="high"/>
<PARAM name="menu" value="false"/>
<PARAM name="wmode" value="opaque" />
<PARAM name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/>
<PARAM name="flashVars" value="avtkey=1tC6XF9z7AAEBXcE-IJfNJPgA=="></OBJECT>

beesitoy
from http://lookup.avatars.yahoo.com/wimages?yid=beesitoy&size=large&type=png
which gives...
http://img.avatars.yahoo.com/wusers/1dAK_3h5YAAEC9kFy_LUKCA==.large.png

100,500&avtkey=1dAK_3h5YAAEC9kFy_LUKCA==" swliveconnect="true" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>
<PARAM name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/>
<PARAM name="movie" value="http://avatars.yahoo.com/avt_viewer.swf">
<PARAM name="quality" value="high"/>
<PARAM name="menu" value="false"/>
<PARAM name="wmode" value="opaque" />
<PARAM name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/>
<PARAM name="flashVars" value="avtkey=1dAK_3h5YAAEC9kFy_LUKCA=="></OBJECT>

tada .. done... with a hefty dose of 's all round

Comments (5)

Show/hide comments

Sandy said:

cool! works

October 23, 2006

Andy said:

Looks just like you... :p wow.. soooo many bee's

October 28, 2006

PinkDiamond said:

... Awesome!!!

January 10, 2007

quangthu2007 said:

quangthu Than men

March 17, 2007

Brianna said:

Thank you so much! This is awesome!

October 30, 2009

Show/hide comment form

Name

Email

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment Preview