I've got a php that creates a 'now playing' image that I'd like to place in my sig, but I can't get the bbs to recognize it as a valid jpg to display it in the [image]url[/image] tag. I know it could work cause I can get the image to display in the avatar space.

It's located here:
http://kratki.org/np/npjpg.php

Can this be done?

Hm. I think I've seen others do it, like Paul Grzelak. The only difference is that Paul's signature links to to a GIF file and not a PHP file.

Let me just preface this by saying "we don't care what you're listening to". Not to mention the whole notion of putting in a wide jpg that might throw off wrapping in a lot of people's browsers. Or the fact that everyone would have to pull a new uncached copy of the image everytime they viewed a topic you posted to.

You know, I was going to give a tip, but I just talked myself out of it.

I understand your point about having to pull an uncached copy of an image every time. Mine's only 2k which I can certainly reduce, but if everyone did it, then that'd be a big issue - so good point.

The wrapping issue can easily be changed. I was considering using a pixel font in the image creation and reducing the image width to something along the lines of 150pixels. I couldn't imagine many people squishing the bbs window down that small. Still, a good point, though.

But can you truly say "we don't care what you're listening to?" I imagine there are people who could care less what I'm listening to, but this is a music centric bbs, isn't it? I, for one, am always interested in what others are listening to. I find it extremely valuable information for expanding my musical interests and tastes beyond what I'm used to. I would imagine others would feel the same.

Because of the uncached image point, though, I think I'll pass on it. A way to display that info as text would be cool, though. But that'd require executing code every time a post is rendered - also could be a drag.

Well, I found an alternative.

Can I suggest that you at least have your server pre-generate the images? That way those of us with reasonably fast connections don't have to wait two seconds while your server builds the image. Just have a scheduled task that checks to see what you are playing once a minute and builds a regular jpeg of it and then link that jpeg.

-Mike

Can I suggest that you at least have your server pre-generate the images?

Looking into that as I type.

That works. I didn't mean to offend by saying that. Just that it didn't really outweigh the costs.

Oh, no problem. I was just reading you wrong. Actually, you motivated me to make less of an impact on the loading of the board. So, now it shows up as an avatar, so people with avatars turned off won't be subjected to it, and I set up the PHP to run as a cronjob, so the image is pre-genereated so people won't have to wait for it to load every time.