Dark Mode Bug and Elite GIF profile pic suggestion

[Plutoisaplanet]

When using dark mode, the lower half of the following page to sign up for TechSpot Elite has its text hidden: https://www.techspot.com/community/register/

For my suggestion, is there any chance animated avatars/GIF profile pictures can be added only for TechSpot Elite users? I see you have at least three different sizes stored/generated for profile pictures, so your upload system already has to process those images with a resize. When you process animated GIFs to resize them, you typically are able to find out how many frames are in a given file considering you have to resize all the frames, and should be able to limit it (30 frames equates to 2-3 seconds as a good limit). That should prevent any large image sizes even when visiting a user's profile page. It would take a bit of work, but it would be another way to advertise TechSpot Elite and would resonate with premium users of other services such as Discord who also get animated profile pics for paying for their service.

 

[Julio Franco]

Thanks for the suggestion. I personally would find animated avatars a bit annoying so I'm not sure we want to open that particular door to be honest. Would that change your mind about subscribing (for example)?

The Elite program is mainly a way to support the site and remove ads (or remove ads while still supporting our work), there a few other extras, but that's the main thing.

PS: Thanks for the tip, fixed the Elite FAQ in dark mode.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Thanks for the suggestion. I personally would find animated avatars a bit annoying so I'm not sure we want to open that particular door to be honest. Would that change your mind about subscribing (for example)?

The Elite program is mainly a way to support the site and remove ads (or remove ads while still supporting our work), there a few other extras, but that's the main thing.

PS: Thanks for the tip, fixed the Elite FAQ in dark mode.

It wouldn't change my mind at all, I was looking into Elite because I plan on subscribing to it. I previously said I'd subscribe for $1/mo, so instead I'm just going to subscribe on alternating years to help the site not be reliant on advertisers.

The way it works for Discord is profile pictures can animate only when you hover over their message or you're viewing their profile and profile pictures are also always small when next to messages. I mostly only use the news side of TechSpot, so I didn't really think of the implications site-wide. If you did open this can of worms, it might make sense to only allow profile pictures to animate if they were displayed at a small size, you were viewing the profile, or your mouse was hovering over the picture. It does seem like a fair bit of effort to implement though.

 

[Julio Franco]

Gotcha, that makes sense from a usability standpoint. I'll look into it.