Quick Start

Before using the AvatarMaker you need to upload the content of the UPLOAD folder on your server. This process is very easy and you can use any ftp client or web interface supported by your hosting provider.

Standalone

You can run the application without editing a single line of code just open the browser and navigate to yoursite.tld/UPLOADFOLDER/. You should now see the interface of the AvatarMaker. In this configuration, once a user has created its avatar it will be download in png format.

Note

Make sure that the permissions for the cache folder are correctly set, refer to this FAQ: Permissions errors

Embedded

If you want to include the AvatarMaker inside an existing page, you can embed it using an iframe. This approach is used by websites like youtube for their embedded player. Assuming that you have uploaded the app to yoursite.tld/UPLOADFOLDER/ The code below will create an iframe 900px wide by 600px high.

<iframe width="900" height="600" src="yoursite.tld/UPLOADFOLDER/" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Although the previous code works fine it is not well suited for responsive website, as the fixed measures of the iframe will break your design. An easy fix is to make the iframe responsive, it will take up all the available space in the parent element and it will scale down accordingly.

Other implementations like asynchronously loading the content of the app page will not work.

First Run

Regardless of the above choice, the first time the app il loaded (or any other time the cache is emptied) the backend will take care of creating a cached copy of all the available items, as well as preparing an appropriate configuration file for the frontend. For this reason, the first run could be a bit slow and resource intensive especially on shared hosting. All the subsequent requests will be served from cache, speeding up the process.

Warning

Because the cache is not revalidated at each request, if you alter the content of the assets folder you need to manually empty the cache before being able to see the differences.

Congratulations! Your avatarMaker is now ready to be enjoyed by your users. This is all you have to do for a basic implementation of the app.