[JDEV] Avatar Spec

[Jens Alfke]

On Wednesday, September 12, 2001, at 09:39 PM, temas wrote:

> After our conference today we've wrapped up what will become a JEP
> presented to the council for avatars in jabber.

The changes to the previous draft are:

* Expressed requirements and recommendations about the dimensions of the 
avatar pictures.
* Missing jabber:x:avatar in presence does _not_ mean to delete the 
picture.
* Clarified that clients should query the resource first, then if that 
fails go to the public XML storage.

> We've already
> identified many future issues, and begun to think about how to implement
> and fix them, but this will serve as the current standard.

The future-directions stuff involves browsing. At a minimum it would be 
good to be able to browse a resource to determine whether it is 
providing an avatar (so you don't have to send it queries), and in the 
future it might be better to use "live browsing" to push avatars to 
interested subscribers without having to add the hash to the presence 
tag that all subscribers see. Live browsing is still in a pretty 
embryonic state, however, so it's too early to start using it.

I've got avatar support in my client now; it only took a few days to do. 
I'll try to find some time to add a description to my Client Developer 
Cheat Sheet.

--Jens