You thought they were super cute when they became available for WordPress.com users. Now self-hosted WordPress sites can take advantage of the new Gravatar hovercards, too! Install the Gravatar Hovercards plugin and they will automatically appear. No configuration necessary! This plugin is based on code from Otto of OttoPress.com. Please note that it is not the official plugin, but it works. Install it and you’ll get fancy hovercards like this:

After you install it, you can check if it’s working by hovering over the Gravatar images in your comments. If it’s not working for you, it may be that you are using IE. In that case you’ll want to get a new browser.

How to Add Gravatar Hovercards to BuddyPress

If you want to have Gravatar hovercards working on BuddyPress member profile pages, you’ll want to make some slight tweaks. This tip comes to you courtesy of Rich Fuller, the author of many excellent BuddyPress plugins. Add this to your theme’s functions.php file or bp-custom.php instead of installing the plugin:

function bp_gravatar_hovercards() {
	wp_enqueue_script( 'gprofiles', 'http://s.gravatar.com/js/gprofiles.js', array( 'jquery' ), 'e', true );
}

function bp_gravatar_hovercard_setup_globals() {
	global $bp, $is_member_page;

	//don't waste if we don't care
	if ( $is_member_page && bp_is_member() ) {

		add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts','bp_gravatar_hovercards');

	}
}
add_action( 'bp_core_setup_globals', 'bp_gravatar_hovercard_setup_globals', 50);

Additionally, you’ll want to make sure that the profile links point to the actual BuddyPress profile instead of Gravatar, while still maintaining the hovercards. Rich has some more information on that at his tutorial. Hopefully he’ll make this into a plugin soon (*hint, hint) and it will be easier for more BuddyPress communities to implement.

Add More Value to Your WordPress Comments Section

Again, the Gravatar Hovercards plugin isn’t the official plugin but if you want this functionality added to your site now, there’s no harm in using it. The great benefit of adding hovercards is to provide more community. They add value to your comments section, because others commenting can find out about each other and connect. We’ll make sure to keep you updated if and when an official hovercards plugin becomes available.