Design your latest activity with pictures!

My idea came to me because I'm Russian)) The fact is, that the translation of messages of the lastest activity on the Russian looks very ugly: unmet gender, distort the cases. So we decided to use pictures instead of the words. It looks very nice. I hope this idea will prove useful to someone and outside Russia.

To replace the messages of the lastest activity by pictures is very simple . This is done with the Language editor. Replace the lines like:

$a['Y_AND_X_MEMBERS_COMMENTED_ON_TOPIC_Y1']['1'] = '%2$s <a %5$s>replied</a> to <a %7$s>%6$s\'s</a> discussion \'%4$s\'';

with lines like:

$a['Y_AND_X_MEMBERS_COMMENTED_ON_TOPIC_Y1']['1'] = '%2$s <a %5$s><img src="http://api.ning.com:80/files/ECB*cAWqEkiyjxTeZHfGQxffFTZ5z*tr9RsMsmkSFKmGuwJzjCtsfLmWyHD48iDH3rVJpIpzf1VWOi03uSYaTJem9kFM0zkr/comment_edit2.png" alt="" width="16" /></a> «%4$s»';

Of course, you must first upload an image, using any input form on your network.

On our site, for example, we use these images:

- somebody joined a group.

- <...> and <...> are now friends

Etc.

When I did this, I wanted to change the pictures for the number of comments and adding to favorites. This can be done through the advanced CSS settings in the Design studio. For exapmle:

a.like-link {background: transparent url(http://api.ning.com:80/files/yzr918DXGYRY*-dHnzc0KAPIX7nMwe39FX45VnMMiXH2JJ79ed2ZtfNtgqOIiUeZe85QoeXPuwGI1bm44SnuAevwLjGeZwsF/bookmark_toolbar.png) no-repeat;}
a.xg_sprite-comment {background: transparent url(http://api.ning.com:80/files/ECB*cAWqEkiyjxTeZHfGQxffFTZ5z*tr9RsMsmkSFKmGuwJzjCtsfLmWyHD48iDH3rVJpIpzf1VWOi03uSYaTJem9kFM0zkr/comment_edit2.png) no-repeat;}

If you insert this code, you will have these pictures:

If you wish to change the view of the Like-button, then add the following code:

.like-button a.xg_sprite {background: transparent url(http://api.ning.com:80/files/yzr918DXGYRY*-dHnzc0KAPIX7nMwe39FX45VnMMiXH2JJ79ed2ZtfNtgqOIiUeZe85QoeXPuwGI1bm44SnuAevwLjGeZwsF/bookmark_toolbar.png) no-repeat;}

You can see that by my icons are no words "Replies" and "Favorite". I removed them because of their Russian translation looks silly and because the numbers and icons is enough to understand. If anyone wants to also remove the words, it's easy to do so: