Thank you @DVAted for setting up this topic it will make the replacement process much easier.
I'm planning on making some new Users Online images but before I do I just had two questions I wanted to ask:

1. Will there be a limit on images in rotation like there are for banners and if so, how many?

2. There was talk of possibly making the images taller which I think is a good idea but what size should they be increased to?

So I accidentally deleted all of DVAted's text in this post. Sorry dude.

...

don't worry about it, AT, you said it better than I did anyway

Again, sorry about the f'up with the post editing @DVAted

So we need to ramp this discussion up a bit, I have threw together some example users online images (they are for reference only I'm not submitting them) to show people what the different sizes would look like so we can decide on a min / max size.

105x220 (Current Size):

105x300:

105x320:

105x350:

I think to start with we vote on 25, just to make it easier and more manageable for @Cruz011 to keep track of. Also I say we scrap the current smaller ones (after the vote) and go with the 25 new ones that use the new sizes and we take submissions from there on like we do with banners. Although this will mean a lot of the user online images that have been submitted recently will be unusable. Thats something we will have to vote on I guess.

Anyway I hope this helps

Some good examples of the different sizes, nice work @AdvancedTerror.
Between them I think the 105x350 size would be best because as the community grows and we gain more users the larger size would allow for that.
I also agree that 20 to 25 images is a good starting limit to vote on. If there are many good submissions we can always vote to add more later on.

@Drayce128 Yeah I think 350px is the best option, I can't imagine we will need them much larger than that.

Ok so we will put this to a vote.

@Xzisted
@OakshieldDream
@Mattafex
@DVAted

Let us know which size you prefer.

CURRENT VOTES:

105x300 - 0 VOTES:

105x320 - 0 VOTES:

105x350 - 2 VOTES:

Id actually have to say 320 looks the best in my personal opinion, so that one gets my vote.

@DVAted

1. No, so maybe we're jumping the gun a bit here. This would actually be quite useful to do as we would get a better idea of the final look. Is this something you could do and screenshot the results? Maybe use the examples I posted earlier.

2. Yes this would be the downside of having just one standard size I guess, but I think its a minor issue. Also, having 1 or maybe 2 standard sizes makes everything even, easier to manage and looks better from a design point of view.

3. This is something else we will have to discuss / vote on. I think we should, as I think having different sizes is bad design, but others may disagree.

4. I see no issue with having a min and a max size (320 and 350 for example).

I'll update the votes to say this.

To help with choosing a default size for the User Online images I took a screenshot from the forums and then used @AdvancedTerror's examples to create an animated image comparing them. I hope this helps to make things a little easier.

P.S. I realize the 105x350 image overlaps the borders, but it's just for reference.  

Users Online:

I vote for 350 px. It just looks better IMO. Having that huge blank area with the smaller ones looks bad. Though that overlap might be a problem.

DVAted wrote:

The blank areas are the reason why, at the start, I wanted the Users Online buttons to have transparent backgrounds
we're still gonna have empty spots, either in days when we have more people online than we do now, or in days in which we have far fewer people online, and the empty spots will be on the other side of the table.

so a .png with transparent backgroun, with no upper or lower edge, just the shape in the middle, with no borders and such... that would work best

as is,
for the reasons that Oakshield mentioned, I'd go for 320 too
but if we're gonna have a range, I think 300-350 is a good range to go inbetween.

Good work, Drayce
Cheers

Transparent backgrounds would work very well, I agree with this.

@Drayce128 - Thanks for doing that dude, really helps, from this i think DVAted is right 300-350 with transparent background would work very well.


CURRENT VOTES:

105x300 - 0 VOTES:

105x320 - 3 VOTES:

105x350 - 3 VOTES:

We currently have a tie, maybe we should go with 320 min and 350 max as these seem to be the preferred sizes.

We should also vote on the above mentioned transparent backgrounds, I think its a great idea to I'm in favour and so is DVAted as he has made clear.

Transparent Backgrounds Vote

Yay - 2:

Nay - 0:

Yes on transparent backgrounds. It would allow for more flexibility.

CURRENT VOTES:

105x300 - 0 VOTES:

105x320 - 3 VOTES:

105x350 - 3 VOTES:

So like I said we're tied with the votes concerning the sizes, I think all active GFX members have voted so a good compromise will be to go with a min / max size.

As it stands results are, Min Size 105x320, Max Size 105x350.

If no other GFX team member votes by tomorrow, this is what we'll go with.

Thanks for voting, now on to transparent backgrounds.

Transparent Backgrounds Vote

Yay - 4:

Nay - 0:

I made some examples to compare the current style against a transparent image. @DVAted is this kind of what you had in mind?

Images:

well... the cutoff arms are odd
but generally, yeah, something like that.
perhaps he could be shorter, sitting on top of "users" text, and fill the arms in the frame too lol

it was easier in shorter buttons like this:

Ok I think I fixed it. You wanted something more like this:

Image: