By now, it’s fairly common practice for blog owners to integrate their comment system with gravatar. This way, when people leave a comment on the site, their avatar shows up. However, this usually only happens after the comment is submitted.

The Moo Gravatar Box plugin for WordPress takes the Gravatar integration one step further. Rather than waiting until a comment has already been submitted, it will automatically fetch the avatar image immediately after an email address is entered in the comment form.

The other major advantage is that the person leaving the comment can see whether or not their gravatar image is being pulled correctly or not. If this person does not have a Gravatar account, the plugin will automatically ask them to get one. That’s pretty useful.

Find some more information, including a FAQ on customizing the style, through the official WordPress.org plugin directory. The plugin is a free download and requires WordPress 2.8 or higher.