With the Infradox XS Contest module you can create a website for one or more photo contests. This article describes the configuration steps and options.
Configuration
General website settings
You can change the website settings as for any other Infradox XS website which is beyond the scope of this article. However, there are a few relevant settings for photo contest websites.
1) You may want to disable and hide the search function completely to prevent others from seeing files that have been uploaded into the database. To do this, go to Site configuration, Search settings and then choose one of the configuration options under General settings.
2) To disable the order/cart system, go to Site configuration, Cart page and change the Order function dropdown box to Disabled.
3) Remove anything from the menu that is not relevant. Go to Site configuration, Pages and menu – and remove or disable anything you don’t need.
Create a supplier group
Contest participants are stored as User accounts in the Infradox database. These accounts must be linked to Supplier records (to make such accounts into so called Contributors).
1) Go to Supplier management and create a Supplier group.
With the Group’s dialog open, click on the Contributor defaults tab. This is where you specify the settings that will be applied when a new supplier record is created in the group.
Check Enable HTTP upload and Apply defaults from Settings to files that the user uploads.
If you want to review files before the files enter the competition then check the setting
Keep uploaded files in the submission review queue.
This means that someone with administrator permissions will have to view and accept (or reject) each uploaded file. With this setting unchecked, files will go into the database automatically when the participant confirms his/her submissions on the upload page.
If you want to limit the number of files that a participant can upload, then configure these settings at the bottom.
New user default settings
1) Go to Site configuration, New user defaults.
- If you want to be able to review participants before allowing them to enter the contest, then you can use the default settings i.e.
Send an activation e-mail with a link that the user must click to automatically enable the account
Always send the activation e-mail immediately (recommended)
And leave Automatically create a supplier record for users who register as a contributor unchecked.
This means that you will have to manually link an approved user account to a supplier record. Linking a user account to a supplier record makes the user a Contributor. Contributors can have permissions for uploading etc. - If you want new registrants to be able to upload and participate automatically, then check the setting
Automatically create a supplier record for users who register as a contributor – and select the supplier group that you have created in the previous step. The supplier group settings will determine if the user can immediately start uploading files or not.
2) Go to Site configuration, Website forms, Registration form
Choose one of the available settings allowing users to register as contributor. In this case it’s best to use the setting
Enable contributor registration and make it the default/selected setting,
or if every registration is to be treated as a new participant then use the setting
…and make it the only option.
The latter means that you should create other user accounts (e.g. jury members) manually via the Supplier management pages.
Landing page for participants who log in
You can create a custom landing page (for instance to display contest rules and a link to the upload page). This page will then be shown when a user logs in. To learn more about creating custom pages, read the article about Custom pages. Once you have done this, go to Site configuration, Pages and menu – and open the section Website pages. In the Contributors dropdown, choose the page that you want to take the user to when he/she logs in.
Jurymen/women
To make someone a juryman or -woman, you’ll first have to grant administrator permissions on the account. Go to user management, find the user and open the properties dialog. Click on the Permissions tab and then click the Grant admin permissions button. Save the user account. The open the properties again and configure the user’s permissions on the admin tabsheet. Generally speaking all permissions should be disabled with the exception of the Juryman/Jurywoman setting.
Photo uploading by participants
Participants can upload files into their so called “holding area”. This holding area stores the files so that the user can check describe the files until the files are finally submitted. You can select how many files will appear at a time in the user’s holding area (below). The recommended setting is 25 files.
A contest and a contest category must be chosen for each photo. This is described further down in this article.
Configure permitted file settings
Go to Site configuration, General settings and open the section Submission settings.
In this section you can specify the minimum file size in pixels and the minimum file size on disk of the JPEG files that you want to allow. Furthermore:
– Uncheck the Keywords from files checkbox.
– Change all the File properties settings to Hide, e.g. Hide RM/RF et cetera.
– Upload page text. You can enter a text that you want to display at the top of the upload page. If you leave this box empty, a default text about the file requirements will appear.
Configure metadata fields
To configure which fields will appear on the http upload page (where participants submit their entries) go to Site configuration, meta data repository. Most settings available for each of the fields are beyond the scope of this article, but you’ll have to configure the fields that you want to appear on the upload pages. In casu, the fields that you want the participant to enter information in.
To make a field appear, edit its properties and
– check the box Show in upload dialog.
– enter a label for the field in the box Editor label. You can use commas to separate locales as explained in the properties dialog.
Generally speaking, you should at least enable the Credit and Caption fields. If an uploaded file has embedded IPTC or XMP data, then this data will appear in the appropriate fields.
Configuring photo contests
Contest categories
Go to Site configuration and click Contest module to load the page. Each contest must have one or more contest categories which you’ll have to create first. In the input box, type a category name. You can use commas to create localised categories in the order English, Dutch. Press enter to add the category to the box above the input. Keep adding categories and when you are done, click the Save button. To edit a category, click its name in the list. To remove a category, click the x next to its name. Note that you can’t delete categories that are attached to contests.
Categories for series
Once your categories are saved, you can drag the categories that you have created for series (as opposed to single files) to the Categories for series box. If a user chooses a category that is defined as a Category for series, then the user will have to create and select a series title for such uploads.
Important: Series titles are stored in a custom field. You can configure which field (custom1 … custom15). You’ll also have to enable the option Contributor series. To do this, go to Site configuration, Contributor pages.
Contests
You can have multiple photo contests active at any given time. Make sure that you have configured at least one contest before you allow participants to register and enter a competition.
1) Click the Add contest… link underneath the contests box. Once the newly created contest appears in the box, you can click it to configure its settings.
On the properties tabsheet, enable the contest by checking the box. If you want to enable and disable uploading automatically based on the contest date settings, then leave Allow uploading unchecked and check Auto enable. With this setting you can automatically prevent further uploads once the end date has been reached.
2) Select the categories for the contest
In the contest dialog, click on the Categories tab. All the categories that you have created in the previously described step will appear. Click the categories on the left hand side to link these to the contest. Linked categories appear in the box on the right hand side.
3) Add jurymen/women to the contest
Click on the jurymen/women tab. In the input box type the name of a user that you want to add and press enter or click the find button. Only administrators with jury permissions will appear. Click the one you want to add. The box on the left hand side shows the jurymen/women that you have added.
4) Configure which categories are judged by which jurymen/women
Click on a jury member name on the left and the box on the right hand side of the tab sheet will show all categories that are linked to the contest. The categories that the selected jury member may judge will show in green. To add or remove categories, click on the category name. Once you are done, click save at the bottom of the dialog.
5) Specify who can see score results
On the tab “permissions to view contest results”. All jurymen/women appear on the left. Click a name to grant that jury member permissions to view the (intermediate) results for his/her categories. Note that these users will only be able to see the results, they can not delete files, move files and/or change the chairman score (read below).
6) On the last tab sheet, specify who the contest chairman/chairwoman is (multiple persons can be selected). The chairman role allows one to see the results of all categories, and it allows you to move a file to a different category, to delete a file from the contest and to apply the so called chairman score.