One of the major features of the MyPhotoClub system is the Image Gallery. WIthout the need to upload, sort or manage files by a committee person, each competition or event your club conducts has a gallery that contains all images uploaded during the entry process.
At the appropriate time, these images are available for viewing, commenting & voting on by your members.
The galleries fall into three categories:
Load n Show
These are intended for use with an event your club holds or some other activity where you would like your members to be able to load images regarding the event
The upload form and the gallery are available on the same page, and once uploaded the images appear in the gallery instantly. Awards are not given as they are not part of any pointscore competition the club may have.
Monthly Competitions
These galleries are pre-built, waiting for their respective competition to close.
When the competition closes only members of the committee and online judges can see the gallery. This is so that on the competition night, they can enter results and show the gallery. For online judges, this enables them to view and enter their comments.
When the competition finalises IE: the scores are all entered and the competition is marked as finalised, all members can view, comment and vote on images in each gallery.
Honours Showcase
When the competition is finalised all entries that have been awarded the highest award are loaded into this gallery. Over the year this builds into a folio of the best images as deemed by your judges.
Questions and Answers
Q: Can the entries be seen on Facebook? A: No. The system does not load or transfer any images to Facebook. Facebook is only used to send information contained in posts from the home page of your website.
Q: Can images be downloaded from a gallery? A: No The right-click – save image option is disabled.
Q: Can the Image Galleries be seen by non-members? A: By default, No. Images from the Honours Showcase are randomly displayed on the webpage – one in the sidebar and six at the bottom of the page. Settings can be changed so that any person who registers and logs on can participate in these galleries.
Q: Can I comment on the images? A: Yes – the speech balloon control at the bottom of the screen enables a comment area.
Q: Can I be notified when someone comments on my Image. A: No. This is feature often asked for for, and will be incorporated into the next version .
Known Issues
Internet based photo galleries expect images that are small in size so that they load quickly. Photography competitions expect entries that are at the maximum resolution of the projector being used and therefore are slow to load – comparatively.
This causes the Image Gallery to be slow to respond and it is possible to have the title, comments and comments get out of sync.
When using the Image Galleries please follow this approach:
- First allow the gallery to go through as a slide show, using the play control at the bottom of the screen – this places a local copy on your viewing device.
- Don’t move through images quickly – wait for the title and the image to display.
- Make sure that the image and title match before making a comment.
An update to the Image Gallery is being developed to address these issues and also integrate voting and assignment of awards by online judges.
If you would a like a feature incorporated or have a question please don’t hesitate to contact colin@myphotoclub.com.au.
