Configuration

Photo Battle Factory comes with an easy voting system, requiring only a single click action for a speedy process. Photos can be paired together for battles, users will then be able to choose which one of them wins the battle by voting their favorite photo. The component can be used to rate different images like landscapes, art, etc. which can be assigned to numerous categories. The upload is very easy, allowing also multiple upload. For each picture a sharelink, rating and the number of votes will be visible and also a comments system if admin enabled. To allow the administrator content control on the site, each picture and comment can be reported.

It is mandatory that before the first usage, you configure the basic settings regarding the extension. For doing this, go on the upper menu on Components/Photo Battle Factory and then to click on Settings.

To control the content added by users on your website, you can enable the Approve media option which will require the administrator to verify and approve all the images uploaded on the website.

With Guest upload you can allow your website visitors to upload photos without the requirement to log in.

From the Terms and conditions field you can select one of the available Joomla articles to represent the T&C regarding the content which is uploaded. For every new uploaded, users will have to read the terms and conditions and agree with them by selecting the checkbox.

A Comments system can be enabled for visitors. A text field will become available below each photo where users can express their opinion on it.
To control the comments made you can also enable the Approve comments option, this will allow you as an administrator to filter and delete the offensive comments.
You can also enable the Guest comments options meaning that visitors will not need to log in in order to post a comment, they will appear as Anonymous User.

Limit per page will define the number of comments shown per page, if more comments are made than the set limit, pagination will become available.

With Enable Pair Battles users will be able to create pairs and vote on the already made ones.
Besides the normal pairing battles, you can choose to enable the Random Battles function, unlike Pair Battles, items that form a pair for these will be chosen randomly from all available items.
In case you want the photos for Random Battles to be only from the same category, enable the Same category Random Battles option below.

With Enable item rating set to Yes, a star rating system will be available when voting on battles, setting it to No will replace the star system with a Click to vote button.

For the Voting system you can choose the Scaling of the ranking to either 10 or 5 stars. In case you choose to modify it later on, remember that the votes already made will not change and it is recommended that you use the Reset votes found at the top of the page to clear them.

The Interval field will allow you to set after which period of time an user will be able to vote again the same photo.

The same as for uploads and comments, you can allow guests to vote photos by enabling the Guests voting option.

To keep your website clean and well ordered, the images will be resized to a maximum Height and Width. You can add these values on the Images tab.

Restrictions can be set for the uploaded images with the Minimum height and Minimum width options. Uploading smaller images than the set values will trigger an error saying that the image size is not valid.

The Watermark feature offered by Photo Battle Factory allows you, as an administrator, to add an image, such as the website logo, and stick it on all the uploaded photos in order to avoid from being stolen by other websites.

After you Enabled this feature, choose the Image which will be used as the watermark. Click on Select and a modal window will appear from which you can click the image to be inserted.

You can define the position of the watermark on the photos with the Vertical Alignment option which will place it either to the top, middle or bottom and with the Horizontal alignment which will place it to the left, center or right side of the photos. Here you can also add (in pixels) the Margins of the watermark.

Each photo will have a Thumbnail generated for it, from here you can set the Height and Width of them.

Since the component is a media portfolio for users, giving them the possibility to pair the photos and use them in battles, as an administrator you can help populate the database with new photos or to manage the existing ones from the Media page.
This page will provide you all the existing photos from the database with various information of them, such as their categories, tags, status, the users who added them and more.
In case the approval feature is enabled, you will be able to use on this page the Approve and Unapprove buttons accordingly, in order to manage their current state.

In order to provide a full functionality, a Sorting system and a Search bar are also implemented. Using the search bar, you can search after a word in the title or description of the items while using the Status and Approved filters will narrow the results.

To insert a new photo to the database, click on the New button found at the top of the page.
Details of already existing photos can also be edited by simply clicking on their names or picture or by selecting them and clicking on the Edit button.

Here you can check and manage all the photo pairs made by members, you can delete or unpublish them if necessary.

For each photo you can see the number of battles and for how many times they've won.
Clicking on one of the photos will allow you to edit its details.

With the Comments system enabled, users will be able to post comments on frontend for each photo and share their thoughts on them.
From this page you will be able to see all the comments wrote along with the photos on which were made, the username who made them and the date and time of posting.
In case the approval system for comments is enabled, new comments ones will appear with their status as "Unpublished" and will require your action to become "Published".

From this page you can also insert new comments or edit already existing ones by selecting the checkboxes and clicking on the Edit button.
Here you will be able to select the author of the comment, the date when it was submitted or the actual message.

Photo Battle Factory's menu comes with various menu items that you can manage by adding or removing them from the component menu.
Here is a complete list of them, these being available for the registered users upon the installation:

• Latest Battles - Shows a list of the most recent battles and their outcome.
• My Media - Shows a list of the media items uploaded by the logged in user.
• Latest Media - Shows a list of the latest media items uploaded by all the users.
• My Pairs - Shows a list of the pairs created by the logged in user, showing information and allowing him to delete them if necessary.
• Top Rated - Shows a list of the media items which currently have the best rating.
• Last Voted - Shows a list containing the most recently voted media items.
• Upload Media - Shows the upload form for multiple new media items.

(!) Documentation based on Photo Battle Factory version 4.0.0