Phoca Forum

I am trying to use Phoca Gallery as a Gallery Open Call platform and there are some really important features that I feel are missing.

I am using it so that users can upload directly to a category as this is the easiest method to build the community engagement.

1. Upload should record the user ID, the userid should be displayed in the backend on the images tab (Owner: userxyz) and have the option to show hide the userID in the detailed view
2. Proper timestamps should be displayed in the back end (published tab have full date/time format) for the image. When you are doing Open Calls, it is important to see if an image was submitted within the deadline.
3. the ability to turn the Rating feature on/off by category. This would make it easier to open a voting feature for just specific submissions.
4. it would be nice to be able to LOCK a category. by that i mean, not unpublish it but set a date and time to revoke user upload privileges.
5. Restrictions PER CATEGORY on the number of user uploads. this ties into tracking the userid so that check can be done.
6. If we were to use the control panel interface, then there should be a way to assign access to pre-existing categories upon registration. for example if you have Registered access, you automatically can publish to all categories assigned to your access level.
7. if using the control panel, ability to turn off the "create your own categories" function completely and have them load into specific categories and folders only with a limit on the number of individual uploads per category. (see above)
8. Fix your documentation for Youtube API. I need mp4 content to be uploaded and ideally this would be done through Phoca but if i have to have them load it to youtube (or a google drive) and just link that in, that would be great. In that case the video could just be playing embedded as a thumbnail which when clicked goes to the platform it is hosted from.
9. Alternatively, for video, users could load a thumbnail and provide a link to where the video can be viewed and that would work too.
10. a minor one because i can use tags at the moment. the ability to put a special badge on a specific image like 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, Winner etc. Anything tagged with special badges goes to the top of the directory. These could be user defined tags with just a library of icons to assign to the tag.

There are MANY more features that could be implemented that would make this a really awesome tool for the art community. I think that these and some other upgrades would even make it worth paying for. There really aren't any other tools out there for someone to run their own Open Calls so I think this would be a really worthwhile endeavour.

Hi,

1) Phoca Gallery stored info about user id, when uploading in frontend

2) The date is displayed in image edit (fulll date can be found in database)

3) - 7) for now there are no such features, so this needs to be customized (for now this gallery does not have such additional community features)

8 ) OK , thank you.

10) this is the same like 3) - 7)

Yes as written, this is gallery solutions which should just display images on the website, not so much focused for community features

But thank you very much for your ideas.

Jan

i am not seeing the userid being recorded.
1. This is for uploads to a category, not where the user makes their own category. I don't want to do that because that would require me to go scour the listings of hundreds of users and it is inefficient. Loading to the common gallery is what i need for an Open Call. So when i mentioned the userid is not captured i mean it in this scenario.
2. I know i can look in the database but it's extra work. i see that it does place the date, i was just asking if the timestamp could be added, ie. change the date format to show both date and time in future.

I would love to be able to use the action log to track uploads but i can't get it to work for now. an extra plugin to add phoca gallery into the action log would be valuable.

Another perspective on the image rating, would be to be able to assign this ability to specific user groups. for example, i could create an group for Curators, and they have the ability to view and rate images while registered users do not.

The biggest issue for now though is the userid on frontend category uploads that are going to a category that is owned by the admin (not their personal category). It makes it easier for me to know if i need to ban a user as well if they are uploading inappropriate content.

Hi, in such case, this needs to be customized directly in the code

Would you consider creating an Action Log plugin that captures Username uploaded File to Category on Timestamp. I tried but coding is not my strength and I couldn't hook it properly. That would solve most of the issue and would be a great tool for others for tracking. Maybe a future release could add the features if the Action Log is popular.
Please.

Hi, I don't have any experiences with action log, is this some kind of system plugin?