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What's New in 'DPChallenge 2' by ManicImportant Note: This tutorial has been
written by Manic, and is intended to be a guide to the new features that have
been added to DPChallenge. The views expressed within are in no way affiliated with DPChallenge. All the information contained within is correct as of 3rd December 2002.
Welcome to the new DPChallenge, previously referred to as 'DPC2'. This tutorial will cover all aspects of the improved website, detailing all the changes and added features that are now available. The tutorial has been broken down into the main menu sections and subsections, which should help you find your way around the new site more easily.
Major additions to the site are the two all-new 'Photo' and 'Camera' sections, featuring both new search utilities and reference areas, details of which are covered later on. Also, all the main sections of the site now have a main index page, so click the main section headings in the menu bar!
Another useful set of additions are the user icons, which will help you identify the account type that a user has. These are colour-coded as follows:
- Grey = user
- Blue = member
- Purple = site council
- Gold = admin
These user icons come in both male and female variants, depending on your profile
settings. The differences between user accounts and member accounts are detailed
in the 'Membership' section below.
Finally, there are now several new challenge types, namely:
- Open Challenges - "normal" challenges
- Members Challenges - challenges for members only, see the 'membership' section below
- Speed Challenges - 24 hour and 48 hour submission periods, requiring speedy shooting
There have been a number of changes to the home page of the site; most noticeably it now shows the top 3 winning thumbnails for each challenge, rather than just the first place photo. The next most noticeable is that there is now a sidebar on the left, which contains the site news, occasional polls, and your current challenge stats as and when you enter a challenge.
The recent forum threads are now sorted by date rather than category, and you can customise the number that are displayed on the homepage, from none to 30.
One much-requested feature that's now available is that the result to the polls will now be available, linked from the poll itself.
- My Profile
Apart from the layout change, there are two new features on the profile pages. Firstly, the Challenge Entries list full final position of each entry (e.g. 14th out of 230) along with the number of times each photo has been viewed since 3rd Dec 2002 (not including views during voting). The other addition is that the Award ribbons now show both the challenge name and the photo's title for each award.
- My Favourites
The favourites section has been revamped, and is now as slick as ever, allowing to you easily manage up to 200 favourite photos and up to 100 favourite photographers.
- My Photographs
This new addition to the menu is effectively your photograph manager, which allows you to change the camera and the gallery categories of any of your photos, including those still being voted upon. Just click on the photo title, select the camera and/or categories from the dropdown menus, then click 'update'. Your photo will now be visible within the one or two galleries that you set (unless it is still being voted upon).
- My Preferences
There are plenty of new preferences & options:
The 'age' field is now a Date of Birth field, so that your age will automatically update on your profile page on your birthday. Also, if you do not want your age to be displayed, leaving the box empty will hide it on the profile.
Forum/Discussion Preferences
- Recent Forum Activity Threads - this setting sets the number of forum threads that are displayed on your homepage, and on each forum category page, up to a maximum of 30 threads. Also, this option can disable the displaying of the forums on the homepage, by setting this to zero.
- Rant Forum - after much discussion, it has been decided to allow users to hide any 'rant' threads from their homepages, which is controlled by this setting. You will of course still be able to read the rants, but you will have to browse the forum categories to see them.
- Show Challenge Entries - this setting will give you a choice of three options for displaying the latest photo by each photographer under their username in the forum posts: view the thumbnails, or just the titles, or nothing. However, this feature is still in development and does not yet take affect.
- Posts Per Page - this setting allows you to set the number of forum posts that are displayed on each page, from a minimum of 5 up to as many as you want!
- Reverse Threads - you can now decide whether to read forum threads in chronological order, or whether to reverse them and read the newest on first.
Email Preferences
- Speed Challenge - if you're a photographer who's quick to think of an idea and shoot it, then this setting is for you. There will occasionally be 'speed challenges', where the length of time to submit is only 24 or 48 hours, and this setting will enable you to receive email notifications of such challenges.
Image Preferences
- Images Per Row - how many thumbs wide (min 3)
- Rows Per Page - how many rows deep per page (min 3)
- The above two settings control the number of thumbnails that are displayed per page (per row x per page = num images per page), thus allowing you to customise all thumbnail-based pages, especially useful if you are on a slow connection and only want to load a handful each time.
- Hide Nude Photos - this setting allows you to hide the thumbnails of photos that have been marked as nudes, very useful for when viewing the site when at work. However, this is not applicable to images still being voted upon.
One exciting new feature is that a challenge may now have extra rules added to it, specific to that challenge only, which will make the challenges potentially a lot more challenging!
- Cast Votes
The voting pages have had several tweaks and features added:
- The long-awaited skip buttons, << and >> (skip back and skip forward), will allow you to come back to a photo later without having to reload the thumbnail summary pages.
- Another new addition to every voting page are the greyscale monitor calibration bars. These will help ensure that voters' monitor settings are all similar.
- Once your votes have been cast, the thumbnail summary page will have a small 'comment' icon next to each thumbnail. This both indicates whether or not you have commented on the image, and allows you to edit or add comments without having the load the full image again.
- As with all the thumbnail pages, your image preferences will determine the number of images per row, and the number of rows per page, splitting up the thumbnail summary page into pages.
- Please note that comments are currently no longer anonymous during voting, but this is subject to change if required.
- View Results
The results pages have new been split up to 10 results per page, so that each page will load much quicker. However, there is still the option of displaying all the results on a single page, should you wish to.
The results pages themselves have been noticeably improved, displaying more information, such as the highest and lowest scores for the challenge, plus for each photo:
- Average Vote Per Commenter
- Average Vote per Users with Cameras
- Average Vote per Users without Cameras
along with the score you voted and the comment you left, all on the thumbnails page!
- Submit Photos
The aspect ratio rule has been relaxed, so you can now submit photos with sides of anywhere between 160 and 640 pixels (inclusive), giving a maximum image size of 640x640, and a minimum of 160x160! Of course, a 160x160 isn't much of a photograph ;) There have also been other rule changes, so it is vital that you familiarise yourself with the updated rules.
All the submission fields of a photo can now be edited after being submitted, which now includes the image file itself too. Also, when editing a submission, both the full size image and the thumbnail preview are now shown. The other main addition to the submission pages are the 'gallery category' settings, which you can use to classify your photo for inclusion in the galleries, more details of which are below in the 'Photo' section.
- Challenge Archives
Sorted by date, the challenge listings page now shows the thumbnail previews of the top 3 photos for each challenge, without having to load the results page itself. The winners listings are split up into pages, to help reduce loading times. The archived results are all as per the 'view results' section above.
- Challenge Rules
Amongst other things, the rules on filter usage and borders have now been
changed, along with the permitted image dimensions; so go read the new rules
now!
- Forums
The forums have had a major overhaul, and the code behind them has been completely revamped. The forum threads are now reversible, so that the latest post will be at the top. The threads are also split into pages, so that you don't have to load every single post just to read the latest ones.
One big difference in the new forums is that the syntax for links has been changed:
- old style: [link]http://www.com[name]linkname[/name][/link]
- new style: [url]http://www.com[/url] or [url=http://www.com]linkname[/url]
However, there are still the usual icons that make the links automatically for you, so you don't have to worry about this too much.
The good news is that there are now more forums sections, the 'Photography
Discussion' area and the 'General Discussion' area, so you can now chat about
anything photography, and anything and everything else too.
One addition that'll help prevent spelling errors is the addition of a preview option, with which you can now check that your post makes sense before submitting it. The new code will also detect accidental double clicks, so there shouldn't be any double posts :)
Finally, to speed up creating new threads, a icon has been added to the right of each of the main forum areas (on the main forums page), that will create a new thread once clicked.
- Site Favourites
Another new layout, these pages now show more thumbnails of the recent and top favourites, (determined by your Images Per Row setting).
- Photographer Profiles (searching)
You now have many more options when searching through the DPC user profiles:
- Location
- Only users with profile pictures
- Only users with a website on their profile
- Only users that have placed in the top3 of any challenges. (Coming Soon!)
The search results have also been improved, and now show whether the users listed have a bio or a profile photo, and a quick link to the user's website if they have one. In addition to this, you also have the option to display the profile pictures alongside the username in the search results!
Currently under development are the 'Ribbon' counts, which are not yet available, but are coming soon!
- Who's Online
This feature has had only a minor change, in that the user icons for the currently online users are now displayed.
The first of two brand new sections, the 'Photos' section will make it easier to find photos without having to trawl through the challenge archives!
- Browse
The 'browse' pages allow you to look for photos based on various criteria, including:
- Most Recently Commented On (excluding comments left while voting)
- Highest Rated
- Lowest Rated
- Most Comments
- Least Comments
- Most Viewed (since 3rd Dec 2002, excluding views during voting)
- Least Viewed (since 3rd Dec 2002, excluding views during voting)
- Galleries
Another new feature is the ability to browse photos that have been sorted into galleries, so that you can now view similar-themed photos from difference challenges side by side. Each photo that is submitted can optionally be classified into up to two separate categories, which will allow the photo to be displayed in those galleries. Of course, photos still being voted on will not appear in galleries until the voting has closed and the results known. You can also add photos from previous challenges to the galleries by using the 'My Photographs' page, as described above in the 'My Home' section.
- Site Favourites
See the 'community' section above.
- Search
Coming Soon!
- How'd They Do That?
This very popular section has now been improved, so that you can now rate the usefulness of all the articles, thus helping other users. Please note that you have to read them before you can rate them ;o)
- Tutorials
This equally popular section has also been updated, so you will need to go back and rate these tutorials again. Again, you have to read them before you can rate them.
- Links
Coming Soon!
The second of the two brand new sections, the 'Cameras' section will allow you to get more details on cameras; browsing, searches, and even a comparison shop, so that you can find the lowest prices!
- Browse
There are three main ways you can browse the cameras: searching for specific models, browsing by manufacturer, and browsing by camera statistics:
- Number of Owners
- Number of challenge submissions using each camera
- Average Vote for submissions using each camera
All the search results and manufacturer sections have the option of viewing the thumbnails of the cameras listed, making it easier to identify them. There are also quick links to the comparison shop pages for each camera, both on the search results and on each camera information page, making it simple to check the latest prices and deals. You can also sort (and reverse sort) each page by the stats.
The camera information pages themselves include various useful statistics, such as the MegaPixel rating of the camera, the number of DPC users that own the camera, and the number of views (since 3rd Dec 2002). Also included are thumbnails of the highest rated photos that have been taken with the camera, giving you an idea of what can be achieved with each one.
- Comparison Shop
Search or browse for the camera or accessories that you want, and then automatically compare prices from hundreds of websites to get the best deals!
- FAQ
New and improved, the FAQ section should be able to answer your questions. If not, try rereading this tutorial, or asking your question on the forums.
- About
If you've ever wondered why DPChallenge was started, who runs it, or who the site council members are, then this is the place to go.
- Contact
This amazing new feature now sends your questions directly into the brains of the admins, via the latest in web-to-brain telepathy technology!! ... Only kidding :o)
- Privacy
DPC has now formalised its privacy policy, so you should definitely read this page in full.
- Terms Of Use
If you haven't done so already, you should also read the updated Terms Of Use page, which covers aspect of site usage that are no longer covered in the 'Rules' section.
For those of you who are addicted to DPC, there is now the option of upgrading your account from being a 'user' to becoming a 'member' of the site. This will entail a subscription fee of $25 per year, if you decide to pay annually, or a fee of $5 per month, if you prefer to pay monthly. This will make available to you several new and exclusive features.
- Extra Challenges
The big feature of membership is that members will gain access to additional, exclusive challenges. Only members will be allowed to vote on these, but users will be able to comment if they wish to.
- Updates
Another members-only feature will be that scores can be updated on demand, via a link on the challenges stats on the homepage.
- Forums
An all-new members-only forum area will be available, so that members can discuss matters between themselves.
- Ad-Free
Banner advert-free usage of the site. Currently, there aren't any banner ads lined up to assault you with, but should the site need advertisements to support this ever-growing site, members won't have to see them.
- And more!
There are yet more exclusive members-only features currently under development, so keep an eye open on the news and the forums for announcements...
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