Recent Visual Pursuits Changes

October 2018

Calendar Improvements

Competition Close and Voting Close dates are now on the calendar events. The tooltip for competition calendar events now includes the full status and all dates related to the competition.

August 2018

Improved Editor

Enhancements were made to the editor used for creating content for web pages and email. A "ribbon bar" now replaces the "toolbar" used previously. This allows better descriptions of the buttons and adds a "help" button.

You can how insert links to videos hosted by YouTube or Vimeo.

Mobile Phone Improvements

Your club website will now display better on a mobile phone. You may also notice some changes in formatting on larger devices as well. Many pages used for configuration will never be usable on a phone and some pages still need alternate versions for a phone. This update is a first step in the process and helps with some of the more common uses on a phone.

If you place images on a webpage, consider using the editor and setting the CSS style on the image to "Limit Mobile Width". If the image is displayed on a mobile device, it will be scaled down to fit the width of the device. Assign the style using the "Insert" tab and the "Image Properties" button. Clear any height or width settings present.

Galleries are handled automatically do not require any special handling.

June 2018

Default Competition Levels

You can now mark a Competition Level to be the default level used within a Competition Type. If a member does not have a Competition Level assigned to the Competition Type within your organization, the default level will be assigned and used automatically.

Use the Manage Competition Level Definitions page to edit a level and check the box to indicate it is the default Competition Level.

May 2018

Gallery Option

You can now set a gallery option to request the display of any metadata (EXIF) data available for the images being displayed. The summary metadata is added to the image caption.

April 2018

Duplicate Images

When you upload a new image, you may now see a warning if your image appears to be a duplicate of an image already in your Image Library. You are encouraged to use the existing image unless there is a significant difference between the images. The process cannot detect all image differences, so it can only be a suggestion.

Download Manager Role

The "Download Manager" role is now required for a person to use the "Manage Downloads" page via the "Administration" menu to save files that can be downloaded by members. This role is implied by the "Content Manager" and "Administrator" roles. You may find you need to add this role for a member that needs to save files in your downloads area.

View PayPal Role

The "View PayPal" role is now required for a person to use the "View PayPal Transactions" page via the "Administration" menu. This role is implied by the "Treasurer", "Membership Manager", and "Administrator" roles. You may find you need to add this role for a member that needs to view PayPal transactions, such as an event manager.

March 2018

Automatic Processing of PayPal Membership Payments

You can now configure your website to automatically apply membership payments made with PayPal buttons. Membership expirations can be extended without any administrative handling of each payment. Careful setup is required of your PayPal buttons and you must enable the feature on the Manage Organization Profile page.

Please watch the new video on using PayPal buttons for details.

PayPal Payment Notifications

An email is now sent to the payee when they make a PayPal payment using one of your PayPal buttons. The email confirms that payment has been received by your organization.

A separate email is sent to the Treasurers of your organization, or to the Administrators if no users have the Treasurer role. Payments made with buttons configured as membership payments will also optionally send a message to the Membership Managers, or the Administrators if there are no Membership Managers.

Please watch the new video on using PayPal buttons for details.

New Gallery Embedding Options

You can now place Competition Results galleries on your Home page or any custom page. Additional options are available when you place you gallery, such as setting the gallery size. A new process builds the needed tag to place on your page. Instructions are on the custom page and web content pages.

You can now place galleries with competition results on your Home page or any custom page. You can select a specific Competition, the latest Competition with results, a specific Competition Group, or the latest Competition Group with results. This new feature could be used to automatically display your latest competition results on your Home page.

February 2018

Display Non-Winning Author Names

A new option was added to Competition Types that allows you to force the display of author names for non-winning images in a competition. The default for new Competition Types will hide the author names for images without awards. A competition option can specify the display of non-winning authors if the Competition Type does not make that selection.

This option does not affect the ICM program, where the display of author names is controlled by show styles.

January 2018

ICM Wildlife Option

You can now set a show or judging style option to identify wildlife images in the caption for images. All images that have the "wildlife" attribute will be have the word "Wildlife" included in their caption display.

December 2017

PayPal Transactions

If you use PayPal buttons, each payment transaction is now recorded on your website. The transactions can be viewed by members via the menu "My Account", "My Transactions". The organization can view PayPal transactions via the menu "Administration", "PayPal Buttons", "PayPal Transactions".

Further enhancements are in development. We will try to automate membership renewals and we will create a video explaining how all of this works.

New Privacy Option

Members can now specify, via their personal profile, if a club's Event Managers can see their contact information.

Cell Phone Numbers

The "Alternate Phone Number" field has been renamed to "Cell Phone" and the "Alternate Phone Number Type" field has been discontinued. If a cell number and the primary number are the same, only the primary number is saved.

September 2017

Opt-Out Forums

Forum managers can now specify that all members or all competing members should get notifications from a forum or a forum topic. Members can "opt out" of these topics by un-subscribing via the forum pages.

Hide Author Names

A new option was added to the competition options that allows you to hide the author names for non-winning images in a competition results display. The default for new competitions will hide the author names for images without awards. This option does not affect the ICM program, where the display of author names is controlled by show styles.

August 2017

Move Competition Images

If a user submits an image to the wrong competition, a Competition Manager can now move the image to a different competition instead of having the user remove and re-submit the image. The process is performed using the "Images" button on a Manage Competitions page. A "Move" button appears under the thumbnail for each image in the images grid.

Image History

Competition Managers can now select a member to view their competition history using the My Image History page. This was previously restricted to Administrators.

July 2017

Award Set Percentage Option

When defining an Award in a custom Award Set, you can now specify that the percentage considers other awards after computing a percentage of all entries. See Manage Award Sets for details.

New Visual Pursuits Users Forum

A new public forum was created, shared by all organizations, to allow organizations and members to exchange information on how to manage their organizations and competitions. Access the new forum using your website menu "Organization", "Discussion Forums".

May 2017

New ICM Sort Option

When combining levels in the ICM program, the random sort order is applied over all of the combined images. This may not be desirable for a print competition where you have printed out a report of images in the competition and are trying to synchronize projecting images with a stack of prints that are order from the report. Use the new sort option "Competition Levels and Random" in a Show Style to keep the images in the same order as the report.

New Disqualify Option

If you disqualified an image while judging with the ICM program (via the Awards panel), the image remained in the competition until you synchronized. At the time it is was deleted from the competition.

If you used website judging, you needed to delete a disqualified image from the competition via Images button on one of the Manage Competitions pages.

To improve the handling of disqualified images, the old ICM “Disqualify” option has been renamed to “Disqualify and Exclude”. This will continue to delete the image from the competition when you synchronize. A new “Disqualify” button on the Awards panel will keep the disqualified the image reference in the competition, but the image is hidden and displays as Disqualified.

When using website judging, a judge can disqualify an image via the awards panel. There is no “Disqualify and Exclude” option for website judging.

Disqualified images will only appear in judging panels when hidden images are viewed. This allows removing the disqualified state. Authors will be able to view a disqualified state in their library. Disqualified images will appear in the images list on the Manage Competitions pages and the images are in exported lists from the ICM program.

April 2017

Converting Critique Ratings into Scores

An option can now be set on a Competition Type to allow a judge's rating values to be converted into a score automatically. A average of all non-zero ratings is scaled to the maximum score allowed for a competition image. This option requires specifying "Average Scores from Judges".

This option is "on" by default for all new Competition Types, but existing Competition Types do not have the option set. You must update your Competition Types if you want to use this option. A judge can disable the option on each critique and cannot critique or set a score for their own images.

Critiques is a feature included in a Premium Subscription. You can use "Administration", "Manage Critique Definitions" to customize the information that appears on the critique form. This allows you to name the rating sliders to match judging criteria you might use.

Without the automatic computation of a score from critiques, a scoring box still appears on the critique page so that a score can be entered there instead of waiting to return to the image panel.

January 2017

Splitting Very Large Competitions

If you need to hold a competition with hundreds or thousands of images, a new process allows you to split a competition into child competitions for distributed judging. See the main Help page for a reference on an article on Managing Large Competitions.

Billing Changes

The amount of storage allowed in each Visual Pursuits subscription type has been increased by about 30%. The number of prepaid website judged images has been doubled for each Premium Subscription.

Overuse beyond your annual allocations may roll-over to the next year if we decline to invoice for the extra usage. We expect to only invoice for excess usage once per year. These changes have been made without any increase in your subscription costs.

Use your website menu "Help", "Subscription Information" for more information on subscriptions and options. Use the menu "Administration", "Subscription Status" for details on your subscription and website usage.

Secure Website Mode

We have changed your Visual Pursuits website to run only in HTTPS mode instead of the normal HTTP mode. This new mode encrypts all transmissions, instead of just the login pages. The new mode has been encouraged for use by all websites since it makes it extremely difficult for anybody to hack into a website or intercept any information you might enter on a website.

No action is required by you or your users. The change is likely to be invisible to your users. In some cases, you may notice that the website address in your address bar has changed. This occurs because we are redirecting all of your website traffic to a single website address that uses the new HTTPS encrypted transmissions.

The ICM program has always used encrypted transmissions, so no change was needed there.

Suggestions Welcome

Have a need that is not being filled? Have a suggestion for improving the website or the Image Competition Manager program? We welcome your comments and suggestions. Consider adding a feature request to the Wish List Forum or send your comments to Support@SoftwarePursuits.com.

If you have a problem, please use the Submit Support Request page via the Help menu.

Thanks for your support!