Just Search Competition Manager Wordpress Plugin

June 24, 2008

The Just Search Competition Manager is a plugin for Wordpress that allows you to add a competition to the sidebar of your site very easily. You can also add a picture and a little description for each competition. What you decide to offer as a prize is up to you!

Features

Easily create competitions.
Widget ready.
Can be displayed on a blog post instead of a widget.
Upload of image to the competition.
Cookie and email filtering on voting.
Mailing list.
Administration panel with more options.
Simple captcha to stop automated submission.

Installation

To install the Competition Manager follow these steps:

Download the Competition Manager from the Wordpress plugin centre.
Unzip and upload this to your plugin folder (/wp-content/plugins/).
Go into the Plugins section of the administration menu in Wordpress and activate the plugin.
Navigate to Manage->Competition and create a new competition.
You can display a competition using the widget provided (go to design->widget and press ‘add’ on the Competition widget) or by placing the code [competition_id] (where ‘id’ is the id of the competition) in the text of your post.

Download

You can download the Competition Manager from the Wordpress plugins directory.

Leave your feedback on this post to let us know what you thought of it.

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25 Comments

Hi, I’ve got a fatal error displaying in the widget. Any ideas?

%BEG_OF_TITLE%%END_OF_TITLE%

Fatal error: Unsupported operand types in /home/wpqueen/public_html/wp-content/plugins/competition-manager/php/class.main.php on line 98

thanks
Leanne

Comment by sweetjane June 25, 2008 @ 6:00 am
Problem fixed with the last update of the plugin. Thanks for the feedback.

Comment by Ben July 4, 2008 @ 9:09 am
I really like this plugin, but I can’t use it because it has some bugs

1. small bug: you need to add “/” before “wp-content/plugins/competition-manager/images/” if you want it will be correctly displayed

2. bug: it seems like it adds the tag “” somewhere without close it.

3. after you add a image, you can’t delete it

(Very Important) feature requests:
A. possibility to edit the default text
B. email/IP black list
C. appearance more configurable

Again.. I really LIKE this plugin, and I appreciate your great work. Please fix it/power it up ..and I’m going to be for sure your #1 user and supporter..

Comment by OnePeg July 25, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
Hi and thanks for you comment. The last version of the plugin available on wordpress.org should fix the 3 first point.

I have also added the possibility to change the “thanks for your participation” message and the “this competition is now closed”.

Hope this will sort out the main problems you had. The blacklisting might come in a later version.

About the appearance the only option for now is to modify the css in the css folder of the plugin.

Comment by Ben July 29, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
great!

thanks Ben

Comment by OnePeg August 8, 2008 @ 2:05 am
^_^’ just tried..

it shows the tag [competition_4] instead of the competition form (I’m not using the widget).

look:
http://www.unknown.it/competition/

before the update it was working fine :]

Comment by OnePeg August 8, 2008 @ 2:12 am
NOTE: the widget still works, but not the [competition_id] post tag.. [as previously said] it doesn’t convert the tag into the competition form :/

Comment by OnePeg August 8, 2008 @ 2:24 am
Weird, works fine here :s

Could you try the latest version released this afternoon (1.2.3). If this doesn’t fix it I might need more details about your server like php version, wordpress version.

I don’t speak italian but nice UFO website you’ve got here

Comment by Ben August 15, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
Thank You, Ben

I updated the plugin just after the new release :/ therefore I’ve the latest version (v1.2.3) now.

Few days ago I also tried to deactivate all the (other) plugins and also to change the theme (in order to avoid any conflict). And sadly nothing happened :]

actually I have wp v2.6.1 (but the problem was there also with the v2.6) and on my (linux) server I’ve php v4.4.7

It seems like the problem started with v1.2, maybe it helps.

Tell me if you need more feedback..

bye =)

Comment by OnePeg August 18, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
I have a huge problem with the competition I installed on my site: every user with the subscriber-role can end the competition and choose a winner. They can do this if they go to their profile, then Manage > Competitions…
Can you fix this?
Thanks, great plugin!

Comment by wout August 21, 2008 @ 6:25 am
@Wout
It should work with the latest version on wordpress.org. The link will only appear for user Administrator and Editor group.

@OnePeg
I am working on it but so far I have not been able to recreate the same bug. I have tried on 4 different blogs, with php 5 or 4 and worked everytime.

The only thing is, sometime if the [competition_id] is not between tags it doesn’t display it.

Try to move it around maybe, see if at a different line it works.

Comment by Ben August 22, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
Finally O_O ..it works!!!

Thank You Ben!!! v1.2.4 works

NOTE: now there’s a “int(1)” in the page with the [competition_id] tag, and “int(0)” in the pages without it / BTW, the contest seems to work fine

Thank You again

Comment by OnePeg August 22, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
-_-’ that’s me again -_-’

users are getting a 500 error on voting :/

everything “seems” fine, until the Vote button is pressed :-]

:’(

stupid server :/

Comment by OnePeg August 22, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
v1.2.5 report

the int(0)/int(1) stuff disappeared

but it still “freeze” after pressing the Vote button .
I’m not getting a 500 error now, but the button “loops” you can try on http://www.unknown.it/competition/

My host sucks.. therefore I don’t know if the problem is in the server or the plugin..

:-]

Comment by OnePeg August 29, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
It gives a IE 7 error when this plug in is activated.

Comment by Slav September 7, 2008 @ 2:30 am
hi,

I have downloaded, uploaded and activated this plug-in, however I do not get the option “Manage > Competition” to utilise it.

I have deactivated, deleted, re-uploaded and re-activated a couple of times now, seems to be the same each time.

I’m using Wp 2.6.1

Cheers

Comment by Paul September 8, 2008 @ 2:26 am
I have the same problem as comment 16. Plugin is installed and activated. Widget is there. No Manage/Competition however…. I am using wp 2.6.2

thanks

Comment by leanne September 10, 2008 @ 8:19 am
I have the same issue with wp 2.6.2, widget installed and no manage/competition appearing.

cheers

Comment by brendan September 16, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
Oh dear, same issue for me too.
Installed, widget is there, but no ‘manage’ option to create a competion.

Installed WP version 2.6.1

By the way, should this also work with WPMU?

Comment by Vince September 17, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
@all I have updated the plugin so it should allow access to people with Administrator or Editor role. Let me know if that fix the “not appearing link” issue. It has been tested with wp 2.6.2

@onePeg About the vote button I am on the case but I don’t get any problem on all my testing blogs. Maybe the other users will be able to give us more feedback if it is working or not for them.

@Slav I have to investigate more about that. What kind of error do you get? Is it like a JavaScript error or is it just not working with ie7?

Comment by Ben September 19, 2008 @ 11:41 am
hello.. great plugin.. i just want to know, how can i change the size of the letters. I mena, on the sidebar, the letters are a bit big….. thanks a lot

Comment by Fab September 23, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
Hi Ben,
Just wanted to let you know that version 1.2.5.1 fixed the issue for me.
Many thanks

Comment by Vince September 23, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
I think this is a great plugin!

I’d love the option to add a couple of more fields that I could specify entrants to fill in (thinks like name etc). And whether it’s a must complete or not.

I’d also like the option of including/not including the 2+2 capatcha.

Is there any chance we can change ‘vote’ to ‘enter’ or even specify our own word?

And, last thing, it would be be brilliant if in the admin you could select ’shown entrants’ and it brings up a chart of email address (the other fields) and then what answer they picked.

Thanks again!

Comment by Matt D September 25, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
@Fab
The text-size should come from your css as there is no style for this in the plugin css. Check the file style.css in your template folder. If you don’t find any rule for the sidebar text size create your own

@Vince
Glad it did the trick and I hope it will work for the other people as well.

Keep the feedbacks coming guys!

Comment by Ben September 26, 2008 @ 10:59 am
Would be nice to develop further:

- limit amount of total entries per competion (but allow user to enter many times for each)

- chargeable option for entry (via paypal)

- if open or registered users only allowed to enter

Comment by Vince September 27, 2008 @ 12:31 am