NorrCompetition 3.1.0 Features Battle Mode

Following the major architectural leap in version 3.0, NorrCompetition 3.1 delivers one of our most anticipated community features: an engaging, gamified contest experience that elevates visitor participation and interaction.

Battle Mode: Dynamic Head-to-Head Pairwise Voting

Traditional voting contests often rely on browsing extensive galleries or submitting star ratings. Battle Mode flips this dynamic on its head by presenting visitors with two randomly chosen entries in a direct face-off.

Voters decide which of the two entries they prefer, declare a tie, or skip to the next pair — all handled with instant, seamless AJAX transitions without ever reloading the page.

Key Battle Mode Highlights:

• Interactive Battle Arena: Side-by-side comparison with instant AJAX loading — visitors can vote on multiple pairs in rapid succession.
• Keyboard Shortcuts (Hotkeys): Power-users and mobile visitors can vote rapidly using intuitive arrow keys (Left / Right arrows to vote, Down arrow for a Tie) and Z to Undo.
• Skip Pair & Undo Vote: Voters can pass on tough comparisons or quickly revert a vote within a configurable timeout duration.
• Fair Play Balancing Algorithm: The selection engine automatically prioritizes pairing entries with the lowest impression counts, ensuring late submissions receive equal visibility.
• Normalized Win-Rate Rating: Rankings are calculated by win ratio (points earned relative to total impressions) rather than raw display counts, guaranteeing balanced and fair competition.
• Adaptive Entry Widget: A dedicated Battle widget on participant entry pages lets visitors instantly jump into battles featuring that specific entry.
• Battle Leaderboard: Display contest leaders in an eye-catching results view with medal highlights, dynamic sorting, and configurable top percentage display (e.g., Top 30%).

Try Battle Mode in Demo & Sample Data

We have updated the NorrCompetition Sample Data plugin with a pre-configured Kids Art Battle demo contest, allowing you to install and test Battle Mode on your site with one click.

You can also experience Battle Mode live right now on our official demo and playground environments:

Changelog

Here is the full list of changes in NorrCompetition 3.1.0:

Added

• New. Introduced Battle Mode: head-to-head pairwise voting with dedicated arena, leaderboard, hotkeys, and entry widget.
• New. Added `Task - NorrCompetition Media Cleanup` plugin for Joomla Scheduled Tasks to clean up local photos of completed contests and optimize disk space.
• New. Added Kids Art Battle demo contest to sample data.

Improvements

• Improved. Comprehensive security hardening across controllers, enforcing strict HTTP POST methods, CSRF tokens, and ACL checks.
• Improved. Security hardening of administrative actions, record checkouts, and user point balance adjustments with structured audit logging.

Fixes

• Fixed. Duplicate fields in component configuration options.
• Fixed. Custom fields not displaying in the entry form when only a single contest is published.
• Fixed. CSV export in the administrator votes view to properly send download headers before exiting.
• Fixed. AJAX voting response payloads to respect the `competition_show_votes` setting.
• Fixed. Entry SEF routing when comparing slug aliases.
• Fixed. Entry pagination limit fallback and state synchronization in contest views.
• Fixed. Bootstrap tooltips initialization in administrator entry and vote listings.
• Fixed. Image properties validation handling for corrupted or unreadable images.