The Contribution plugin provides a way to collect stories, images, or other files from the public and manage those contributions in your Omeka archive as items.
Upgrading to 1.1
A quick note on upgrading existing installations to use latest (1.1) version of the Contribution plugin:
Activate the plugin, which hopefully had been deactivated since upgrading Omeka. Then click 'Configure' immediately to the right of the button. Warning: DO NOT navigate away from this page while it loads. Doing so might mess up your database. When the plugin is done upgrading, there will be a notification that the upgrade was successful. In the event that something went wrong, there will be an equivalent error message.
Installation
Upload and activate the Contribution plugin (see Installing_a_Plugin).
Watch a screencast tutorial on Using the Contribution Plugin.
Using the Contribution plugin
Once activated, the Contribution plugin will create a tab called "Contributors" in your admin panel, and make a contribution form available to the public at http://example.com/contribute/ where example.com is the location of your omeka installation.
Modifying the Contribution Form & Other Scripts
- You may modify the contribution form to fit the needs of your project. The contribution form is located at /plugins/Contribution/views/public/index/add.php. Other scripts like the thankyou and consent pages are also in that directory and may be edited.
- Take note that adding/removing/editing fields on the form will require additional modifications to the controller that processes the form, so that it saves the data correctly. Modifications to the form may also make it more difficult to correctly upgrade the plugin in future, but your mileage may vary.
Linking to the Contribution Form
A link to the public contribution form is added automatically to the navigation on your public theme.
If you want to create a link to the contribution form anywhere in your theme, add the following call:
<?php echo link_to_contribute('Text of My Link'); ?>
You can change 'Text of My Link' to whatever text you want the link to be.
Modifications for IE Users
Until we upgrade Omeka 1.0 to Omeka 1.1, you will need to modify your Omeka site settings to combat a possible MIME type error generated by Internet Explorer.
- Go to the /admin/settings page of your site, and scroll to the bottom of the first page of General settings.
- In the "Security Settings" section, paste into the "Allowed File Types" box the following file type: image/pjpeg
- If you do not do this, contributors using Internet Explorer may not be able to upload image files.
Please be aware of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and ensure that your web project complies with this law with regard to collecting information from users: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/coppa.shtm
