JudgeRay

A live talent show competition platform. Audiences vote, judges score, and one judge per act is kept secret until the final reveal.

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Features

Public

• Homepage listing upcoming, active, and past competitions
• Contest page with confirmed acts, social links, and live judge scores
• Colour-coded score table (cold blue → hot red gradient) per act
• Thumbs voting (1–3) per act during live contests, fingerprint-deduplicated
• Leaderboard podium for finished contests with mystery judge reveal

Contestants

• Self-registration with act type, stage name, description, and social links
• Email confirmation flow (admin approves → contestant clicks link)
• One contestant can register multiple acts per contest with different types

Judges

• Dedicated judge panel showing active contest and currently performing act
• Score submission (0–10) per act via modal
• Link to the public contest page and vice versa

Admins / Contest Managers

• Dashboard with stats linking to filtered views (active contests, pending acts, etc.)
• User management with multi-role assignment
• Contest CRUD with date/time, filterable by status
• Acts management across all contests (filterable by status)
• Per-contest: approve/reject acts, send confirmation emails, assign/remove judges
• Act types managed from the admin panel (name, badge colour, sort order)
• Live control: set which act is currently performing
• Hidden judge: one random judge assigned per act each time it goes live
• Finalize: locks scores, reveals mystery judge publicly

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Screenshots

Homepage — Live Now / Upcoming / Past Competitions

Active contest — LIVE act highlighted, judge scores with gradient, thumbs voting, mystery judge masked

Finished contest — leaderboard podium, all judge scores revealed including mystery judge

Admin dashboard — stat cards linking to filtered views

Judge panel — active act highlighted, score button per act

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Stack

Layer	Choice
Backend	PHP 8.x, no framework
Database	MySQL / MariaDB
Frontend	Bootstrap 5 + Bootstrap Icons (CDN)
Auth	PHP sessions + bcrypt
Email	PHPMailer via SMTP

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Structure

JudgeRay/
├── config/
│   └── config.php              ← DB credentials, BASE_URL, SMTP settings
├── includes/
│   ├── db.php                  ← PDO singleton
│   ├── auth.php                ← session helpers, role guards
│   ├── functions.php           ← flash, helpers, score colour, act types (DB-driven)
│   ├── mail.php                ← PHPMailer wrapper + confirmation template
│   ├── layout.php              ← shared Bootstrap nav/head/foot
│   └── admin_layout.php        ← admin sidebar wrapper
├── lib/
│   └── PHPMailer/              ← PHPMailer.php, SMTP.php, Exception.php
├── public/                     ← web root (point doc root here)
│   ├── index.php               ← homepage
│   ├── contest.php             ← contest detail, scores, voting
│   ├── register.php            ← contestant registration
│   ├── confirm.php             ← email confirmation token landing
│   ├── login.php
│   ├── logout.php
│   ├── vote.php                ← AJAX thumbs vote endpoint
│   ├── admin/
│   │   ├── index.php           ← dashboard
│   │   ├── users.php           ← user + role management
│   │   ├── contests.php        ← contest CRUD + status filter
│   │   ├── acts.php            ← acts across all contests + status filter
│   │   ├── act_types.php       ← act type management
│   │   ├── contest_detail.php  ← approve acts, assign judges, live control
│   │   ├── contest_activate.php
│   │   └── finalize.php
│   └── judge/
│       ├── index.php           ← judge dashboard
│       └── score.php           ← score submission endpoint
├── SQL/
│   ├── schema.sql              ← full DB schema (run once on fresh install)
│   ├── seed.sql                ← sample data (optional)
│   ├── cleanup.sql             ← wipe all data, keep structure
│   ├── reset.sql               ← drop + recreate all tables
│   └── migrate_act_types_table.sql  ← migration: add act_types table
├── .htaccess                   ← error logging config
├── deploy.md                   ← deployment guide
└── plan.md                     ← original architecture notes

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Setup

1. Database

Run SQL/schema.sql in phpMyAdmin or via CLI:

mysql -u root -p < SQL/schema.sql

2. Config

Edit config/config.php:

define('DB_HOST',     'localhost');
define('DB_NAME',     'judgeray');
define('DB_USER',     'your_db_user');
define('DB_PASS',     'your_db_password');
define('BASE_URL',    'https://yourdomain.com');  // no trailing slash — points to public/ web root
define('MAIL_FROM_NAME', 'JudgeRay');

// SMTP
define('SMTP_HOST',   'mail.yourdomain.com');
define('SMTP_PORT',   587);
define('SMTP_USER',   'your@email.com');
define('SMTP_PASS',   'your_smtp_password');
define('SMTP_SECURE', 'tls');  // 'tls' for 587, 'ssl' for 465

3. Web server

Point the document root at the public/ directory. admin/ and judge/ live inside public/ and are accessible normally.

4. First admin user

php -r "echo password_hash('yourpassword', PASSWORD_DEFAULT) . PHP_EOL;"

Then in MySQL:

INSERT INTO users (name, email, password_hash) VALUES ('Admin', 'you@example.com', 'HASH');
INSERT INTO user_roles (user_id, role) VALUES (LAST_INSERT_ID(), 'admin'), (LAST_INSERT_ID(), 'contest_manager');

5. Optional seed data

Run SQL/cleanup.sql then SQL/seed.sql in phpMyAdmin for sample contests, acts, judges and scores. All seed passwords: judgeray.

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Roles

Role	Can do
admin	Everything — users, contests, act types, full management
contest_manager	Manage contests and acts (no user/type admin)
judge	Score acts in assigned contests
contestant	Register acts, confirm participation

A user can hold multiple roles simultaneously.

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Act types

Managed in Admin → Act Types. Defaults: Singer / Vocal · Band / Musical Act · Dance · Comedy · Magic / Illusion · Acrobatics / Circus · DJ / Electronic · Spoken Word · Other

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Social links supported

Instagram · TikTok · YouTube · Twitter/X · Facebook · Spotify · Website