Bibbit

Add a search box to your gallery

Bibbit writes bib numbers onto your photos as keywords. Neither SmugMug nor Zenfolio shows visitors a box to type one into until you add it — here's how, host by host, in a few minutes.

What the sync leaves on your photos

  • ✓The bib number as a keyword, unchanged — 1234, exactly what a runner types.
  • ✓Runner names too, when your event has a roster, so searching by name works as well.
  • ✓Your existing keywords are untouched. Bibbit adds a bibtool:bibbit marker so a later sync can recognise its own work.

Sync a gallery before you start, and pick a bib you know is in it — that's the search you'll test with.

Names work in the same box

Uploaded a roster CSV? The sync writes runner names as keywords next to the bib numbers, so the same box finds someone by name — worth saying in the placeholder: bib number or name. On SmugMug a comma searches more than one keyword at once (John, Doe). On Zenfolio the Exact Match option that stops bib 100 matching 1001 also demands a name spelled exactly as your roster spells it.

Setting it up on SmugMug

Add the search box

  1. 1Sign in to SmugMug and open the gallery you synced.
  2. 2Click Site in the top navigation, then Customize Design.
  3. 3In the Customizer panel, click Make This Gallery Custom in the upper right — or Make This Folder Custom if you'd rather have one box above the whole event. Skip this and your change lands on every page of your site.
  4. 4Drag the Search Box block, under Discovery, onto the page above your photos.
  5. 5Hover over the block, click the wrench icon, and set Scope to this gallery or folder. Left site-wide, a search for bib 100 returns every other 100 you've ever uploaded.
  6. 6Publish.

The search field in your site header is a different feature: it only searches the page a visitor is already on, and it has no scope setting of its own.

Tune it for bib numbers

  1. 1On the block's Basic tab, make the placeholder text explicit: Enter your bib number.
  2. 2On the Advanced tab, force an extra search term — your race name — if the box has to cover the whole site. A visitor typing 100 then searches 100 + spring half.
  3. 3Also on the Advanced tab, you can send results to your keywords page instead of the search page, if you'd rather runners landed on a keyword listing.

Send runners straight to their photos

  1. 1Every search is a URL: yoursite.smugmug.com/search?q=1234 opens results for bib 1234.
  2. 2Keywords have pages too — yoursite.smugmug.com/keyword/1234. Either link drops neatly into a results email or a race organiser's page.

Check it the way a runner will

  1. 1The gallery has to be public and not password protected. Logged-out visitors never get unlisted galleries or hidden photos in search results.
  2. 2Test in a private window. Signed in as the owner you can search everything you own whatever the settings say, so your own test always passes.
  3. 3Nothing found for a bib you know is tagged? Check the sync finished on that gallery in Export & sync, then re-check the block's scope.

SmugMug's own guide to visitor search →

Setting it up on Zenfolio

Turn on search inside the gallery (NextZen)

  1. 1Open Galleries in the left-hand navigation and select your event gallery.
  2. 2Go to Settings, then the Content tab.
  3. 3Scroll to Search Tools and switch the keyword search on. A search bar appears in the gallery, and it only returns photos from that gallery.
  4. 4Add search instructions so nobody has to guess: Search by bib number.

Zenfolio searches file name, display name, photo title, caption, user comment and keyword tags. Bibbit's bib numbers arrive as keyword tags.

Let the gallery turn up in site-wide search

  1. 1Galleries → your gallery → Access & Permissions → Make Your Gallery Searchable, then choose where: the Zenfolio website, folder search, web crawlers.
  2. 2Click the Website icon, select the header block at the top of the page, switch Sitewide Search on, and publish. That's the magnifying glass in your header.
  3. 3On Advanced plans a folder can carry its own search bar: Galleries → the folder → Settings → Features → Display Search Bar. Tick Exact Match Search so bib 100 doesn't return 1001, and use the placeholder to say what to type.

Galleries and folders made before 22 December 2023 have searchability off by default — switch them on one by one, or build it into the preset new galleries inherit.

On Zenfolio Classic

  1. 1Hover Website and click Customize Website.
  2. 2Select the header or footer, open the Elements tab, set the Search field to Show and choose Collapsed or Expanded.
  3. 3Click Apply, then publish before you leave the customizer.
  4. 4For a race spread over several galleries, an Open Event gives runners one page where their bib number pulls in photos from all of them.

Check it the way a runner will

  1. 1Sign out, or use a private window, and search a bib you know Bibbit synced.
  2. 2Nothing found? Check Access Control — a gallery or photo excluded from search results won't come back for any keyword — and confirm the sync finished in Export & sync.

Zenfolio's own guide to visitor search →

Ready for the runners?

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