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HotCRP components

HotCRP features including page renderers, search keywords, submission and review field types, and formula functions are configured through JSON components. You can add to, modify, and selectively disable components for your conference by declaring options in conf/options.php.

Component types

The components for each feature are defined by a JSON configuration file in etc/, and then modified by JSON objects and files listed in an $Opt setting.

Feature Default configuration file $Opt setting Match? User allow_if? Nested?
Request handling and page rendering etc/pages.json $Opt["pages"] ✓ ✓
API endpoints etc/apifunctions.json $Opt["apiFunctions"] ✓
Formula functions etc/formulafunctions.json $Opt["formulaFunctions"] ✓
Submission field types etc/optiontypes.json $Opt["optionTypes"]
Sample submission fields etc/submissionfieldlibrary.json $Opt["submissionFieldLibraries"]
Assignment types for bulk assignment etc/assignmentparsers.json $Opt["assignmentParsers"] ✓
Autoassigners etc/autoassigners.json $Opt["autoassigners"] ✓
Help topics etc/helptopics.json $Opt["helpTopics"] ✓ ✓
Search actions etc/listactions.json $Opt["listActions"] ✓
Mail keywords etc/mailkeywords.json $Opt["mailKeywords"] ✓ ✓
Mail templates etc/mailtemplates.json $Opt["mailTemplates"] ✓
Search columns etc/papercolumns.json $Opt["paperColumns"] ✓ ✓
Profile page topics etc/profilegroups.json $Opt["profileGroups"] ✓ ✓
Sample review fields etc/reviewfieldlibrary.json $Opt["reviewFieldLibraries"] ✓
Review field types etc/reviewfieldtypes.json $Opt["reviewFieldTypes"]
Search keywords etc/searchkeywords.json $Opt["searchKeywords"] ✓ ✓
Setting topics and rendering etc/settinggroups.json $Opt["settingGroups"] ✓ ✓
Settings etc/settinginfo.json $Opt["settingInfo"] ✓
OAuth/OpenID authentication providers None $Opt["oAuthProviders"]

Component construction

HotCRP creates a feature’s components by expanding the default configuration file and $Opt setting into a single list of component fragments, which are named objects. To look up a component by name, HotCRP searches this list for matching objects, then merges those matches together to create a single component.

Expansion: $Opt setting format

Each $Opt setting is an optional list of entries, where an entry is one of:

  • A single PHP object (which is a component fragment).
  • A list of PHP objects (component fragments).
  • A JSON string that defines either a single object or an array of objects.
  • A filename, which should contain a JSON array of objects. (HotCRP will report an error if the file can’t be found.)
  • A filename preceded by ?. (HotCRP will not report an error if the filename can’t be found.)
  • A filename pattern, including wildcard characters like *, ?, and [...]. (HotCRP will read all matching files.)

Filenames are searched for in the HotCRP directory and then using the $Opt["includePath"] setting, which should be a list of directories.

Search: Names and matches

Components are defined by name, and every component fragment created by the expansion process should have a name property, which is a string. When looking up a component, HotCRP first filters the list of fragments for those with matching name.

Some component types, such as search keywords, can be constructed on demand. These support pattern fragments, which are component fragments with a match property instead of name. When looking up a component, HotCRP includes all pattern fragments whose match property matches the desired name as a regular expression.

A pattern fragment can have an expand_function property. When such a pattern fragment matches a desired name, HotCRP calls that PHP function, passing as arguments (1) the desired name, (2) an XtParams object, (3) the pattern fragment, and (4) the preg_match data. The function must return a list of component fragments (which might be empty).

Merging

The search process yields a list of component fragments for the desired name. HotCRP then merges those components together into a single component, which is returned. The merge process works as follows.

  1. The list of fragments is sorted by increasing priority. priority defaults to 0; fragments with equal priority are ordered by their position in the original fragment list (so, for example, fragments from $Opt generally override fragments from etc/).

  2. Partial fragments are merged. A partial fragment has a merge property set to true; such fragments do not stand on their own, but modify preceding fragments by overriding their properties. For example, the partial fragment {"name":"foo", "priority":2, "merge":true, "title":"Foo"} will change the title property of some component without affecting its other properties.

    Once partial fragments are merged, the list contains complete components.

  3. Disallowed components are dropped. A component can be restricted to specific users or conferences by setting its allow_if property. For instance, a component with "allow_if":"admin" is only available to administrators. A component with "allow_if":false is available to no one.

    A few features do not support per-user components, but allow_if can still be used to check selected conference properties, as in "allow_if":"conf.external_login".

    allow_if syntax is described below.

  4. The highest-priority remaining component, if any, is the result of the merge process.

Listing components

In some cases, such as rendering pages, HotCRP needs to list all components, or all components that match a given prefix. This list is usually produced by ordering the relevant components according to their order properties. order defaults to 0; ties are broken by the name property and and/or by source order.

Aliases

When a component fragment has an alias property, HotCRP replaces that fragment by the result of looking up the component named alias. This can be useful to provide synonyms; for example, the search keyword component fragment {"name": "administrator", "alias": "admin"} allows users to search for administrator: as an alias for admin:. Aliasing may be preferred to copying a component definition because changes in the source component are automatically incorporated in the alias.

An alias may point to another alias, but HotCRP will only follow alias chains to a limited depth before giving up.

Nested components

Certain component types, such as pages and help topics, support nesting. A name may contain one or more slashes. The component is considered a member of the group defined by everything up to the last slash; for instance, components a/b, a/c, and a/b/c are members of groups a, a, and a/b, respectively. If present, the component’s group property overrides the group value derived from the component name.

Allowance conditions

A component allow_if property should be true, false, or a string describing a condition. Examples include:

  • admin: The viewer is a system administrator
  • manager: The viewer is a manager (system administrator, track administrator, or paper administrator)
  • pc: The viewer is on the PC or a system administrator
  • author: The viewer is an author
  • reviewer: The viewer is on the PC, a system administrator, or an assigned reviewer
  • view_review: The viewer may be allowed to see a review
  • empty: The viewer is empty (has not signed in and has not provided any review tokens or other capabilities)
  • email: The viewer has signed in
  • disabled: The viewer is disabled
  • opt.XXX: Conference option $Opt[XXX] is truthy
  • setting.XXX: Conference setting XXX is truthy

Some component types define additional conditions.

It is also possible to combine multiple conditions using parentheses, ! (negation), &&, and ||. For instance, the condition author || reviewer is true for both authors and reviewers.