jfriend
Nov-22-2008, 10:11 PM
In the spirit of Denise's posting on the dangers of hiding the breadcrumb (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=111484), I thought I ought to write something similar on the dangers of hiding the style picker. For those of you who aren't sure you know what I'm talking about, this is the style picker:
http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/422566661_3iBDJ-O.jpg
It's the drop-down list that let's you pick a gallery viewing style. Because it's a rather old-fashioned interface element (unlike the new YUI buttons) and because as soon as you create a custom header, it gets left in a really bad place on your screen, many users seem to want it to go away. So, because you can hide nearly anything on the page with custom CSS, users just hide the stylebar. Bad, very bad - I will explain and there are much better solutions.
First, hiding the stylebar does NOT assure that your viewers will get the Smugmug view or any other view. In fact, your viewers will get whatever view they were last in nearly anywhere on Smugmug. That's because Smugmug cookies your browser with the view that you have last used and then uses that as the default for the next gallery that you open, whether it's in your account or not. That means that if you hide the stylebar, your viewers can get stuck in a view neither you nor they want them to be in on your galleries. So, do not simply hide the style bar to keep them from switching views. There are much better ways which I will explain in a second.
Want to see that in action. Go to one of my galleries like this one (http://jfriend.smugmug.com/gallery/5608779_ZJ27n#344287800_YL8Ha). Pick a gallery viewing style other than Smugmug view (like Journal). Then, go directly to some other gallery in another account like this one (http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/5363890_2awbk). Hmmm, that gallery is also shown in the same gallery style you had previously selected. Wow, if their style picker had been hidden with CSS, you'd be stuck in that gallery style with no way to change it. You don't want that for your viewers and they certainly wouldn't want it.
So, what is the better way. Well, for physical galleries, you have two decent options. First, you can make the style picker look decent and you can control which options are presented in the style picker if you want to limit the choice. See this thread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=111251) for how to make a much nicer looking style picker that you can control which options are presented in. This will not only make your style picker more modern looking, it will also fix the location of the style picker if you are using a custom header. This will give you a nice looking site, but also keep your users from getting standed in a particular view.
Here's the nicer looking style bar:
http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/422580080_mZmGo-O-1.jpg
The second option for a gallery is that you can lock a gallery into a particular viewing style. To do that you just go to customize gallery and for the Gallery Style option in the Look & Feel section, you pick a particular style type instead of leaving it on Viewer Controlled. When you lock a gallery to a particular style, the style picker is not shown for that gallery.
Here's the option in customize gallery where you control this:
http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/422582557_VjXmM-O.jpg
Now if you look across your whole site, the style picker can also be shown in some non-gallery views like popular photos, keyword searches, timeline views, etc... Here you have fewer options. You can't lock those into a particular view as Smugmug doesn't offer that option. I'd recommend you either leave the normal style picker as it is or switch to the new nicer looking one as mentioned previously. Otherwise, you run the risk of a viewing doing a search in your gallery and coming up in some viewing style that they are stuck in (like critique view) which neither of you wants.
So, to recap. Do not simply hiding your style picker with CSS. You are putting your viewers in a situation where they may be stranded in a viewing style that neither or you wants them to be in. If you want to control this, then lock your galleries to the style you want or switch to a nicer looking style picker or some combination of the two.
http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/422566661_3iBDJ-O.jpg
It's the drop-down list that let's you pick a gallery viewing style. Because it's a rather old-fashioned interface element (unlike the new YUI buttons) and because as soon as you create a custom header, it gets left in a really bad place on your screen, many users seem to want it to go away. So, because you can hide nearly anything on the page with custom CSS, users just hide the stylebar. Bad, very bad - I will explain and there are much better solutions.
First, hiding the stylebar does NOT assure that your viewers will get the Smugmug view or any other view. In fact, your viewers will get whatever view they were last in nearly anywhere on Smugmug. That's because Smugmug cookies your browser with the view that you have last used and then uses that as the default for the next gallery that you open, whether it's in your account or not. That means that if you hide the stylebar, your viewers can get stuck in a view neither you nor they want them to be in on your galleries. So, do not simply hide the style bar to keep them from switching views. There are much better ways which I will explain in a second.
Want to see that in action. Go to one of my galleries like this one (http://jfriend.smugmug.com/gallery/5608779_ZJ27n#344287800_YL8Ha). Pick a gallery viewing style other than Smugmug view (like Journal). Then, go directly to some other gallery in another account like this one (http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/5363890_2awbk). Hmmm, that gallery is also shown in the same gallery style you had previously selected. Wow, if their style picker had been hidden with CSS, you'd be stuck in that gallery style with no way to change it. You don't want that for your viewers and they certainly wouldn't want it.
So, what is the better way. Well, for physical galleries, you have two decent options. First, you can make the style picker look decent and you can control which options are presented in the style picker if you want to limit the choice. See this thread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=111251) for how to make a much nicer looking style picker that you can control which options are presented in. This will not only make your style picker more modern looking, it will also fix the location of the style picker if you are using a custom header. This will give you a nice looking site, but also keep your users from getting standed in a particular view.
Here's the nicer looking style bar:
http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/422580080_mZmGo-O-1.jpg
The second option for a gallery is that you can lock a gallery into a particular viewing style. To do that you just go to customize gallery and for the Gallery Style option in the Look & Feel section, you pick a particular style type instead of leaving it on Viewer Controlled. When you lock a gallery to a particular style, the style picker is not shown for that gallery.
Here's the option in customize gallery where you control this:
http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/422582557_VjXmM-O.jpg
Now if you look across your whole site, the style picker can also be shown in some non-gallery views like popular photos, keyword searches, timeline views, etc... Here you have fewer options. You can't lock those into a particular view as Smugmug doesn't offer that option. I'd recommend you either leave the normal style picker as it is or switch to the new nicer looking one as mentioned previously. Otherwise, you run the risk of a viewing doing a search in your gallery and coming up in some viewing style that they are stuck in (like critique view) which neither of you wants.
So, to recap. Do not simply hiding your style picker with CSS. You are putting your viewers in a situation where they may be stranded in a viewing style that neither or you wants them to be in. If you want to control this, then lock your galleries to the style you want or switch to a nicer looking style picker or some combination of the two.