Category Search

[CameraRenter]

Is it possible to search my categories? I have many categories created and having the ability for users to search my categories for their gallery is important for me. Any help would be much appreciated!

[richW]

Is it possible to search my categories? I have many categories created and having the ability for users to search my categories for their gallery is important for me. Any help would be much appreciated!
#9 in the FAQ maybe? http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq

[CameraRenter]

#9 in the FAQ maybe? http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq

I took a look at #9 and that doesn't seem to help. In my case for each wedding we create a category with a name like “Corina and Lincoln” and each rented camera is given its own gallery in that category. Is it possible for guests that attended the wedding to search for and find the category “Corina and Lincoln” and subsequently find this page:

http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/Corina%20and%20Lincoln (http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/Corina%20and%20Lincoln).

The closest thing I can find is to search the metadata of each album for "Lincoln and Corina":

http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=lincoln+corina&searchType=InUser&NickName=CameraRenter&SortBy=Recent (http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=lincoln+corina&searchType=InUser&NickName=CameraRenter&SortBy=Recent)

But this produces a flat list of albums from all categories that match "lincoln" or "corina", not a list of categories. This doesn't work for us in the case that there are multiple users with the name "lincoln" or if Lincoln is a repeat customer who used us for multiple events. We are trying to enable the user to search for an event (a category). I'm trying to Search the SmugMug site and find this url:http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/Corina%20and%20Lincoln (http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/Corina%20and%20Lincoln)

Any ideas or hacks?

[jfriend]

I took a look at #9 and that doesn't seem to help. In my case for each wedding we create a category with a name like “Corina and Lincoln” and each rented camera is given its own gallery in that category. Is it possible for guests that attended the wedding to search for and find the category “Corina and Lincoln” and subsequently find this page:

http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/Corina%20and%20Lincoln (http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/Corina%20and%20Lincoln).

The closest thing I can find is to search the metadata of each album for "Lincoln and Corina":

http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=lincoln+corina&searchType=InUser&NickName=CameraRenter&SortBy=Recent (http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=lincoln+corina&searchType=InUser&NickName=CameraRenter&SortBy=Recent)

But this produces a flat list of albums from all categories that match "lincoln" or "corina", not a list of categories. This doesn't work for us in the case that there are multiple users with the name "lincoln" or if Lincoln is a repeat customer who used us for multiple events. We are trying to enable the user to search for an event (a category). I'm trying to Search the SmugMug site and find this url:http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/Corina%20and%20Lincoln (http://camerarenter.smugmug.com/Corina%20and%20Lincoln)

Any ideas or hacks?

If the goal is making it easier for a customer to find their event, have you considered different ways to organize the galleries that could make it easier without having to do a search.

For example, if you organized things by year and month, wouldn't they be able to fairly quickly identify which month they would be listed under (one or two clicks) and then a quick scan of a managable number of sub-category titles would show them where their images are.

For example:

2008-December
...Corina and Lincoln
......Gallery 1
......Gallery 2

Then in the future, when Smugmug allows greater category depth (something they've said they are working on), you could separate the year/month to be:

2008
...December
......Corina and Lincoln
.........Gallery 1
.........Gallery 2

Could this solve your issue?