help with categories

[bhockensmith]

I'd like to set up my page and it's categories like this...

Art
Weddings
Events
Portraits

Under each main category I'd like to display my best images as in a portfolio, but I also would like subcategories/galleries that can take the user deeper in.

For example.

Category = Weddings
..(best pictures / portfolio)
.. Gallery = Lauren&Chris
.. Gallery = Dicia&Anthony


The Art category I get and can make work....
Category = Art
..Subcategory = Landscapes
,,Subcategory = Nature


Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

-Brian
www.bhockensmith.smugmug.com

[jfriend]

Is there a reason that something like this won't work?

Weddings (category)
... Portfolio (gallery with best wedding photos in it)
... Lauren & Chris (gallery for their wedding)
... Dicia & Anthony (gallery for their wedding)

Art
... Portfolio (gallery with best art photos in it)
... Landscapes (sub-category)
...... Southwest (gallery)
...... Grand Canyon
...... Yellowstone
...... Mexico
... Nature (sub-category)
...... Flowers (gallery)
...... Wildlife

[bhockensmith]

I suppose that would work, but what I'd really like to do is simply display all my best images in the root level under each category, then draw a thin line across the screen and below that have the sub-galleries listed.

Can that be done?



Is there a reason that something like this won't work?

Weddings (category)
... Portfolio (gallery with best wedding photos in it)
... Lauren & Chris (gallery for their wedding)
... Dicia & Anthony (gallery for their wedding)

Art
... Portfolio (gallery with best art photos in it)
... Landscapes (sub-category)
...... Southwest (gallery)
...... Grand Canyon
...... Yellowstone
...... Mexico
... Nature (sub-category)
...... Flowers (gallery)
...... Wildlife

[jfriend]

I suppose that would work, but what I'd really like to do is simply display all my best images in the root level under each category, then draw a thin line across the screen and below that have the sub-galleries listed.

Can that be done? There's no built-in way to do that.

If you wanted to try to get there with lots of customization, you'd have to start with a gallery of your best images and then add HTML customization to it to get the thumbs and links to your other galleries. Adding that HTML to the albumDescription area would put them above the gallery of images. Adding it to your site footer would put it below your gallery of images and then you'd have to use CSS so it only showed when that particular gallery was on screen. Further, none of the built-in site navigation stuff that Smugmug offers would work so you'd have to design something yourself so users can get back to a previous spot after viewing some images. And, you'd have to deal with the fact that anything below a gallery is likely off the screen (since galleries tend to size themselves to fill the screen) so your viewers may have a hard time knowing those other galleries are even there.

My two cents is that you could do it, but you'd end up with something that was hard to navigate and might not look that good which probably defeats the whole purpose.

One interesting thing you could do is that you could create a normal category structure without your best images, then insert a small slideshow of your best images in each category. That would give you what you asked for in concept (best images and thumbs for other galleries in the same screen), but would work better than trying to put a whole gallery on that page. This would take some custom javascript in order to accomplish because that's the only way to add something custom to a category page.