SMugmug Border

[rcreamer824]

Does anyone know why borders are automatically appearing around slideshows and if Smugmug will correct this issue?

[Allen]

Does anyone know why borders are automatically appearing around slideshows and if Smugmug will correct this issue?
It's a known issue and they are looking into it. Hopefully fixed soon.

[delphoto]

It's a known issue and they are looking into it. Hopefully fixed soon.

Hey Al,
would that include the borders on my slide show not fitting to my photo size anymore? They are forming a square box. If they are fixing it I won't ask for help yet. It only happened last night. Previously it worked perfectly fine :o)
Delphine

www.delphoto.net

[Allen]

Hey Al,
would that include the borders on my slide show not fitting to my photo size anymore? They are forming a square box. If they are fixing it I won't ask for help yet. It only happened last night. Previously it worked perfectly fine :o)
Delphine

www.delphoto.net (http://www.delphoto.net)
Yelp, that's the main issue. The border is on the box and not the photo.

[delphoto]

Yelp, that's the main issue. The border is on the box and not the photo.

cool, no probs, I'll just turn it off in the mean time ;o)
Thanks again!

[kenyahudson]

I also noticed the ill-fitting box around my homepage slideshow. Hopefully, the support staff will be able to fix it or provide more information about the problem.

[gricketts]

This new and improved slide show keeps messing up. Why does Smugmug keep "improving" it?

The old code written by BigWebGuy worked just fine. The slides were displayed randomly, if wanted. A start slide could be selected. The transitions were smooth. On and on with the options.

And most of all, THE BORDERS FIT THE PHOTOGRAPH! That actually worked with Shizam's for a while, but no longer. If a bordered slide is desired, sorry, the slide show only accepts landscape photographs for that!

Being forced to fit a site look to a programmer's limitation results in an amateurish looking site.

Smugmug needs to go back to its roots and fix this slide show quagmire.

[Andy]

I also noticed the ill-fitting box around my homepage slideshow. Hopefully, the support staff will be able to fix it or provide more information about the problem.
We have been providing as much info as possible , sorry for the hassle. Shizam'll fix this border bug, sorry!

[Andy]

And most of all, THE BORDERS FIT THE PHOTOGRAPH!
I'm sorry this upsets you so much :( We fixed a whole slew of things on Slideshow, homepage, gallery and full screen. Sorry that this border thing crept in, it suprised us testers, too, as we didn't see it on our test site. This'll be fixed.

Sorry for the hassle, but the thing to do for the time being, just remove the border statement, it's simple to do and holler if you need us to help.

[jfriend]

This new and improved slide show keeps messing up. Why does Smugmug keep "improving" it?

The old code written by BigWebGuy worked just fine. The slides were displayed randomly, if wanted. A start slide could be selected. The transitions were smooth. On and on with the options.

And most of all, THE BORDERS FIT THE PHOTOGRAPH! That actually worked with Shizam's for a while, but no longer. If a bordered slide is desired, sorry, the slide show only accepts landscape photographs for that!

Being forced to fit a site look to a programmer's limitation results in an amateurish looking site.

Smugmug needs to go back to its roots and fix this slide show quagmire. Yeah, it's a shame that the original slideshow that was fully customizable has been replaced by a closed source slideshow, is barely customizable and only in a couple pre-determined ways and is often buggy with bug fixes coming many months after the bugs are reported. The only real improvement I've heard cited of the flash show over the old javascript one is that people got nicer transitions. I'd give up fancy transitions in order to have control over the customization and have many of the features that the old show had.

Some things that we're completely locked out of doing anything about:

Controlling the vertical position of the slideshow within the slideshow area (thus making mix orientation slideshows display how we want)
Doing something intelligent with captions, even when there is HTML in them
Allowing a truly random display order
Working with feeds without a PHD in order to set up the syntax
Not requiring a working copy of Adobe Flash installed (don't give me the 98% statistic - I see how many people have trouble with the slideshow until they reinstall flash). It doesn't just always "work".
Control over the slideshow speed (I can't believe this still hasn't been offered - how basic a slideshow feature is this?)
More timely fixes when bugs are reported. I can't believe how long it takes to get things fixed when they are busted.
The slideshow is a memory hog. If I load up the slideshow on a large gallery, it takes more than 150MB in the first minute alone and it doesn't give that memory back to the system right away when I close the slideshow.
The slideshow loads all the thumbs for the entire slideshow even when you aren't displaying thumbs. This is quite inefficient speed-wise and for bandwidth usage.
No ability to make a click on any image to take the viewer to that image.
It is also a shame that a very visible and newly introduced bug is going to take many days to address. This bug does not seem elusive or like it's rocket science. Priority and diligent work could have provided a fix the next day.Someone really ought to come up with a better alternative as it wouldn't be hard to put Smugmug's version to shame and completely out of business. This part of Smugmug is way under-engineered and it's way out of character to allow ZERO ability to extend or expand the functionality in any way.

[Andy]

Controlling the vertical position of the slideshow within the slideshow area (thus making mix orientation slideshows display how we want)

huh? :dunno

Doing something intelligent with captions, even when there is HTML in them
already added as a feature request :rolleyes

Not requiring a working copy of Adobe Flash installed (don't give me the 98% statistic - I see how many people have trouble with the slideshow until they reinstall flash). It doesn't just always "work".

Uh, how can we have flash without flash? :dunno

Control over the slideshow speed (I can't believe this still hasn't been offered - how basic a slideshow feature is this?)

Thanks, good suggestion, we'll see what can be done


More timely fixes when bugs are reported. I can't believe how long it takes to get things fixed when they are busted.

you know more about SmugMug than most anyone here, so this shouldn't come as any surprise to you. I'm sorry it upsets you. We just got a bunch of fixes done, many as a result of you asking for them. We appreciate it, John, Very Much.

The slideshow is a memory hog. If I load up the slideshow on a large gallery, it takes more than 150MB in the first minute alone and it doesn't give that memory back to the system right away when I close the slideshow.


John, we just fixed a ton of memory usage. I'm so sorry it takes 150mb. That's nearly a 10x improvement.

The slideshow loads all the thumbs for the entire slideshow even when you aren't displaying thumbs. This is quite inefficient speed-wise and for bandwidth usage.

Already reported by you AND acknowledged. And I sent it to the team. Thanks again, John, Very, Very Much.

No ability to make a click on any image to take the viewer to that image.
It is also a shame that a very visible and newly introduced bug is going to take many days to address. This bug does not seem elusive or like it's rocket science. Priority and diligent work could have provided a fix the next day.
I'm very sorry. It's a simple thing to remove a border, John.

We WILL fix the bug in the slideshow for the homepage. I'm very sorry, the bug will be fixed.

Thanks again for your valuable and appreciated input.

:jfriend

[jfriend]

Controlling the vertical position of the slideshow within the slideshow area (thus making mix orientation slideshows display how we want)

huh? :dunno

Nobody at Smugmug seems to understand that one of the top 5 questions about slideshow formatting is how to get the slideshow to not have so much empty space at the top. Many people use mixed format images in their show (some portrait, some landscape). Thus, they declare their show to be a square size like 700x700. Then, when it shows a landscape image, there's 100-300px of deadspace between their navbar and the show. It's made worse by some of the default formatting things on the homepage like a breadcrumb that is often just empty space and a bunch of divs that have default margins and paddings. They don't like that. You don't offer a supported format option so they can have their landscape images aligned on the top of the slideshow region (they are centered both vertically and horizontally). Several months ago, I discovered the imgAlign: 'top' parameter that was used by the slideshow gallery view and it sort of worked in the homepage slideshow. It was incompatible with using a border (the top of the border is cut off if you use them together), but if you didn't want a border, you could use that parameter. It's probably in use today on at least several hundred slideshows. Now, with the latest release, even that option is busted (both in homepage slideshows and in the gallery slideshow view). Now, there is just no solution at all if you want portrait images and landscape images in your slideshow. I've tried to explain this several times before to you and others at Smugmug, but nobody seems to get it. Just try answering the slideshow formatting questions for a week and someone will get it.

you know more about SmugMug than most anyone here, so this shouldn't come as any surprise to you. I'm sorry it upsets you. We just got a bunch of fixes done, many as a result of you asking for them. We appreciate it, John, Very Much.

It would be nice if something was in the release notes about the slideshow issues that were fixed. I know you sent me something in email, but nobody else knows what was changed.

Uh, how can we have flash without flash? :dunno
I'm talking about a slideshow option that doesn't use flash. I don't feel like folks are getting their money's worth out of flash. I'm not seeing anything useful being done with flash other than a transition and I'd happily use a javascript based show with a simpler transition and not have to deal with viewers having flash problems and horrible memory usage.


Thanks, good suggestion, we'll see what can be done
This slideshow speed control has been requested a lot of times. I know of no other slideshow in the world that doesn't offer control over slide speed. It's one of the most basic controls. I'm still amazed it isn't there yet. It's also not a hard thing to do as long as you bound it so it can't be set too fast. It's already programmed for a speed, it just needs another input parameter to set that value.

Already reported by you AND acknowledged. And I sent it to the team. Thanks again, John, Very, Very Much.
Maybe you read it in the bug reporting thread and sent it to the team (that's good), but I didn't ever see any acknowledgment in that thread of this issue I just reported.


I'm very sorry. It's a simple thing to remove a border, John. We WILL fix the bug in the slideshow for the homepage. I'm very sorry, the bug will be fixed.
Can you understand why people are not understanding why this takes 4+ days to fix and there's ZERO communication on when it will be fixed? Sure, it's a simple thing to remove the border temporarily. That assumes that people are monitoring their own site every day, that they read dgrin, that they have time to track this down, that they even remember how to change their slideshow (some people don't even remember where the slideshow code is) that they have time to see when it's fixed to then put their site back the way they want. People pay for a service so they don't have to do all that. These aren't web designers who do web design and monitor their site for their living. They did their site awhile ago and just want it to keep working. Your site isn't suppose to just start looking funny when you didn't do anything. And, when it does due to an error, we expect a faster response time than this. I've run a mission critical service before. We had a release process that had baked into our release calendar, post release bug assessment, prioritization and immediate fixes and testing for things that were urgent. We planned releases only when the resources were available to immediately respond to issues. Sure, this isn't a life and death issue, but it sure is pissing enough people off so I would think you should have prioritized the fix higher than you did or planned resource availability to work on a fix better than you did.

[Andy]

Hey John, we're trying as hard and as fast as is possible, to get this fixed. We're posting on Dgrin answering folks' questions and being as responsive as we can, too.

Thanks as ever, for your attention to detail, and for caring about these things as much as you do - we really, really appreciate it!

I've made sure the whole company has seen your posting.

[DrDavid]

Just a small note.. There ARE other ways to do a slideshow. For example, I just threw this page up to show off a slideshow I'm using for my new smugization site. But, I can do all sorts of really cool looking slideshows :)

check it out: http://www.wolfsnap.com/gallery/7554839_cA4fr

David

[Allen]

Just a small note.. There ARE other ways to do a slideshow. For example, I just threw this page up to show off a slideshow I'm using for my new smugization site. But, I can do all sorts of really cool looking slideshows :)

check it out: http://www.wolfsnap.com/gallery/7554839_cA4fr

David
I hate that show when all I see are spinning arrows over the thumbs.
Maybe if I wait five minutes they all will show up. :D And the scrolling
of the thumbs is a pain to control.

[DrDavid]

I hate that show when all I see are spinning arrows over the thumbs.
Maybe if I wait five minutes they all will show up. :D And the scrolling
of the thumbs is a pain to control.
That's just one possible look.. I can also make it look like SM's show but with tiny thumbs, with no thumbs, etc... It's totally configurable. I just happened to like that look because it grabs attention :)

David

[Peter Le]

I`m new to this site and to website building and owning in general. I have heard good things about SmuMug for a while . That is why when I decided I needed a website I joined SmuMug. I didn`t think I could put a decent site together as easy as I did. But I could have never done it as easy without Jfriend and Allens help. I am also very impressed with how fast SmugMug has replied to any of my questions.
With all this said I am very unimpressed with how SmugMug comunicates with us as a whole. As I said before person to person you are more than impressive. Their have been more threads then are countable on this slideshow problem. Takeing up time that people like Jfriend should be using to help us design, telling us their is a known problem and just hold on. I have even been telling some people myself what is up when I am here. Why isn`t their a sticky thread or a whole area for SmugMug news and problems.......this seems so basic. When people have problems they could just go there and see if it is known. It would also be a place we could see what has been added, fixed or changed. As Jfriend said when things are changed we have no way of even knowing. I stumbled on the fix for the slide show right click in a thread talking about putting a cover over it. Would have never known other wise.
I hope this isn`t taken wrong......I am very impressed with SmuMug. I just think you could comunicate better as a whole. I think their would be fewer people complaining about this problem you are having now if they were better informed.
All in All I think this is the best site of it`s type.....please keep it that way.........Peter

[shrekie]

Can you understand why people are not understanding why this takes 4+ days to fix and there's ZERO communication on when it will be fixed? Sure, it's a simple thing to remove the border temporarily. That assumes that people are monitoring their own site every day, that they read dgrin, that they have time to track this down, that they even remember how to change their slideshow (some people don't even remember where the slideshow code is) that they have time to see when it's fixed to then put their site back the way they want. People pay for a service so they don't have to do all that. These aren't web designers who do web design and monitor their site for their living. They did their site awhile ago and just want it to keep working. Your site isn't suppose to just start looking funny when you didn't do anything. And, when it does due to an error, we expect a faster response time than this. I've run a mission critical service before. We had a release process that had baked into our release calendar, post release bug assessment, prioritization and immediate fixes and testing for things that were urgent. We planned releases only when the resources were available to immediately respond to issues. Sure, this isn't a life and death issue, but it sure is pissing enough people off so I would think you should have prioritized the fix higher than you did or planned resource availability to work on a fix better than you did.

Thanks John, I couldn't have said it better myself. As a paying PRO customer, this is exactly what I didn't want to have to be wasting my time on...trying to fix what wasn't broken, and then having to waste time every day to check and see if it's been fixed.

Exactly like you said, it was ages since I created my slideshow. If I removed borders from my photos, do you know if it will still have the extra thin white border that I'm experiencing now around the photos in the slideshow? If I could turn both of these borders off in the meantime, that would be a good temporary fix, although I have no idea how to do that. Thanks.

Nelson

[Peter Le]

Thanks John, I couldn't have said it better myself. As a paying PRO customer, this is exactly what I didn't want to have to be wasting my time on...trying to fix what wasn't broken, and then having to waste time every day to check and see if it's been fixed.

Exactly like you said, it was ages since I created my slideshow. If I removed borders from my photos, do you know if it will still have the extra thin white border that I'm experiencing now around the photos in the slideshow? If I could turn both of these borders off in the meantime, that would be a good temporary fix, although I have no idea how to do that. Thanks.

Nelson

I beleive just the thin border around the photo`s will go away .....but it will look a lot better without it till they get things fixed. Replace the
{borderThickness 'number' with '00'} in your Bio Edit and the thin lines should go away.......Peter

[shrekie]

I beleive just the thin border around the photo`s will go away .....but it will look a lot better without it till they get things fixed. Replace the
{borderThickness 'number' with '00'} in your Bio Edit and the thin lines should go away.......Peter

Thanks Peter, that fixed it! :thumb

Apart from that thin line around the photo, the rest of the slideshow works perfectly. Does that mean the slideshow issues are different for different users? Mine seemed to be a relatively simple fix - I have no idea why the slideshow update would've increased my border size value from '00' to '2', but now that I have reset it to '00', it's all good.

Now I'm just scared that any future changes will keep messing it up without my knowing.

[Julia]

Can someone recommend a quick and dirty replacement suggestion while the slideshow gets worked on?

I removed the border, but the way I have mine set up, the big black slide is an awful jolt when entering my site. Some people are lucky and it sorta works... mine, well it looks like I made a huge mistake. :dunno

I'd love a temporary workaround since we don't have an ETA... and I really did literally just send a lot of traffic to my site that hadn't been seeing a lot of action. I need to remove it but I'm not sure what I can put in its place.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[Franco]

Thanks John, I couldn't have said it better myself. As a paying PRO customer, this is exactly what I didn't want to have to be wasting my time on...trying to fix what wasn't broken, and then having to waste time every day to check and see if it's been fixed.

Exactly like you said, it was ages since I created my slideshow. If I removed borders from my photos, do you know if it will still have the extra thin white border that I'm experiencing now around the photos in the slideshow? If I could turn both of these borders off in the meantime, that would be a good temporary fix, although I have no idea how to do that. Thanks.

Nelson

I have to agree with John and Nelson. I think SmugMug offers some nice features. However, what has taken away from my customer satisfaction of SmugMug is that as a Pro customer we should be offered a higher level of service. We often have to educate ourselves on how to use/write html coding, read through all the DGrin & SmugMug ProZone info., cut & paste here/there, and hope we set everything up just right before we even launch our site much less maintain it (and that is if we don't want to use just a basic template look & have no custom features). Then, when something goes wrong *(if we notice it before our clients do)*, we have to figure out if there is a bug in the system/coding or if SmugMug is changing something to the system that has created an error. The reason I went with SmugMug is that it was promoted as a user friendly site for Photographers with custom templates already to go. However, I found that I've spent months trying to get my site to where it is today and some SmugMug changes have interfered with some of my customization coding which I just have worked around (for example, I have to remove the coding in my customization that hides the breadcrumbs in order for it to now display the "Add Photos," etc. buttons in my gallery pages for me to add new photos and do changes. Then, re-hide my breadcrumbs in that gallery so my gallery page looks clean again.).

It isn't to say I haven't learned a lot, but it wasn't my intention (nor do I think others) that we purchased a Pro Account with SmugMug only to have to learn how to be semi-web designers on the side. And then, make sure like with this Slideshow error, then we are keeping on top of changes that affect our pages in order for us to avoid not looking professional with our existing and new clients.

My suggestion and SmugMug Executive team can take it for what they feel it is worth is that we all want our sites to look professional. We don't want clients going to our sites and seeing problems with certain functions, layout errors, or slow loading pages (i.e., like the memory usage issue brought up by John). Of course, problems happen with all technology and we certainly appreciate SmugMug taking care of them as they pop up (and in a timely manner). However, when SmugMug decides to make a changes (like with the Slideshow), can't they test it out on a separate server (like a Beta Test site, which they have done before in the past with rollout of new features) before they launch it? Also, can't SmugMug offer the Pro Account members a little better customized templates, which updates as SmugMug makes changes? Thus we avoid having to go through all these customization headaches only to have SmugMug do an update which then throws off our site and makes us have more work to do (if we have to make changes in our customization coding).

Again, for the most part, I love SmugMug. However, as many of us Pro Account members are obviously encountering problems, could the SmugMug Executives bring this issue up at a future meeting that they need to look closer at the overall customization features and implement significant process improvements so that members have a higher level of service / customer satisfaction?

I think John has a lot of great points. Some of the technical aspects I understand (and I do miss some of the features of the old slideshow which was phased out), but some of it is over my head. Wish I knew website design better and then maybe I would understand what the rest of John was talking about. :D

Nevertheless, thank you SmugMug for anyway you can help improve the process and make us Pro Account members look more Professional. :thumb

[Julia]

Can someone recommend a quick and dirty replacement suggestion while the slideshow gets worked on?

OK, issue temporarily averted. I came up with a solution I am happy with myself. :ivar