Dsweet
May-15-2009, 11:24 AM
I have now been using Smugmug for several months and it is great.
But as I have had to manage more and more pictures and more and more users, I find that Smugmug's approach to user access is a bit of a hassle.
There is some improvement that needs to be made in the User Access area.
There are three levels of access that I need:
Public – users can see the pictures without entering a password. I use a site password, but I want to make exceptions and make some galleries public. I guess the only solution would be to not use a site password and put the same password on all (100s) of the galleries. But if I do that then I lose keyword search functionality.
Group – users can see certain groups of galleries by entering a single password. For example, I may want the track team to see track galleries, but not all my galleries. “Sharegroups” doesn’t quite offer the functionality that I need in that:
Users should be able to search for keywords within the Sharegroups
Users should be able to see a slideshow of all the pictures returned by a sharegroup, keyword search.
Users of these groups should be kept in the sharegroup tracks.
I have a sharegroup called “2009 FJH Track”. When a gallery is clicked then the track becomes “2009 FJH Track > Athletics > 2009 Fishers Jr. High Track > 2009 FJH Track Carmel Middle”, so they can’t go back up the track from which they came. Very confusing, and since I have a site password, they are asked for a different password than the gallery password they were already asked for.
Once a gallery password has been entered correctly the keywords should be available in the keyword search.
Friends – users who can see all the pictures.
This is the intent of the site password. But, there should be an option on each gallery to allow users with a site password to bypass the gallery password. Sometime you want to lock down the gallery (a little more) and sometimes it is ok for a site user to access the gallery without having to remember another password and to be able to take advantage of keywords. If the bypass option is chosen the keywords in that gallery should be available.
But as I have had to manage more and more pictures and more and more users, I find that Smugmug's approach to user access is a bit of a hassle.
There is some improvement that needs to be made in the User Access area.
There are three levels of access that I need:
Public – users can see the pictures without entering a password. I use a site password, but I want to make exceptions and make some galleries public. I guess the only solution would be to not use a site password and put the same password on all (100s) of the galleries. But if I do that then I lose keyword search functionality.
Group – users can see certain groups of galleries by entering a single password. For example, I may want the track team to see track galleries, but not all my galleries. “Sharegroups” doesn’t quite offer the functionality that I need in that:
Users should be able to search for keywords within the Sharegroups
Users should be able to see a slideshow of all the pictures returned by a sharegroup, keyword search.
Users of these groups should be kept in the sharegroup tracks.
I have a sharegroup called “2009 FJH Track”. When a gallery is clicked then the track becomes “2009 FJH Track > Athletics > 2009 Fishers Jr. High Track > 2009 FJH Track Carmel Middle”, so they can’t go back up the track from which they came. Very confusing, and since I have a site password, they are asked for a different password than the gallery password they were already asked for.
Once a gallery password has been entered correctly the keywords should be available in the keyword search.
Friends – users who can see all the pictures.
This is the intent of the site password. But, there should be an option on each gallery to allow users with a site password to bypass the gallery password. Sometime you want to lock down the gallery (a little more) and sometimes it is ok for a site user to access the gallery without having to remember another password and to be able to take advantage of keywords. If the bypass option is chosen the keywords in that gallery should be available.