Get a Sneak Peek at SmugMug's new design!

[Allen]

http://img.skitch.com/20110803-t9yydnfjmw2d4acju1xsis1snd.jpg
.
The new design shows the date modified which is useless. It needs to show the date taken.

[jhofker]

What's happening with the thumbnails in galleries that causes IE9 to warn about only secure content being shown? The first page of thumbnails shows fine, but clicking to the next page (and then even back to the first page) and they don't show. Clicking "Show all content" makes things work fine.
http://photos.hofker.org/photos/i-76wKDTj/0/XL/smdesign-XL.png

[Teetime]

Ray, I too would like to see SM better support video. Specifically, there are three changes that are very important to me:

The autosize has always been buggy. Even if it wasn't, I would like to have the option to specify the default display size for video. I do like the new way for the client to change the size; it is much more intuitive than the old way.
Clients find it confusing when a gallery contains both photos and video. I would like to have a gallery style that provides two tabs; one for photos and one for videos. Each would contain options/actions appropriate for that media. For example, in the photo tab the client could view the photos in a slideshow. In the video tab, the client could set up and view a playlist.
If I want to promote a video via Facebook I currently have to upload to Vimeo or YouTube, and embed from there. I would really like to be able to embed my SM video in Facebook so it would play there, rather than linking back to my site. I suppose this is an issue with the current SM player?
I like the idea that new gallery styles are being worked on. The problem is it appears that only photos are taken into consideration, with a thumbnail mentality. I use SmugMug strictly for video files in password protected galleries for my clients. The thumbnail idea is less useful than a "text view" where I can add in longer filenames and descriptions. These would be able to be sorted by date or alphabetical. Currently SmugMug seems to be relying on a purely visual approach based around thumbnails.

Can we get a style worked on that is more centered around video files and the information related to them. Something that will allow my clients to find their content fast and know if they are on version 1, 2, 3 or 20

Thanks
Ray T

[ChancyRat]

Sorry if this is covered elsewhere (I can't find it)... And I can't locate an example in the sneak peak format on my site, but - is video going to remain flash-based? Is there an example link someone could post so I can see how video will look on the new site?

Related - and will video be viewable on Blackberry? Certain friends are dying to know. :rofl
Thanks.

[MarkR]

The dots for pages bother me too. It's Mystery Meat Navigation (http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html), which requires you to hover or click in order to find out what those buttons do.

"Mystery meat navigation (also abbreviated MMN) is a term coined and popularized by author, web designer, and usability analyst Vincent Flanders to describe user interfaces (especially in web sites) in which it is inordinately difficult for users to discern the destinations of navigational hyperlinks—or, in severe cases, even to determine where the hyperlinks are. The typical form of MMN is represented by menus composed of unrevealing icons that are replaced with explicative text only when the mouse cursor hovers over them."

The irony is that Webpagesthatsuck.com uses Smugmug to host at least some of it's images.

[Allen]

If I'm scrolled down some the lightbox view cuts off the top of the photo. Shouldn't the
lightbox page adjust to show the whole photo including the nav bar at the top just like
the current design?

[mbrady]

The dots for pages bother me too. It's Mystery Meat Navigation (http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html), which requires you to hover or click in order to find out what those buttons do.


But is it really mystery meat anymore if it's a concept used by a product millions of people use? The dots-indicating-pages scheme is a core part of Apple's iOS used by the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Some elements of the new version of Mac OS X use it too. Similar schemes are sneaking into non-Apple products as well (and i'm not sure if Apple came up with that or just popularized it). In fact most of the icons used in the new Smugmug layout are the same or very similar to standard icons used by iOS. So someone familiar with iOS (millions of people, for better or worse) will know what most of the new Smugmug icons mean without having to mouse over them or needing a label next to them.

So in reading through all the comments in this thread, I've got a sneaky suspicion I could determine who uses iPhones/iPads just by their reaction to the dots and icons.

[MarkR]

But is it really mystery meat anymore if it's a concept used by a product millions of people use? The dots-indicating-pages scheme is a core part of Apple's iOS used by the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Some elements of the new version of Mac OS X use it too. Similar schemes are sneaking into non-Apple products as well (and i'm not sure if Apple came up with that or just popularized it). In fact most of the icons used in the new Smugmug layout are the same or very similar to standard icons used by iOS. So someone familiar with iOS (millions of people, for better or worse) will know what most of the new Smugmug icons mean without having to mouse over them or needing a label next to them.

So in reading through all the comments in this thread, I've got a sneaky suspicion I could determine who uses iPhones/iPads just by their reaction to the dots and icons.

If use/ownership of an iPhone/iPad is required to understand what the links mean, then, yes, it is Mystery Meat. I look at a lot of webpages in the course of a workweek, and Smugmug's new design is the only one I've seen where dots instead of page numbers is the norm. And if Smugmug is designing around iPhone/iPad users at the expense of the rest of the world, well, I think that is a significant mistake.

[drode]

It looks promising so far but it's just the galleries and without customization.

[mbrady]

If use/ownership of an iPhone/iPad is required to understand what the links mean, then, yes, it is Mystery Meat. I look at a lot of webpages in the course of a workweek, and Smugmug's new design is the only one I've seen where dots instead of page numbers is the norm. And if Smugmug is designing around iPhone/iPad users at the expense of the rest of the world, well, I think that is a significant mistake.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily saying that their new design is good or bad, just highlighting where their obvious inspiration is coming from. iOS devices are frequently praised for being intuitive to use without needing prior instruction. But an iPhone is not a webpage, so it's hard to say how well that sort of thing will translate, which I think it why they're showing us this work-in-progress. Now's their chance to see how well (or not well) some of those ideas adapt to a photo gallery website and make adjustments as needed.

[BradfordBenn]

I got stumped today, I had a heckuva time figuring out how to feature a picture in a gallery. The option of Gallery at the top of the page was where I looked first. It was not there. It took exasperation for me to try Edit to find the tool. To me that was not very intuitive. It also reminds me that in one area it is called "Feature Photo" and another "Gallery Cover" it should be the same term I think.

[dereksurfs]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily saying that their new design is good or bad, just highlighting where their obvious inspiration is coming from. iOS devices are frequently praised for being intuitive to use without needing prior instruction. But an iPhone is not a webpage, so it's hard to say how well that sort of thing will translate, which I think it why they're showing us this work-in-progress. Now's their chance to see how well (or not well) some of those ideas adapt to a photo gallery website and make adjustments as needed.
I think this is more of a trendy as 'oh this cool' navigation for the iOS crowd. But that is more likely highly concentrated in the graphic designer, artist geek than the standard user looking to view and/or potentially buy some photos. For them it = obnoxious and unintuitive plain and simple. Again folks dots on a page aren't real issue here at all - Design flexibility is! Though it is easy to get side tracked or bamboozled into nifty little things we may like/dislike. One size does not and should not have to fit all. That is the kind of fundamental change which will work for everyone - iOS and Windows geek included.

[dereksurfs]

The new design shows the date modified which is useless. It needs to show the date taken.

Agreed, the date taken has much more statistical significant than date modified. I want to know when the shot was taken, not when I got around to post processing it or resizing it. That info is next to meaningless for me.

[Mark Dickinson]

While making a comment, if you select the STARS first, the message box disappears. Even though the message says add a comment to rate, I am sure some will click stars first as I just did.

My settings are to approve (so that we can use comments as a way to have clients select photos for their albums and other items that require us to use photos), but it currently auto approves at this time

[Bird Lady]

I have put off creating a blog due to time constraints, but this summer was beginning to really consider creating one, via Blogger, that would match my customized SM site. I know Denise Goldberg's blog, for example, matches her SM site seamlessly and that she uses Blogger.

Once the new design is mandated, what will happen with the blogs that currently match customized SM sites? Will they have to be redone from scratch if someone still wants a matching customized look? If so, that will involve twice the time and headache of redoing a customized SM site. For lots of us, I dare say, it is a headache dealing with CSS and html, etc. So perhaps I should put it off longer?

Thanks for any advice/opinion.

[BradfordBenn]

Susan actually just jogged my memory on this one, would there be any chance of having two or three stock themes per major blog engine. The idea being that SmugMug would have themes it released that will make the blog look like a specific them in the SmugMug galleries. Not every theme, but a few (most importantly the ones I like & use), so that if one applies the theme to the blog it would match.

[Dave_Anderson]

Susan actually just jogged my memory on this one, would there be any chance of having two or three stock themes per major blog engine. The idea being that SmugMug would have themes it released that will make the blog look like a specific them in the SmugMug galleries. Not every theme, but a few (most importantly the ones I like & use), so that if one applies the theme to the blog it would match.

I love this idea. One of the reasons I have halted all development at a place I'm not really happy with, it's all going to change. Having matching blog themes would give everyone an excellent head start. Wordpress here, BTW.

[denisegoldberg]

I have put off creating a blog due to time constraints, but this summer was beginning to really consider creating one, via Blogger, that would match my customized SM site. I know Denise Goldberg's blog, for example, matches her SM site seamlessly and that she uses Blogger.

Once the new design is mandated, what will happen with the blogs that currently match customized SM sites? Will they have to be redone from scratch if someone still wants a matching customized look? If so, that will involve twice the time and headache of redoing a customized SM site. For lots of us, I dare say, it is a headache dealing with CSS and html, etc. So perhaps I should put it off longer?
Susan -
The changes that have been shown here are changes in the presentation of galleries. It's my understanding that if we have customized our smug sites that there will be conversion work to be done, but I believe that is referring to customizations within the galleries. Matching your blog to your smug site is a matter of matching the banner, navbar, and background. The banner and navbar are your creations (unless you're using the easy customizer). The background will depend on whether you are using a smug theme and whether that theme changes. There also has been no timeframe announced for the release of the new gallery formats, so if you decide to wait it will be for an undefined amount of time.

If it were me I would go ahead with the blog customizations. That gives you a matching site now, and perhaps a matching site later with no changes needed. If changes are needed, I believe they will be simple changes. For example, I changed the look of both my smug site and my blog a couple of months ago. It didn't take long to do - I'd say much less than an hour to change both sites once I decided on the pieces I wanted to change.

--- Denise

[titaniumphoto]

Susan -
The changes that have been shown here are changes in the presentation of galleries. It's my understanding that if we have customized our smug sites that there will be conversion work to be done, but I believe that is referring to customizations within the galleries. Matching your blog to your smug site is a matter of matching the banner, navbar, and background. The banner and navbar are your creations (unless you're using the easy customizer). The background will depend on whether you are using a smug theme and whether that theme changes. There also has been no timeframe announced for the release of the new gallery formats, so if you decide to wait it will be for an undefined amount of time.

If it were me I would go ahead with the blog customizations. That gives you a matching site now, and perhaps a matching site later with no changes needed. If changes are needed, I believe they will be simple changes. For example, I changed the look of both my smug site and my blog a couple of months ago. It didn't take long to do - I'd say much less than an hour to change both sites once I decided on the pieces I wanted to change.

--- Denise

Denise, does smugmug offer (or will offer) a html5 blogging capability or is it custom to integrate in? If custom, can you point me to the thread here so i can learn?

Best
~Todd

[denisegoldberg]

Denise, does smugmug offer (or will offer) a html5 blogging capability or is it custom to integrate in? If custom, can you point me to the thread here so i can learn?
Todd -
I don't work for smug so I don't know what the plans are.

I customized a blog in blogger to match my smug site, as documented in the thread HOW TO match your blog to your smug site (blogger-specific) (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=101262). Don't let the length of the thread scare you away - the information you need is either in the first post of the thread or it is linked to at the end of the first post. If you run into questions or problems, post your question in that thread.

Follow the links in my signature below to see my matching smug site and blog.

--- Denise

[titaniumphoto]

Todd -
I don't work for smug so I don't know what the plans are.

I customized a blog in blogger to match my smug site, as documented in the thread HOW TO match your blog to your smug site (blogger-specific) (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=101262). Don't let the length of the thread scare you away - the information you need is either in the first post of the thread or it is linked to at the end of the first post. If you run into questions or problems, post your question in that thread.

Follow the links in my signature below to see my matching smug site and blog.

--- Denise

Thanks Denise.

[Erick L]

So what will happen with html in captions?

[Bird Lady]

Susan -
The changes that have been shown here are changes in the presentation of galleries. It's my understanding that if we have customized our smug sites that there will be conversion work to be done, but I believe that is referring to customizations within the galleries. Matching your blog to your smug site is a matter of matching the banner, navbar, and background. The banner and navbar are your creations (unless you're using the easy customizer). The background will depend on whether you are using a smug theme and whether that theme changes. There also has been no timeframe announced for the release of the new gallery formats, so if you decide to wait it will be for an undefined amount of time.

If it were me I would go ahead with the blog customizations. That gives you a matching site now, and perhaps a matching site later with no changes needed. If changes are needed, I believe they will be simple changes. For example, I changed the look of both my smug site and my blog a couple of months ago. It didn't take long to do - I'd say much less than an hour to change both sites once I decided on the pieces I wanted to change.

--- Denise

Thank you, Denise! I'll look into Blogger asap. And I hope the SM powers-that-be will wait until after the holidays to make any changes.

[ChancyRat]

I clicked unjoin, so I can see and edit the site in the right way, but the gallery pages seem stuck in goodie mode. I cleared cookies.... Thanks.

[Andy]

I clicked unjoin, so I can see and edit the site in the right way, but the gallery pages seem stuck in goodie mode. I cleared cookies.... Thanks.

Be sure you've done unjoin on your custom domain and on nickname.smugmug.com thanks.

[ChancyRat]

Be sure you've done unjoin on your custom domain and on nickname.smugmug.com thanks.

Thank you - forgot there were two sites to un-do. :thumb

[Tina Manley]

Still no way to sell RM stock priced by usage. Afraid I'm headed to PhotoShelter.

Tina

[KB&HF Prod.]

I agree, leave the option to: allow anonymous comments, not allow anonymous and or no comments.
I agree too, thank you.

More modern design, cleaner, easier navigation, a lot of improvements while just a beta release.
Congratulations, Serge.

[NvNETs]

Hi,

The new gallery view is beautiful.

I just have some suggestions and hope these will help someway :)

Stretching Browser
As a photographer, I love to keep the display size larger than the current (old) in galerry view. I and my visitors feel uncomfortable when they resize the browser and the main changing is the reorganizing the view of the thumbnails. Although I know not only the thumbnails rows&columns change but actually it changes more than the display size of viewing photo. Personally, I prefer 3 colums of thumbnails with a large display photo. If there is a strectching, the display size of a photo should be considered in a higher priority.

One Option to Set The Minimum or Default Photo Display Size
I went through all the option for owners to customize/optimize their galleries' viewing, and there is no option like I said. Personally, I really prefer to have a default size for displaying in gallery viewing mode. With that option, The visitors don't have to click on the photo and then click to choose the large size. Save visitors' number of clicks. Also, with an option to set minimum display size, in case the browser is being stretched, if the browser is resized to be larger, the photo becomes larger obviously; but if the browser is resized smaller, the minimum option will prevent resizing the photo to small size and keep the photo at the minimum Medium or Large size (depends on the settings). Small size worths nothing to me. Again, we should reconsider the number of columns and rows for thumbnails in this case.

Vote/Share/Like Should be Put Neatly (Just Icons may be perfect) under Photo View

Thank you.

[stenp]

Please restore the navigation to above thumbnails and photo or make it to an option on the gallery.

[StueveShots]

I think the new gallery view is beautiful as well! I'm excited about using it...and excited to see what other themes become available. (A really good blog-style, please!!)

Two questions/comments at the moment (and forgive me if they've already been raised--this is a long discussion!):

1. Does the new beta style reflect any changes to the slideshow? I think it probably does not. I have always hated, hated, hated the way the pause button appears over the photo if I just accidentally touch my mouse....could the new slideshow reflect the elegance of the beta gallery view? I'd like navigation that easy to use, but a bit less "in-your-face".... (If this has nothing to do with the current beta testing, then feel free to ignore the comment!)

2. Will the facebook like icon be default? I really dislike that...it stands out more than anything and is a bit crass for those of us who are not seeking to build a customer base through extensive social networking. Maybe it could be an option? (Maybe that construct would also allow SM to add the possibility of more social networking options in the future? Facebook won't always be the only big dog on the block.)

I'd like to second two of the comments on this discussion thread that I did notice:

1. Please do not force us to use only facebook or smugmug authentication.

2. I love the idea of using the word "order" rather than "buy"...much more gracious.

[ThatCanonGuy]

2. Will the facebook like icon be default? I really dislike that...it stands out more than anything and is a bit crass for those of us who are not seeking to build a customer base through extensive social networking. Maybe it could be an option?


It's already an option. It's in the gallery settings. Select the change all galleries option so it hides the button for all galleries.

[StueveShots]

Great! Thanks!:D

[kygarden]

I'm a little late to the game. Just now seeing this. I love the new look and feel. I think it's very classy and professional looking. :-)

[NWMtnGuy]

2. I love the idea of using the word "order" rather than "buy"...much more gracious.

Yes! Maybe "gracious" was the word I was looking for when I mentioned this earlier in the thread. I would REALLY like to have an option to display "Order" instead of "Buy".

Both words clearly indicate that you can order/buy products, but they convey a very different tone.

[stenp]

Hi. How do I navigate to next image? Can't find any arrows or hint's under the image.

[Erick L]

I wish the new design would look something like this (http://www.borealphoto.com/photos/i-8ZF7QSP/0/L/Capture-L.jpg). It's all done with current customization except I removed the << and >> with photoshop. You can change the "< prev" and "next >" with nicer arrows but do keep arrows, the "1 of xx" as well as the page picker for thumbs. Maybe change "keyword" for an icon and change the order of buttons above the main image. I chose a small resolution for this exemple and there's room for extra buttons like "info" and "download" (what's wrong with the mouse-over bubble?).

Also keep the "x of xxx" and the exif option in the lightbox. I also agree that removing "date taken" doesn't make sense.

One thing that bugs me to no end is that we're forced into nicenames and can't use "domain.com/photos/XXXXXXX" as well as /gallery/XXXXXXX", even though these links still works under smugmug.com/photos and smugmug.com/gallery. I've explained many times why nicenames aren't always the better option but SM isn't listening.

[W.W. Webster]

How do I navigate to next image? Can't find any arrows or hint's under the image.Curiously, this is missing and it's been causing angst for many, including me! :huh

[stenp]

The < and > navigation on the first and last image in the thumbnail area steals 2 thumbnails on every page so in a 4x4 layout only 14 unique thumbnails are displayed. Very serious design error.

[stenp]

Depending on how many thumbnail pages there are, the navigation method and design changes from small almost unusable dots to a page number navigation. Very confusing and must be changed.

[W.W. Webster]

The < and > navigation on the first and last image in the thumbnail area steals 2 thumbnails on every page so in a 4x4 layout only 14 unique thumbnails are displayed. Very serious design error.I thought so too, until I worked with the new design a bit and noticed there is thumb under the arrow which, if selected, takes you straight to that image!

On this basis, the thumb has not been lost so I'm not so sure this is a 'serious design error'.

[stenp]

I thought so too, until I worked with the new design a bit and noticed there is thumb under the arrow which, if selected, takes you straight to that image!

On this basis, the thumb has not been lost so I'm not so sure this is a 'serious design error'.

I think it is a design error as the thumb under the arrow is the first thumb displayed on next page and therefore this thumbnail is repeted on this and next page. For page 2 and following both the first thumb and the last points to thumbs on another page. So the result is that 2 thumbnailholders is pointing to thumbnails on the page before and after. Of course there should be a maximum possible use of the space for thumbnails and image.

I also think it is a design error as you have to move your mousepointer over half the screen if you want to move back to a previous page.

Another design error is that the image navigation very well can be hidden in the bottom of the page if the image description has little more text than this design can handle.

Those problems are solved with todays design where the page and image navigation is on top of thumbnails and image. The best solution is to make i configurable in the gallery settings.

I think the design should be simple without any unneccessary fancy design element. It should also be easy to understand without any learning process for a random visitor. Very important for sites selling images even if I don't.

JFriend has done a great job for us and the resulting list in post #149 is impressive. Thank You JFriend, I agree to everything in that list.

[arik103]

Is it possible to bring a thumbnail view back into new gallery. Thnaks

[cabbey]

Is it possible to bring a thumbnail view back into new gallery. Thnaks

You're mixing up two different things here: the viewing style (think page layout) and the style's design (think theme). Currently this preview is limited to the SmugMug viewing style. It will eventually be expanded I'm sure to other viewing styles.

In the mean time you can get back to the all thumbs style by going into your gallery settings and forcing the gallery style to be "Thumbnails". Note of course that will impact all viewers, as Don said in post 1 on the thread, the days of viewer controlled gallery style are over: you as the owner pick the style the gallery is displayed in.

[stenp]

Available sizes are S, M, L, X1, X2, X3, O and Smart.

For a panorama I would like to have a new size setting and that is H = Fill screen height and set width depending on original proportions. Then a panorama can be experienced to its full value. The Smart option is valuable in its own because sometimes you really want to see the whole landscape image even if it does not fill upp the height.

If it is possible to tweak the single image view so the mousepointer shifts to a drag function instead of return to gallery for an image that is stretching outsize screen, then the navigation will be much better.

[Andy]

Available sizes are S, M, L, X1, X2, X3, O and Smart.

For a panorama I would like to have a new size setting and that is H = Fill screen height and set width depending on original proportions. Then a panorama can be experienced to its full value. The Smart option is valuable in its own because sometimes you really want to see the whole landscape image even if it does not fill upp the height.

If it is possible to tweak the single image view so the mousepointer shifts to a drag function instead of return to gallery for an image that is stretching outsize screen, then the navigation will be much better.

Thanks for posting such a great, detailed feature request! If you don't mind, we'd love it if you would put your feature requests here: http://feedback.smugmug.com

Thanks!

[Malte]

Available sizes are S, M, L, X1, X2, X3, O and Smart.

For a panorama I would like to have a new size setting and that is H = Fill screen height and set width depending on original proportions. Then a panorama can be experienced to its full value. The Smart option is valuable in its own because sometimes you really want to see the whole landscape image even if it does not fill upp the height.

If it is possible to tweak the single image view so the mousepointer shifts to a drag function instead of return to gallery for an image that is stretching outsize screen, then the navigation will be much better.

Very good idea, Sten! :clap Post it to Uservoice and I'll vote. :deal

Malte

[wooze]

7/8/11 - Among lots of small changes based on your feedback, we have:
* Gallery descriptions once again have unrestricted HTML
* New page navigation which solves the "can't find the arrows" and "the arrows are below the fold" problems
* Captions aren't truncated
* Captions are pinned to the photo
* Keywords are lean & mean
* Keywords are pinned to the caption
* Slideshow button in a more prominent place
* Performance improvements

7/21/11 - Among some other minor tweaks, we have:
* Inline editing of Captions & Keywords. Gallery Description coming soon!

Would it be possible to add 'Randomize' and 'Random Start' as features in a Slideshow Settings pop-up window when you click the 'Slideshow' button for individual galleries? Currently, one cannot define settings for individual gallery slideshows. These two settings already exist for the homepage gallery. It would be nice to also include them as options for individual gallery slideshow settings...

For example: When I create a virtual gallery and hit 'Slideshow' to view it, the slideshow always starts at the beginning of the virtual gallery and cycles through--same order every time. I want to be able to view a slideshow of a virtual gallery in random order and from a random start.

Thanks! :wink

[wooze]

Would it be possible to add 'Randomize' and 'Random Start' as features in a Slideshow Settings pop-up window when you click the 'Slideshow' button for individual galleries? Currently, one cannot define settings for individual gallery slideshows. These two settings already exist for the homepage gallery. It would be nice to also include them as options for individual gallery slideshow settings...

For example: When I create a virtual gallery and hit 'Slideshow' to view it, the slideshow always starts at the beginning of the virtual gallery and cycles through--same order every time. I want to be able to view a slideshow of a virtual gallery in random order and from a random start.

Thanks! :wink

I just posted my suggestion to -> http://feedback.smugmug.com (http://feedback.smugmug.com/) per Andy's recommendation.

[scubagirl]

Q. Can you include the ability to choose to add an animated logo header to homepage in formats other than GIF? You already have the ability to choose other formats in video gallery, but not on the header for the homepage.

[southeasternphotography]

Ok, I guess I am not so smart. I can go here:
http://www.smugmug.com/goodies/
and I can click on the JOIN button (and it changes to LEAVE like it should).
I then go to a gallery and change it from custom to Smugmug. Viewing shows no changes. Not suppose to 'cause I use a custom domain name.

The instructions say,
"If you use a custom URL, hit 'Join' on your custom domain, too. Like this: http://www.example.com/goodies".

First, what is that example suppose to do? Show what a custom domain name looks like? I thought it was going to be an example of how to JOIN if using a custom domain name - guess not!

This is where I get stupid. Just where do I do this??? I am already logged in to my custom domain and I see my custom domain name in the breadcrumb.

Please help a dummy.

One other question. I use "custom" for ALL my galleries. Does this mean that after the new stuff is installed, it will not affect anything set at "custom" - just for things set to "SmugMug"?

Troup Nightingale
Southeastern Photography
http://www.southeasternphotography.com

[jhofker]

It is an example. For your domain, you would need to visit http://www.southeasternphotography.com/goodies instead of http://www.example.com/goodies - make sense?

Also, you're not "installing" anything. Activating the design preview will only show up to YOU and not to any of your customers - they will still see your custom gallery stuff.

Ok, I guess I am not so smart. I can go here:
http://www.smugmug.com/goodies/
and I can click on the JOIN button (and it changes to LEAVE like it should).
I then go to a gallery and change it from custom to Smugmug. Viewing shows no changes. Not suppose to 'cause I use a custom domain name.

The instructions say,
"If you use a custom URL, hit 'Join' on your custom domain, too. Like this: http://www.example.com/goodies".

First, what is that example suppose to do? Show what a custom domain name looks like? I thought it was going to be an example of how to JOIN if using a custom domain name - guess not!

This is where I get stupid. Just where do I do this??? I am already logged in to my custom domain and I see my custom domain name in the breadcrumb.

Please help a dummy.

One other question. I use "custom" for ALL my galleries. Does this mean that after the new stuff is installed, it will not affect anything set at "custom" - just for things set to "SmugMug"?

Troup Nightingale
Southeastern Photography
http://www.southeasternphotography.com

[southeasternphotography]

It is an example. For your domain, you would need to visit http://www.southeasternphotography.com/goodies instead of http://www.example.com/goodies - make sense?

Also, you're not "installing" anything. Activating the design preview will only show up to YOU and not to any of your customers - they will still see your custom gallery stuff.

Thanks! I see it now. THought the gallery had to be set up for SmugMug and not Custom. Mine are set to Custom and the changes are still showing...no big deal and no need for reply!

Troup:thumb

[southeasternphotography]

Well, that's just great. I just spent a LONG time entering comments here - and I was not emotional or anything. I was to the point and mentioned some useful things and some real issues. I hit SEND and Dgrin burps that I am not logged in any longer due to time. It let me log in. Then I got a screen that said to hit the back button to reload the message (or to that effect). Then I was stuck in limbo. It kept going back to telling me to reload again and again.Nuts. I just wasted a lot of effort trying to help SmugMug out.

Perhaps the upgrade should be for Dgrin to realize that when someone is in the REPLY mode and is actively typing, that user IS logged in and the system should not log them out. That can't be too hard can it? I can understand if there is no typing activity or any mouse activity on the screen. But not when someone is actively typing. ALSO, since the system auto-logs you out, might it be nice to send a message to the user screen that this is GOING to happen and let the user click on something to stay logged in?

This really got my goat after putting so much effort into the Sneak Peak reply.

I'm going to have to think real hard about going back and doing it again without knowing how long I have until I am auto logged out. I could have broken the reply into multiple replies. ARGGGGGG.

Troup Nightingale
Southeastern Photography
http://www.southeasternphotography.com

[ThatCanonGuy]

Well, that's just great. I just spent a LONG time entering comments here - and I was not emotional or anything. I was to the point and mentioned some useful things and some real issues. I hit SEND and Dgrin burps that I am not logged in any longer due to time. It let me log in. Then I got a screen that said to hit the back button to reload the message (or to that effect). Then I was stuck in limbo. It kept going back to telling me to reload again and again.Nuts. I just wasted a lot of effort trying to help SmugMug out.

Perhaps the upgrade should be for Dgrin to realize that when someone is in the REPLY mode and is actively typing, that user IS logged in and the system should not log them out. That can't be too hard can it? I can understand if there is no typing activity or any mouse activity on the screen. But not when someone is actively typing. ALSO, since the system auto-logs you out, might it be nice to send a message to the user screen that this is GOING to happen and let the user click on something to stay logged in?

This really got my goat after putting so much effort into the Sneak Peak reply.

I'm going to have to think real hard about going back and doing it again without knowing how long I have until I am auto logged out. I could have broken the reply into multiple replies. ARGGGGGG.

Troup Nightingale
Southeastern Photography
http://www.southeasternphotography.com

When you login, be sure to check the "Remember Me?" box. Also, if you can hit back and see your post again, you can copy the post, login, and paste it in. You'll have to reenter the title, though.

[southeasternphotography]

When you login, be sure to check the "Remember Me?" box. Also, if you can hit back and see your post again, you can copy the post, login, and paste it in. You'll have to reenter the title, though.

So, the Remember Me box will keep you logged in beyond the timer Dgrin is using? If so, maybe that should be noted at the Remember Me check box.

I could NOT hit back to see the post again...or I would not be writing all this! It let me re-login and then got me stuck in a loop. Everytime I hit back, it would tell me to hit back.

If Dgrin is going to automatically log you out and leave you merrily typing away, I consider that rude programing (not you - the code!). Before autologout, a bubble should open up asking if we want to log out or continue staying logged in - if you don't respond in a defined time, then, boom you are gone. I have seen other sites accomplish this. Ok, enough of the off-topic stuff.

[pgman]

Hi,

1. I just tried the new look, nice! but I noticed a button at the bottom right of the screen: the download button. I can download the original file even when I'm not logged in and the gallery only allows for XL2.

2. Is it possible to show thumbnails that are larger than 100px?

Chrome: 13.0.782.215, Ubuntu 10.04LTS, http://photos.foto-biz.com

[Allen]

Hi,
...
2. Is it possible to show thumbnails that are larger than 100px?

I hope not. I want the main image as large as possible and the thumbs as many as possible. If the
thumbs were larger visitors would browse the thumbs and not look at the large size. The thumbs are
there to give them only a "hint" of what the large photos looks like.

[Andy]

2. Is it possible to show thumbnails that are larger than 100px?

Chrome: 13.0.782.215, Ubuntu 10.04LTS, http://photos.foto-biz.com

When your screen res/browser window size will allow it, we'll show 150px thumbs.

[southeasternphotography]

1. Thought this new view only worked on pages set to SmugMug view. All mine are set to custom and I still see the new view. No big deal to me.

2. I like that the gallery name is now dropped off the breadcrumb and lowered a line or two and is bigger. Going to go make that change in my customized website right away! Love it!

3. Problem w/breadcrumbs. I have a home page with galleries on another page (custom). I click on a Galleries button and go to the galleries page. I click on a gallery name with sub-catagories and go there. I then choose a Photo Gallery and go there. The breadcrumb does not list the original Gallery page. It has my home page which makes me have to go to extra pages to get to the main Galleries page. Not good.

4. I don't care for the arrows in the thumbnail change. You have space under the thumbnails where the page dots and/or page numbers are to implement a forward/back set of smaller arrows.

5. Related to #4. I also do not like the dots representing the pages. I see if you have enough pages, the dots turn into the actual page number with the ability to go to a specific page. I like this better and hope to see it consistently regardless to the number of pages. Consistency please.

6. I see where when you click on an image to see a larger/smaller view, the word "AUTO" is now "SIZE". I actually saw that change last night [read further to see I was confused]. Super, makes better sense! For consistency sake again there should be a drop box that opens if you just hover over it to tell you what it does - just like the SHARE button next to it. I suppose the SHARE button has the dropdown text 'cause folks would not know what that symbol is!

7. WAIT! Related to #6. I now see that sometimes the AUTO/SIZE button says one and then later the other. Seems to be if you switch the size you are viewing the button reverts back to AUTO. Can't we just stick with SIZE? Confusing to general users and obviously myself.

8. Related to #7. Hmmmm. Now when I select a size, the box shows the selected size - that's good. Aha! When I select normal viewing and then reselect the image to change the size, there is that AUTO again. Wish it just said SIZE. The viewer will change to what they want.

9. Last night there was a smaller text under the image stating "Photo by 'Whomever'". I don't see that today. There were two problems. It used my SmugMug nickname(?) with two words and a hyphen between them. I would rather it use my real name without a hyphen either. Which brings up issue that sometimes we post someone else's images and this would be a problem.

10. Guess some people like the big GREEN Buy Prints & Gifts. But what if the GREEN clashes with different selected or custom backgrounds? I like the Gold Cart, but this could clash also. I notice if I click an image for a different size view, the Buy Bar changes to white text, grey cart, and darker background matching the header color. I like this better. If someone is going to buy an image, they will look for the BUY option. Now that it is bigger, they will find it easily - but does it have to be that GREEN image?

11. Captions under images - by default are left justified. Works fine for horizontal images, but places the text outside of the underneath of vertical images. I custom changed mine to center the text.

12. I love that when you mouse over a thumbnail, the square box becomes a rounded edges box! Like to customize mine to do that right now!

13. I implore you to use JFriends non-Flash, works for everything, Slideshow code for ALL slideshows on SmugMug. PLEASE!!! This just makes so much sense getting rid of the Flash.

14. When the REAL change is made, will these neat changes be in effect for all custom pages? And will our custom changes over-ride your "new" changes except where a functionality has changed or is dropped altogether?

END: I wrote these down on paper as I went through the BETA pages. So, where I have confusion written above, the general non-SmugMug person might also. I hope this is the kind of critique you are requesting. I applaud the effort to bring SmugMug pages to their best!

Troup Nightingale
Southeastern Photography
http://www.southeasternphotography.com

[pgman]

I hope not. I want the main image as large as possible and the thumbs as many as possible. If the thumbs were larger visitors would browse the thumbs and not look at the large size. The thumbs are there to give them only a "hint" of what the large photos looks like.

That's why there are options. I want them the bigger, much bigger at least the size of the http://500px.com

[pgman]

When your screen res/browser window size will allow it, we'll show 150px thumbs.

My screen is a 22" monitor at 1680px by 1050px resolution. How big will the screen have to be for the thumbnails to be 150px or larger?

Some of my customers still use 17" screens at the office and many have 13" laptops. Will I have to supply them with a magnifying glass to see the 25px or 50px thumbnails?

Please, also take in consideration the old "gizzards," like me, who have to use a pair of progressive/computer glasses.

[Allen]

That's why there are options. I want them the bigger, much bigger at least the size of the http://500px.com
I see no relation of any thumbs on that site to the "new" smugmug style. I did see something similar to
Smugs allthumbs style though. This thread is only supposed to discuss the Smugmug style. I imagine
other styles will be discussed in the future.

As I said before a lot visitors will only look at the thumbs if they're too big. They completely miss the
beauty of the larger photo. My thoughts are to give them a "hint" to something and they have to look
at the larger photo to see its beauty.

[WinsomeWorks]

I see no relation of any thumbs on that site to the "new" smugmug style. I did see something similar to
Smugs allthumbs style though. This thread is only supposed to discuss the Smugmug style. I imagine
other styles will be discussed in the future.

As I said before a lot visitors will only look at the thumbs if they're too big. They completely miss the
beauty of the larger photo. My thoughts are to give them a "hint" to something and they have to look
at the larger photo to see its beauty. Basically, we just need the choice, and we're all proving that with our various opinions. For myself, the above is just not true. With 100px thumbs, I can't even get a hint if it's worth looking at. It's too daunting to peer at such tiny images. Besides, it depends a lot upon the gallery. For a portrait or event photog, people just want to be able to tell one person from another or one expression from another, enough to choose the best ones and click on 'em & buy 'em. That's next to impossible with 100px thumbs, cuz they all look alike. I can see we're never going to agree on this, so I pray that we'll simply have a choice. The assertion I saw earlier (from Andy, I guess) that larger displays will cause larger thumbs to display has not held up so far. If it does in the future, that helps. But I have a large screen and have mostly seen the tiny thumbs, and when I see that I feel like.... why do I even bother having a large screen? I want a large screen because I want large photos, and large thumbs!

[Andy]

The assertion I saw earlier (from Andy, I guess) that larger displays will cause larger thumbs to display has not held up so far.

I see large thumbs on your site (https://img.skitch.com/20110831-x7dy4mmxfxqnindrh3j9w3h2sq.jpg). I think I'm 1600 wide here.

[stenp]

Thanks for posting such a great, detailed feature request! If you don't mind, we'd love it if you would put your feature requests here: http://feedback.smugmug.com

Thanks!

Done !

[stenp]

Very good idea, Sten! :clap Post it to Uservoice and I'll vote. :deal

Malte

It's open for votes now :)
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/2221454-size-option-for-panoramas?ref=title

Sten

[Malte]

It's open for votes now :)
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/2221454-size-option-for-panoramas?ref=title

Sten

Gave it 3! You might want to search uservoice for similar suggestions, if they're similar enough the admin will merge them.

Malte

[colinpurrington]

I like many of the new features, but I have a strong preference for white gallery backgrounds. I know that's so uncool for viewing photographs, but that's just how I roll, and younger people (which I am not) seem to, too. The dark background feels too much like a D&D forum from 20 years ago, though I actually haven't seen a D&D forum from 20 years ago. So I'm hoping the CSS modification will eventually allow the architecture and button changes while also allowing color scheme control. Or perhaps it's already possible and I just don't know how to enable it.

[Brendan]

I like many of the new features, but I have a strong preference for white gallery backgrounds.

I too would like a white option to use as a starting point for customizing my site. My site is currently white and will likely remain that way, and starting from a white template will be easier than changing everything from a dark template. Or even if I decide to make my site dark, it's nice to have the option.

I'm looking forward to when this is ready to go live. Still some things to work out, but I like the way it's going. :thumb

[Dan7312]

This gallery http://www.danalphotos.com/Flowers/Old-man-and-Bonsai/17633174_m8DbNC#h=1420279150_hrpcNHX-P-1 has one more image in it, but there doesn't seem to be a way to navigate to it. This is the image http://www.danalphotos.com/Flowers/Old-man-and-Bonsai/17633174_m8DbNC#h=1456918662_GpjmZpg

[Malte]

This gallery http://www.danalphotos.com/Flowers/Old-man-and-Bonsai/17633174_m8DbNC#h=1420279150_hrpcNHX-P-1 has one more image in it, but there doesn't seem to be a way to navigate to it. This is the image http://www.danalphotos.com/Flowers/Old-man-and-Bonsai/17633174_m8DbNC#h=1456918662_GpjmZpg


This happens to me too, but only at certain resolutions/windowsizes.

Malte

[Dan7312]

Just tried changing the size. IE9 full screen, 1600x1200, causes the problem. If I reduce the window size to something small it works as expected.

This happens to me too, but only at certain resolutions/windowsizes.

Malte

[aola]

Apologizes if this is the wrong area for this.

Does the new design allow more than 3 levels of hierarchy, beyond the Category - Sub-category - gallery?

Regards

[Andy]

Apologizes if this is the wrong area for this.

Does the new design allow more than 3 levels of hierarchy, beyond the Category - Sub-category - gallery?

Regards
Not yet but we do hope to add something to this structure in the future!

[aola]

Thanks Andy, good to know

[Mohamed.Ghuloom]

Was just wondering, when this is gonna be ready?

[HaraldE]

Morning,

Just had a first look on the new design and it looks much promising, the speed has improved a lot, amazingly fast.
Now this thread is too long to read so I take the liberty to add my own main wish list.


More levels than the current 3, very important
A way to display "Date Time Original" as part of the caption. I am looking for a sort of placeholder like "DD MMM YYYY" to say where in the Caption it should shown and also which format should be used. This seems to be also called "By Date Taken". Also I ask for kind of a template so I don't have to add this to every photo. It must be part of the upload
I find the Gallery attribute "Hide Owner" extremely valuable and want to see this on any level. That is, if I today could use it on a Category level then the viewer should be able to go down to any sub-category and album but not up to to see other Categories. This way I could fence parts of the albums and create separate "corners". Maybe one for some friends and another for my family and so on
I want to be able to decide myself if photos in a Smart Gallery should have a link back to the original gallery or not. My idea is to have a larger gallery which holds many photos and then hand them out to smart galleries. But I do not want the viewer to be able to get back to the larger gallery.
Today we have Gallery Settings. The same should apply to any level. For example, I want to have a Description also for Categories and sub-Categories. For example, this would be the place to decide how many on a row, not two as is hard coded today
I have many galleries with the same name in different sub-categories, for example "Outside". Today it is sometimes impossible in some areas of SmugMug to specify which album I want since there seems to be the assumption that every Gallery has a unique name. Finding and selecting Galleries must be made much simpler and also have a common touch throughout the system.
What Camera Info that is displayed in the small box should be decided by me
I am in favour of people being able to leave comments. I also understand this can be a problem. But somehow there must be a way for me to authorise people so they can leave comments even if they are not SmugMug or Facebook or similar users. Believe me, there are a lot of other people around
I can move around the thumbnails to the left by point-and-click. I can also move with the left and right arrow keys. But the up down does not work. I would like them also to be available. There are time when I miss this a lot
Editing the Gallery Title and Description is now on another window. This was much easier when done in place, as is today.

The above is not a criticism, just a wish list. I could easily do a much longer list of things I am very happy about. To me SmugMug is one of the key tools to manage my Photo Archive.

Regards, Harald

[uridiscence]

Love the updates!:barb

Do you have to create your own theme now if you have the default selected? That dark gray doesn't really go with my site design and I usually leave it at the "default" theme.

Can we customize the "buy" button to match our site design?

I'd love a third party buy option...better yet, I'd love to be able to add my own products to the menu when they checkout. I think it would be so much easier if I could post my own products to the checkout list and they can pay all at once. Prints will ship directly from the lab and I'll ship my products separate.

[W.W. Webster]

Use of <center> and </center> centres caption correctly in gallery, but not in slideshow - though I appreciate this may not be implemented yet.

See this gallery (http://rosscollins.smugmug.com/Sport/Rugby/Springboks-Training-Sept-2011/19001904_tfnD29/1476305854_7PMDhHJ).

[tomnovy]

Andy. Do you know when (roughly) the new design will be ready?

[Andy]

Andy. Do you know when (roughly) the new design will be ready?

Still in development. We will update post #2 when we h ave more news.
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1621380&postcount=2

[Allen]

Still in development. We will update post #2 when we h ave more news.
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1621380&postcount=2
When post 2 is updated please put the latest changes in a different color so they can be recognized.

[Linh]

anyone else feel the layout is a bit disjointed? the thumbnail layout next to the image preview with comments and stuff underneath... feels like it's just thrown out there without any real organization. Granted, this might be helped with customization, but I think the default look should look a bit cleaner. tbh, i think it's the top/bottom borders for the thumbs that really throws it all off (though, I have no idea what a solution would be)

[W.W. Webster]

anyone else feel the layout is a bit disjointed?No, not really.

But I don't understand why the caption box does not extend wider, both for images in the gallery and especially in the slideshow - it's pretty puny and would be the first customisation I would make. :nod

[InMediasRes]

This is "pre-alpha"?

It's like when mom would say
-"don't eat the delicious chocolate cake that just came out of the oven, it's too hot and not ready".

-"but mom, it looks so good!!!!"



Kudos to the gurus, really, it's looking great.

[Art Scott]

I clicked join to see the new gallery and then clicked leave to leave it but my galleries are still in this very much dislike mode.....the gey text is too dark to be easily read, I do not like the lay out at all...my stuff is all askew.......I hope this is not going to be FORCED upon those of us already using the SmugMug gallery style...name this something different.

http://www.artscottfotografie.com/photos/i-hdkHBV2/0/X2/Landscapes-Gallery-screen-g-X2.jpg

I also do not like the arrow on my other galleries to go to next gallery page...there still needs to be a drop down so you can go to the last page or any page in between with out clicking thru all the pages.......I cannot find anything I do like about this. sorry.


It was a miracle...got my site back to the way I like and want it..........do not know what I did but it is okay now.

[seanhoytphoto]

I have just enabled the new beta view.

Things I really, really dig:
1. The forward/back thumbs. A+, that's a big deal.

2. Fonts are great. Might customize, but default looks very pro.

3. BUY button is large and very visible. I'm OK with sacrificing design for function in this dept.

4. It all just looks much tighter.

5. LOVE that the mouse pointer changes to (+) when you hover over the preview image.

6. Like the outline around thumb currently being previewed

7. Like how the mouse movement over the thumbs highlights the thumbs (fade)


Things I don't see but would like to see:
1. I think I like the 'jump to page #" controls above the thumbs rather than below.

2. In addition to the BUY button obscurity issue (looks like it's much better now), I've always thought SmugMug could use some interface work when it comes to actually selecting images to buy. Why do my visitors have to see a popup when something like "[size] +1 -1 quant:[ ]" controls/labels could be placed directly over the preview image? This is somewhat how people are used to purchasing images at a kiosk. A flyout (like the previous resize javascript div) could have several popular sizes to +1 to quickly add to the cart.

3. Slideshow is still Flash :( (Yeah, I know #2 above and this #3 are not really about the SmugMug design)

4. When a user clicks on the preview image (+), I would really, really like next/prev arrows either directly on the image or to the left and right of the image, NOT AT THE TOP. I would actually prefer to see it as I have it on my portfolio site where hovering to the left side of the image gives you a < and to the right gives you > (both are links to the prev/next images)
http://www.affinityseattle.com/#/Portfolio/Kaitlin%20&%20Derek/1

[Brendan]

6. Like the outline around thumb currently being previewed

I agree, but would like to see the outline transition cleaned up if possible. Right now it starts square and goes to a rounded corner, and you can actually see this transition if you watch your mouse.

4. When a user clicks on the preview image (+), I would really, really like next/prev arrows either directly on the image or to the left and right of the image, NOT AT THE TOP. I would actually prefer to see it as I have it on my portfolio site where hovering to the left side of the image gives you a < and to the right gives you > (both are links to the prev/next images)

Agree with this as well. :thumb

[digilizard]

First, I didn't have a chance to read all 30ish pages, so pardon my potential ignorance. Lots of info may have changed since the original explanation, so please just let me know if I'm touching on anything that's been covered already.

Overall, it just seems larger to me than I'd like, but I'm sure that's something that can be modified with customization later. In particular, the buy button is very large, and very obtrusive. I can certainly see the appeal for drawing people to purchase your photos, but I do think it could be more cohesively done - a large button that's grayscale fits into the page overall, but is still noticeable enough to recognize. Similarly, there's a lot of space taken up with the breadcrumb, title, slideshow field, caption/keywords box, share bar, comments box... but again, I'm anticipating most of this will be modifiable via CSS, so I'm looking forward to tweaking. Couple of curiosity points:

Will we be able to collapse the comment field as we had before? And does the download link in the below-photo bar only show because I'm logged in as the owner?

In essence, my previous design was geared towards not ever making people need to scroll; the captions and keywords boxes are minimal and clean, the comments option is a button on the left, etc. This prevents the scroll bar from ever showing up unless you wanted to actively post a comment. The pictures are big and beautiful, and there's virtually nothing else to distract on the page. By making the comments field expanded by default and the keywords/caption so large, there's always a scroll bar and always extra noise under the photo. If this cleanliness can be replicated in CSS after the fact, I have no qualms. :)

I would agree that the arrows forward and back when in lightbox mode should move to the sides in line with the photo - it's a bit unintuitive to have to look to the top to find a pair of arrows in the middle of the screen. I suppose it does remove the need to dynamically redraw or reposition them based on image size, though, I suppose.

One last thing: I noticed you mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I would be interested in more numerous login options. Many of my colleagues and friends are not on or leaving Facebook, so other services (Google, Twitter, heck, OpenAuth :rofl) would be much appreciated.

Looking forward to seeing what's coming up and checking out the customization thread. That one I *will* be reading front to back. :)

[kaz]

I love the new look and feel. It improves upon the old design in every possible way. For me, the simplified and uncluttered look and feel is a welcome change as is the more prominent 'buy' button. I think you have done a fantastic job. Well done! As with others, I can't wait to roll this out!

Now, the tough question, when can we expect a revision of the shopping cart, which is, by today's standards, very outdated and needlessly complex and way too cumbersome for most users?

[Erick L]

anyone else feel the layout is a bit disjointed?

Yes, and I don't find it less cluttered than the old version. Remove the separator lines from the old version and it's very clean. The new version has stuff all over the page, more graphic elements and is less functionnal.

[BradfordBenn]

I have been trying this for a while and am getting used to it, however I would be interested in seeing more awareness of mobile devices. It does not work that well having the "Dots" to show multiple pages on the iPad

[Allen]

Exiting lightbox after playing a vireo is almost impossible. Nothing works other then clicking
the circled x in the upper right corner. It is hidden to viewers and totally not obvious. Make
it bright red or something that sticks out. Also why not use the word "exit" or best of
all "return to gallery"?

[Allen]

Printing is turned on for all the galleries here (http://www.photosbyat.com/Birds/Birding-2011-September) but only two of the seven has the very
very very very obnoxious print button showing. Viewing with IE9.

Give us the full width of the gallery description box by moving that obnoxious print button
up into the breadcrumb or gallery title line. Gallery title line probably better because the first
thing I'll do is turn off the breadcrumb.

[Allen]

Align the main photo to the top, looks terrible with it spaced down some. Or put the photo nav back up there.

Put back in the "next" and "prev" for the page nav. Why two clicks to advance the page? Not only after clicking
the circle you have to move mouse up to click next page. This also takes some thought to look to see what is
the next page number. These, although insignificant, little things drive us crazy.

[Allen]

Just happened to think that the page looks terrible with all the pieces of gradient all over
the place. Looks like a bunch of div's placed randomly below the thumbs and main photo.

My suggestion is stick with the engine improvements and leave the look up to us. At least
give us a default black or white theme with none of this on it so we can easiely customize
the page.

"Add a comment to rate photo..."
So to add a comment you have to rate the photo? Sounds like a rating system and not comments.
What if they don't want to rate the photo/gallery but still add a comment? And then you force them
to log in to something? Most of my visitors would have nothing to log in to. If people can't take the
heat then they can turn comments off or require approval. Why penalize all of us?

[SherwinJames]

I have done quite a bit of customization on my site that make heavy use of Album Description.
Some examples:
http://photos.ofmemories.com/Portfolio/Showcase
http://photos.ofmemories.com/Site/Portfolio
http://photos.ofmemories.com/Site/AboutUs

I am assuming/hoping that the new design will continue to support that. It would be great if heavy customization does not restrict the use of specific features of the new design (a-la-carte model).

[Allen]

I have done quite a bit of customization on my site that make heavy use of Album Description.
Some examples:
http://photos.ofmemories.com/Portfolio/Showcase
http://photos.ofmemories.com/Site/Portfolio
http://photos.ofmemories.com/Site/AboutUs

I am assuming/hoping that the new design will continue to support that. It would be great if heavy customization does not restrict the use of specific features of the new design (a-la-carte model).
See this thread
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=199003

[mgraen]

There are many things I like but I won't go into them too much.

My feedback below is based on my usage profile of SmugMug. I am an enthusiast, not a pro. I will not be seeking profit on photos except, perhaps, to cover the cost of a lens rental. If I did, it would become a job and be less fun. What drew me to SmugMug was the quality of the user interface, viewing modes, and bulk digital distribution (downloads) potential. In evaluating the new design I was viewing things in that light.

Areas for improvement:

1. Browsing controls are too modal to the point of verging on unacceptable. In the default view there are no next / previous picture controls. You do get them when you zoom on the picture, however. To go to the next picture in the default view you have to hunt and peck amongst the thumbnails. The user is taking their eyes away from my picture to do this. It did not appear to be a problem in the screen shot in the original forum post.

2. The little page selector circles are a nice improvement. Take them a step further and pop up a preview of the thumbnails on the page (perhaps half-sized, or something) as you hover over each one. Right now it just says "Page 2" in a text box. Who cares?

3. The next / previous thumbnail page controls are just a little bit non-intuitive. Simply inserting "Next" and "Previous" text in addition to the arrows would go a long ways. However, I really think it would be better to simply have buttons to the left and right of the little page selector circles. The reason I say it's non-intuitive is I saw the embedded thumbnail page buttons at first, then promptly forgot about them and started writing up a rant about how there were no next/previous page buttons.

4. Why are you taking away the our ability to let the user choose the viewing style? The default view (thumbnails + single-enlarged), journal view, and slideshow each have their advantages depending on what you're doing. Thumbnail-only view is pretty much obsolete. Most of the time, I want the user to be able to choose the view that they find most convenient. The odds of me arrogantly knowing the correct view in advance and forcing it on them are slim.

5. Journal view is a competitive advantage for Smugmug over, e.g., Flickr, where it has to be done through third-party interfaces. It's one of the main things that drew me here. I encourage you to put effort into making Journal view as good as it can be. It is the best way to view large sized photos at a pace you choose in the least-"mouse clicky" manner. This is particularly true on a mobile device. Slideshow is NOT a replacement, it's complementary.

6. An alternative to an explicit Journal view might be to have a "number of photos" control when you zoom in on a picture from the main view. I don't know.

7. The photo vs gallery comment selection buttons could be more intuitive. I don't have a good idea of what the solution is, though. Not a big deal.

8. Please put graphics AND text in the Download and Info buttons. Graphics-only buttons are an 80s fad.

9. The tag and caption box is a bit messy. Have some separation between the two. Put the Edit control for them on the same size of the box.

10. I really want (the option for) a Download All button. If bandwidth costs are an issue make them reduced size unless extra is paid somehow. Again, a potential for a distinct competitive advantage over Flickr-et-al for photo-sharing users like me.

[Brendan]

Chiming in a bit in response to mgraen's thoughts:

5. Journal view is a competitive advantage for Smugmug over, e.g., Flickr, where it has to be done through third-party interfaces. It's one of the main things that drew me here. I encourage you to put effort into making Journal view as good as it can be. It is the best way to view large sized photos at a pace you choose in the least-"mouse clicky" manner. This is particularly true on a mobile device. Slideshow is NOT a replacement, it's complementary.

Agreed. A good 'journal' style gallery is quite nice to view -- e.g. Boston's Big Picture blog.

8. Please put graphics AND text in the Download and Info buttons. Graphics-only buttons are an 80s fad.

Speaking as someone who prefers less text so long as the meaning is clear without it... Better yet, please simply make this a site-wide or gallery option. Many programs (like Firefox, Mac's Preview, etc.) let you decide whether to have icons, text, or icons+text. Allowing this level of customization for us would be great.

Hoping SmugMug is still listening to all these suggestions. It's obviously a lot, but I'm still looking forward to seeing what comes out of the new design.

[Allen]

Printing is turned on for all the galleries here (http://www.photosbyat.com/Birds/Birding-2011-September) but only two of the seven has the very
very very very obnoxious print button showing. Viewing with IE9.

This I would classify as a BUG.
Seems that all galleries that have videos do not show the print button.

Edit: videos always fall first in the gallery so no print button shows.
If you select a photo/s still no print button.
Refresh page with photo selected and print button now shows.
Remains showing when click video thumb.
Not quite right having to refresh page while on photo to get print button.

[dereksurfs]

Ok,

SM designers, if you are listening please consider a few more examples of elegant design layouts from livebooks with minimal clutter which I would love to see as a smugmug layout option:

http://prints.artwolfe.com/#s=4&mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&p=6&a=1&at=0

http://www.benhattenbach.com/

http://www.jimmychin.com/

Notice the focus on the primary images themselves. Thumbs can even hide below or to the right of the main image as in the case of Art Wolfe's site. This is especially relevant for the SMers who simply want an elegant way to showcase their images rather than competing for space and attention with all the extra clutter = buttons, commenting, sharing, etc... features. Thumbs become minimal yet still available compared to the primary image itself.

[mgraen]

Another idea I had is to have the thumbnails in a sub-panel that scrolls rather than having to click through pages.

Or, you could be sneaky and use the browser window scrollbar. Then have the large picture and top controls follow along.

[rwright]

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but there are two things I noticed right away:

1) The thumbnail paging is going to be confusing for some. If the only way you can page through thumbnails is to notice the arrow on the last thumb or click on the tiny dots under the list of thumbnails there will be many who think all the images are being displayed. Maybe you should put arrows on each side of the set of page dots.

2) The gallery title takes up a bunch of vertical room that I'd like for the image. How about an option to display it in the breadcrumb?

Overall I think the design is an improvement but not a radical shift in direction. Not sure if that's good or bad :)

I like some of what Google has done with Google+ Galleries. The thumbnail display with different size thumbnails is nice so you can feature one image and still show all the thumbnails without using a lot of space.

[Brendan]

Bug Report (apologies if this has already been mentioned):

It seems that when a gallery contains (as an example) 16 images, where 15 images fit all on one page of thumbnails, the 16th image is not accessible. The arrow-navigation thumbnail does not appear, and the only way to access the 16th image is to resize the browser window to display only 8 thumbnails on one page, and then the ability to jump to page 2 appears.

Hope this makes sense!

[seanhoytphoto]

I can see how the dots or page numbers is important; it relays to the viewer their position within the set of gallery images. I'd like to propose a few things that will improve this UI element.

1. JUMP-PREVIEW: When a user mouses over a dot, use js to pop up an instant image preview to show the first image of the grid you'd see by going there. This way, the user can glide over the dots to find the area they want to focus on. (see attached mockup)

2. SUBSECTION: Sure, everyone wants more gallery levels to organize their work, but at some point, it makes sense to have like-images in one gallery and have a way to cut it into subsections. Next to the dots would be a perfect place to add subsections within the current gallery. Add an arrow above the dots that would pop up a panel to reveal predetermined jump labels within the current gallery (a specific image denoting the beginning of a new section, perhaps). For a wedding photographer, this would be things like "ceremony" or "reception". For vacations, it could be "Tetons" or "Yellowstone"-- this way, they can put all of their vacation pics in one gallery: Vacation 2011, instead of needing several distinct galleries and tying them together with something like a Sharegroup. The user would add these subsections using a new tool and available in the admin dropdown menu, like where the "drag to arrange" tool resides. (see attached mockup)

[mgraen]

Another idea I had is to have the thumbnails in a sub-panel that scrolls rather than having to click through pages.

Or, you could be sneaky and use the browser window scrollbar. Then have the large picture and top controls follow along.

There are a certain percentage of people that do not notice or understand the fact that there are pages. You can tell by looking at the View Stats for a gallery: the number of pages in a day will be exactly the number of thumbnails shown on one page.

This is not their fault.

[rwright]

Agreed and I think the current UI layout with the dots and the not so obvious navigation on the first/last thumbnails will only move that percentage of confused folks up. There is space for arrows or something on either side of the dots so perhaps that would work and could be made to look good. I like that the interface is getting away from numbering pages though.

It seems the UI design is taking part of the standard Apple IOS paging look and feel but is missing one critical piece- you can't swipe right and left to go between pages. The dots are there in IOS to give you a feel for where you are in a document.

There are a certain percentage of people that do not notice or understand the fact that there are pages. You can tell by looking at the View Stats for a gallery: the number of pages in a day will be exactly the number of thumbnails shown on one page.

This is not their fault.

[Malte]

Another idea I had is to have the thumbnails in a sub-panel that scrolls rather than having to click through pages.

I like this alot, especially after having used Facebook's ticker. Hover to highlight and just scroll away. :bow Makes both page forward/backward and pagination dots look ancient. :cry

Malte

[Allen]

If the caption has more then two lines there is no indication what photo you're on without scrolling. This is extremely important when talking over the phone and coordinating view with another person/client. To me top navigation of both photo and page is mandatory. Also if we're both browsing in lightbox there is no photo number showing and that makes it impossible to coordinate viewing.

Just noticed in IE9 there is no hover text for thumbs. Was the alt and title tags removed for thumbs? Without the hover text the ability of seeing the caption is lost and you have to click each thumb.

[seanhoytphoto]

In the current (public) SmugMug design, when you mouse over the larger image on the right, a panel flies out listing the available zoom sizes, photorank, collect... I like how that has been replaced with a more simple (+) mouse curser but I have an idea for the panel.

First, confine the fly-out trigger to the right 1/4 of the image. The panel would open to reveal a list of several common print/product options for the customer to quickly increment/decrement. The items listed in here would be preselected by the photographer. Any photos currently in the cart tied to any product would be denoted on the thumbnail with a little cart symbol so the customer could get a view of their order as they order.

The benefit to the customer is that, for most of the selection process, they don't have to go to the BUY overlay and back to the grid each time they want to add a 4x6 to the cart. But, the panel would include a link there for "more options" that would take them to the standard BUY overlay for options not included in the panel. I think this would simplify most of what my customers do on my site.

[dereksurfs]

Another idea I had is to have the thumbnails in a sub-panel that scrolls rather than having to click through pages.

Or, you could be sneaky and use the browser window scrollbar. Then have the large picture and top controls follow along.

Yes, a dynamically scrolling sub-panel or side-panel of thumbs would be ideal. That was what I was demonstating with Art Wolfe's site. And its ability to auto hide is very nice as well. :thumb

http://prints.artwolfe.com/#s=4&mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&p=6&a=1&at=0

Rich dynamic content like this is much more user friendly and cutting edge than static pages which have to be completely reloaded each time to get to the next page (page 2->n). This is why many people stop on Page One of a gallery. By contrast with scrolling thumbs there is never a next page in any gallery.

A huge side benefit of this is that you eliminate the whole need for those silly navigational dots or page 1 of x options. Why keep page navigation static anyway? There is really no benefit to this old design pattern. Even in this current pre-alpha layout the thumbs section could easily scroll instead. Then the desire to overload the first page with a cr@p load of thumbs is gone and the primary image can take center stage.

If you would like having this gallery style as an option I have also added it as a feature request which you can vote on and comment on here:

http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/2274622-galley-style-with-dynamic-thumbnail-strip-which-au

[AchBee]

Onethumb, Andy - anybody with input into how the Rating functions work or will work,

First let me thank you and your staff for a great experience with, and a great product in SmugMug Pro.

I contribute to your DailyPhotos Community and have met many fellow SmugMuggers who enjoy sharing their view of the world within this friendly, family oriented and talented group of people. This group enjoys contribution from the full range of photographic talent - professional, simi-pro all the way to the other end of the hobby spectrum. I have been aboard with this group for about a year, and consider myself somewhere in the middle of this grouping of talent.

I am one of a growing number of DailyPhotos Community contributors who have become quite dis-enchanted by how your current Photo Popularity system functions. Based on what I am reading, you've heard from many of us who share this concern. You've noted that Thumbs UP/Down is gone in the revamped version. PLEASE tell us the lack of requirement for a negative rating entry is going away also. Currently lurkers (we call them 'snakes') whose only design is to push their work higher in these daily community galleries by thumbing down in complete secrecy are really becoming a threat to my continued use of the community. They must be stopped. They're smart enough to clear their browser cookies and cache and come back for second, third and even more Thumbs down hits... We know, I have personally experienced four, five or more commented on entries completely disappear later.. totally off the daily site. It's disheartening for DailyPhoto Community members who simply want to share with other like photographers to be pushed off the site so they can't share..

So let those who would abuse or be critical do it in open forum with an identity. We can not contribute an image to the community anonymously, so a critique or negative entry in the current form of a thumbs down should not be anonymous either.

I welcome your return comments and hope your enhancements remedy this for all of us.

With warm regards,

AchBee - Howard Brown

LousiAnnImage
The Photography of Howard Louis Brown

[rainforest1155]

Hi Howard and welcome to Dgrin! :wave

Thanks for your feedback!

Did you take a close look at onethumb's initial post? To quote two bullet points:
- PhotoRank. Our PhotoRank algorithm has continued to evolve over time, and this is yet another one of those evolutions. The thumbs up / thumbs down metaphor is gone, and we instead rely on other signals (many of which we've always used already, some of which are new) to determine how popular a photo is. As usual, we won't disclose specifics and it's always a moving target, but this is a big change.
- Anonymous comments. They're gone. You must have a SmugMug or Facebook Connect login to leave a comment at SmugMug. The abusive anonymous comment problem, even with our moderator tools, is just getting too large.


and if you take a look at the sneak peak of the new gallery style, you can see the new interface in action already.

Hope this helps,
Sebastian

[Timmy]

It is nice. Are there going to be updates to the Thumbnails style? I think it would very nice to have a rollover effect in that style. Something like the images enlarge and the caption shows? It is like this when you buy photos, http://www.smugmug.com/cart/batchadd.mg?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftimfullerphotography. smugmug.com%2FSports%2FIce-Hockey%2FChicago-at-Detroit-9-11%2F19208954_cmn7t9%231497802579_FXJ2LhG

[Erick L]

The video player needs improvement. It's really buggy to begin with, and having to click "HD on" and "Stretch on" (stretch implies ratio isn't kept) every time isn't intuitive and just a PITA. We can't skip the beginning until it loads. The youtube player is much better with choice of resolution instead of a vague "HD".

[outdooreventphotos.com]

In the current (public) SmugMug design, when you mouse over the larger image on the right, a panel flies out listing the available zoom sizes, photorank, collect... I like how that has been replaced with a more simple (+) mouse curser but I have an idea for the panel.

First, confine the fly-out trigger to the right 1/4 of the image. The panel would open to reveal a list of several common print/product options for the customer to quickly increment/decrement. The items listed in here would be preselected by the photographer. Any photos currently in the cart tied to any product would be denoted on the thumbnail with a little cart symbol so the customer could get a view of their order as they order.

The benefit to the customer is that, for most of the selection process, they don't have to go to the BUY overlay and back to the grid each time they want to add a 4x6 to the cart. But, the panel would include a link there for "more options" that would take them to the standard BUY overlay for options not included in the panel. I think this would simplify most of what my customers do on my site.

YES, YES, YES pretty please do this oh great smug mug folks! i am always looking for easier ways for my customers to buy my pictures. this would be totally cool

[colourbox]

Ok,
SM designers, if you are listening please consider a few more examples of elegant design layouts from livebooks with minimal clutter which I would love to see as a smugmug layout option...Notice the focus on the primary images themselves...rather than competing for space and attention with all the extra clutter

Seems like every day I get closer to moving my portfolios over to 500px because Smugmug has essentially no real layout flexibility. I sure hope we hear more about that soon. That's to say that I'd still use Smugmug as an "image warehouse" for embedding and for galleries that show off images like line items/SKUs instead of as art...but where design really counts the four existing gallery styles, which you can count on one hand with a digit missing, are really starting to not cut it anymore.

The video player needs improvement. It's really buggy to begin with, and having to click "HD on" and "Stretch on" (stretch implies ratio isn't kept) every time isn't intuitive and just a PITA. We can't skip the beginning until it loads. The youtube player is much better with choice of resolution instead of a vague "HD".

I think Smugmug is fine here. With YouTube, less technical users have to pick from up to four numbers (240p, 360p, 720p, 1080p), and I think it's easier for ordinary users to simply choose HD on or off, as it is with both Smugmug and Vimeo. I think the HD on/off switch makes it far more likely that a user will see the video at its best, because if someone isn't familiar with the four resolutions, they might not change it and the video won't look its best.

What Smugmug calls "stretch," Vimeo calls "scaling" which might sound safer for aspect ratio preservation. I would rather have a way of hiding the logo when the simple URL is pasted into a wordpress.com site, since the embed code that would normally hide it doesn't work on wordpress.com.

What I'm wondering about is the QuickTime plug-in on the Mac, which is becoming embarrassingly out of date. In the past, Smugmug said they used QuickTime instead of Flash due to performance, but I'm wondering now that more and more sites use HTML5 players, can that be used now as an alternative to the Flash and QuickTime players? The HTML5 experience on other sites seems very close to Flash, and is way better than the awful experience we get with QuickTime in Smugmug these days. (e.g. If there is a way to get the QuickTime plug-in to go full screen, let me know!)

[rich56k]

If the caption has more then two lines there is no indication what photo you're on without scrolling. This is extremely important when talking over the phone and coordinating view with another person/client. To me top navigation of both photo and page is mandatory. Also if we're both browsing in lightbox there is no photo number showing and that makes it impossible to coordinate viewing. ...

First off, I love the new direction and increased speed of the design. Kudos to the team for all the work involved.

I agree 100% with Allen, regarding the "top navigation of both photo and page is mandatory."

Would like to add my .02 regarding the 'dots' and the lack of obvious method to to click thru the images - you've already got 'both' dots and the numbered version in use (based on #/pages) so my vote is for stick with numbers in ALL cases - then if you must - leave US the OPTION of choosing dots or numbers.

Also what happened to the SmugMug homepage image (attached) - this to me is the perfect compromise - (no dots, navigation arrows ABOVE the images [so they're clear and easy to locate] and the clean modern design otherwise.

Bear in mind you're promoting the service with that example even though it's not available - and not in that version once the new changes are implemented - not a good way to lure new business.

My (and over 1.2 million pageloads) normal viewing method is to park the mouse over the forward arrow and click as needed while watching the large image - very efficent and time saving - the 'new' style (after / if they figure it out before just giving up and leaving) forces viewers to continually shift their viewing from the main image to the thumbs (so they can click on the next one) then back just to get thru the gallery - when going thru galleries that contain large #/number of images it's just not an experience anyone would put up with - as an event photographer my average gallery has 100-150 images.

It's almost as bad as those other sites we've all seen that when you try to click thru their gallery of images you have to scroll down to look for the arrow (because the arrows are under the images instead of above where common sense dictates)- or worse the arrows actual position changes every image based on image orientation/size/etc. Pretty unprofessional for a photo viewing site.

This causes a very uncomfortable viewing experience and whenever I encounter them I mumble (well curse) and quikly move on making a mental note regarding the inability or lack of knowledge that designed said situation as by those that never test drive their own creation - the mental note also includes the vow to never buy or cause my funds to ever go in that direction for any reason just due to general principle.

Again the solution from my perspective is stay with what you're already showing/selling/promoting on the homepage - if you're that 'sold' on the 'dots' leave them as an option for us your paying customers.

Bear in mind, I don't post that often, it's been a long day and I wanted to get my thoughts in before it went too long - I've always respected your desire to solicit our feedback and cannot sing your praises loud enough - I trust in the end 'our' voices will be heard and alterations will be implemented...

Thanks for the opportunity to be a part of this process!!

-Rich56k

[Malte]

...Bear in mind you're promoting the service with that example even though it's not available - and not in that version once the new changes are implemented - not a good way to lure new business...

That's been up for over a year now. Totally misleading to new and potential customers and stringing the rest of us fools along. Since this design by committee just seems to drag out and is likely not going to make anyone happy, really, I'll be voting with my wallet in December.

Sad, after six years, but enough's enough.

Malte

[jhofker]

How's the new design coming? Any chance of an updated sneak-peak? :-)

[tomnovy]

I actually agree. I have been asking about the new design for about two years and smugmug is saying yes we will release it - stay tuned. I am a bit bored with that "tune". Smugmug is selling something what does not exist. I think if that would be in European Union - this would be misleading customers - which is against the law.

[rageear]

Love the new design. Very clean, simple, and pretty darn fast.

Two nits:

* I could see the cloud download icon causing confusion for casual guests/users. The 'alt' text helps, but I think the icon could be improved.

* Would it be possible to disable Facebook integration for a gallery? I understand that Facebook is a behemoth and some people want that kind of integration, but I think it should be a configurable option. I noticed when loading individual images or pages, the Facebook 'like' icon was the last thing to load. This is kind of annoying since I don't want that integration in my gallery(ies).

Thanks!

[hoob]

A few comments on the new style.

1. I find the new multi-page navigation too confusing. I can't see any options in standard SmugMug view to toggle to Next Image, Next page, etc. Only the breadcrumbs and the odd corner icon.

2. I find the term "Edit" to be wrong to front a bunch of the options no grouped under that button. e.g. i was trying to figure out how to set a particular phot as a gallery highlight and finally looked under "Edit" after a lot of frustration.

3. Caption/keyword editing is not "safe". If you edit a caption on one picture and quickly switch to another image, the "new" caption you just entered stick to the new image you just switched to, instead of the one you were viewing when you saved the updated caption changes. ie. the background AJAX needs to be a bit more rigorous in tracking its state and what goes where.

[arthill]

On the Most Popular page I can't tell where a photo ranks e.g. 6 of 150.
What's the point of a ranking algorithm if the rank doesn't show up anywhere :D
Even in my own gallery I miss the counter e.g. 33 of 256.

[Dave_Anderson]

On the Most Popular page I can't tell where a photo ranks e.g. 6 of 150.
What's the point of a ranking algorithm if the rank doesn't show up anywhere :D
Even in my own gallery I miss the counter e.g. 33 of 256.

Worse yet, what's the point of ranking if I can't compare cross-gallery?

[Halfpint]

Hi, I would like to add my own 2 cents worth:

Things I like:

1) I like the speed while browsing through the "Popular Photo's". Much improved.

2) I like that the Thumb's Up/Down is gone. Time will tell if the new photo-ranking is more abuse-proof (see #4 below).

Things I still question:

1) Browsing through the "Most Popular Photo's (today) link" and reviewing comments, most photo's are either not rated or rated 5* (making 1* through 4* somewhat superfluous). What I would like to see is a way for photographers to request a "critique" (in addition to the commenting feature) --- this would be the place for a *-rating system, not general comments on photo's and galleries.

2) The interface still seems off. I liked it when all of the navigation/info stuff was on the top - it is where I naturally look for that kind of thing. It took me a few minutes to even figure out how to browse through the thumbnails in the new design to find the things I was interested in. Since you have the gradient top bar (at least over the thumbnails), why not use it to display the navigational tools instead of leaving it as a waste of space (and clicking on the first and last photo's to go to the prev/next page seems inefficient to me) --- one the photo side, you would need to adjust the photo position, but then you could display the "Edit" "Share", "Buy", "Cloud(s)" , etc. all on the same line across the top as in the old design. BTW: There is nothing wrong with text --- not everything needs to have a cool graphical icon, as long as it is localized to the browser region or language selection (This has been mentioned many other times in this thread).

3) My biggest feature request is a way to browse most recent photo's (today, last x days, etc) as opposed to the "most popular photos today" which is an entirely different animal. While I would also watch the "Popular Photo" thread, when photo's turn up there day after day after day after day ... with no comments or ratings, it points to an abuse of the system (There has been a recent uprising on the "Most Popular" thread that points to an abuse of the Thumb's feature).

4) Finally, some have commented that they absolutely need the ability for people that are not logged in to SM to be able to rate there photo's (in order to generate business?). This may be a valid concern and one that should be take into consideration. However, other members of the "Site" do not need to be bombarded with photo's receiving these anonymous kudos' --- we should, as a community, figure out a way to accommodate both of these types of users.

Regards,
Halfpint

[Halfpint]

Sorry,

I forgot to ask ...

Why is this upgrade an "everything but the kitchen sink" affair? Seems that many of these features could have been rolled out independently. We now have something of a monstrosity of an update that no one will ever agree is perfect ... not to mention the fact that it has been in conception for over 4.5 months (June 1st for the first sneak peek).

[Green_Hornet]

Please sign this petition:

http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/2326164-get-the-new-design-up-running-

:thumb

[jww]

Finally got a chance to take a look. Offhand, I like most of the changes. However, I hope we can tweak the background to back to black as the dark grey makes things seem soft to me. I also would like to hide the keywords for the pics, although now that I think about it there is probably a way to hide that and never tried nor looked for it. lol

I do like that you can easily tell what pic you are on and the speed seems really nice now. Not sure if I like the page selector at the bottom. Seems odd offhand, but possibly that can change or I can get used to it.

One other thing... will there be a way to change the buy photos button? Just not a fan of the green. Maybe a smugmug thing, but I like blue for example.

[LGPhotoArt]

I do like some aspects, like the Smart sizing of photos.

However, switching to this beta has deleted all the facebooks likes I had on the photos (it has zeroized the number of likes for each photo). Thank you very much, we work hard to get some love from our followers...You might want to make sure people know what to expect when they sign to try out this.

Also, I am using Explorer 9 and McAfee antivirus on Win Vista 32 bits, and each time I entered a gallery I would get a pop up at the bottom of the page. If I did not click "accept" I would only be able to see the first photo (for the others only the thumbnails, but if I clicked on any of them, the right section where the photo is displayed would stay empty). I could not find a setting that avoids that, it happened for each gallery I entered, even if I had already visited it before.

What is for me a big big show stopper, that made me opt out right away, is the header with the SmugPro logo.
We pay to host our business, not to advertize yours and drive traffic to your homepage.
The breadcrumbs are smaller than that logo and header of yours...not good at all.
Pro accounts will have to have the option to turn off the Smugmug company header!! We will advertize your service, as we have always done, if you do things right, no need to get invasive.

[jhofker]

LGPhotoArt, if you "unjoin" the preview, do your Facebook 'Likes' return?

[LGPhotoArt]

LGPhotoArt, if you "unjoin" the preview, do your Facebook 'Likes' return?

No jhofker, all the facebook like counts are zeroized...and that pisses me off quite a bit.

[jhofker]

:-( Have you contacted SmugMug support about it? Might be worth a shot.

[LGPhotoArt]

:-( Have you contacted SmugMug support about it? Might be worth a shot.
I think this is the forum to report these problems with the new style, isn't it?

[Andy]

What is for me a big big show stopper, that made me opt out right away, is the header with the SmugPro logo.
We pay to host our business, not to advertize yours and drive traffic to your homepage.
The breadcrumbs are smaller than that logo and header of yours...not good at all.
Pro accounts will have to have the option to turn off the Smugmug company header!! We will advertize your service, as we have always done, if you do things right, no need to get invasive.
Hi, please re-read our CEO's posts at the very beginning of this thread. You are seeing an ALPHA version of this design and customizing (your branding) is something that we will have. Thanks.

[LGPhotoArt]

Hi, please re-read our CEO's posts at the very beginning of this thread. You are seeing an ALPHA version of this design and customizing (your branding) is something that we will have. Thanks.

Andy, I have read it but it does not say that the Smugmug header will be removed. I do trust you if you say it will be.
P.S. Am I the only one that lost all facebook likes on the photos after trying the new style? Has this been already posted as a problem to your attention? :scratch

[jhofker]

I think this is the forum to report these problems with the new style, isn't it?

This a good place to bring it up, yes, but if you want it fixed, contacting support is really the best option. It's easy and free, so why not?

[scotticus]

Hey LGPhotoArt, you shouldn't have lost any likes with the new design. Are you seeing this on all your galleries or one a few select ones? Would you mind sending me a link to one that you know lost likes on so I can look into it further? (PM is fine too if you don't want to post it here)

Thanks!
Scott.

Andy, I have read it but it does not say that the Smugmug header will be removed. I do trust you if you say it will be.
P.S. Am I the only one that lost all facebook likes on the photos after trying the new style? Has this been already posted as a problem to your attention? :scratch

[dbveto]

how about concentrating more on stability:scratch

[Garga]

Oh. My. Good. God. - only just seen this.

Love it guys... LOVE IT!!

You got me all excited now.

[rpavich]

I just tried the new layout....I love it...clean sleek and loads very fast.

[leftquark]

The new layout looks great and I can't wait.

Hopefully someone at SM is still monitoring this thread and my comments don't fall into the abyss.....

There are 2 things I'd really like to see improved with the new design:


Commenting: I send out a lot of links to my SM photos to photo friends, photo groups, etc, and one common theme I keep hearing is "commenting on your photos is such a pain". Most of these people have been using pBase (which I think is archaic and old looking) but it is pretty easy to comment on photos there. Going to SM or Facebook login is going to make it so that I get even *less* comments on my photos. There's gotta be some better way to avoid spam than requiring login's or that annoying verification text. I mean, my personal WordPress blog (and akismet) does a really good job of blocking all the spam comments!
One thing that I really wish SM would improve upon is the community/commenting/sharing aspect of photography. I really dislike Flickr, but it's great for sharing your photos with other photographers and getting your name/photos out there. Without using flickr groups (ick!) I've managed to build quite a repertoire of photo friends and we share advice, tips, and places to shoot. Most of that is because of being able to subscribe to my users latest photos. That doesn't really work for SmugMug because people upload entire galleries but I'd still like a better way of being able to see my friends photos. Perhaps it exists and I just don't know it?

-Leftquark

[Dave_Anderson]

I'd still like a better way of being able to see my friends photos. Perhaps it exists and I just don't know it?
-Leftquark

You can subscribe to an RSS feed for the whole SM account or individual galleries... have you tried that?

[Traces of Texas]

Forgive me if this has already been mentioned. Reading a 33 page thread is not in the cards for me right now.

I love this new style.

My only comment is that I have quite a few long comments underneath some of my photos. Poems etc... When I look at the photos in slideshow mode, the captions bleed into the photos.

Thanks.

[pidgeonphotography]

Hello,

I just wanted to say that I'm tying out the new look and I really really really love it. When will this go live so my clients can see this? I really am digging the new look.

[rekanix]

I love it--when can I expect to see it in operation? This solves a big problem for me in IE, where my large picture that should be on the right of the thumbnails is populated underneath the thumbnails--this causes my images to be displayed in the correct format, and I'm excited to see it!

[Jamfore]

I don't like the colors. I left the new gallery style and now cant get my old setting back. The style is fine but I like the gradient white and have a theme matching my Blog. Can I get it in White?

[taltal]

I loved it, can't wait to see it live. when is the launch date?

[stenp]

I have been using this alpha version for a period now and I think the design is really bad.

"At SmugMug, it's all about the photos." But the new design adds a lot of graphical elements to the page that has nothing to do with the photos at all.
The number of exposed thumbnails are fewer than in the old design. Why? The main photo is not bigger.
I find the navigation very user unfriendly for the occasional visitor.
I appreciate all efforts made to speed up everything.

So I leave the Sneak Peek alpha version until a new version is available.

Sten P

[unshift]

I really like the new layout. It's way faster and much better looking, very much an improvement and definitely modernizes the look of my albums.

A few comments though:


I'd like to see buttons for previous/next photo. I use right/left arrow keys anyways but less tech savvy people could use something to click on (like when I share an album with my grandparents)
The "buy" button is a bit hideous and it's a bit out of alignment. Would be nice if it were the same color as the other buttons -- I realize you want to call attention to it, but it's an eyesore, plain and simple. Users will still be able to find it if's the same color and style as the others.


Similar updates to the homepage and gallery listing pages would be great too! Keep up the good work

[gschlact]

I only just saw this thread and made it about 1/3 through the posts. No more time.

My feedback in random order:

1. Please continue to provide the user the ability to Style, with owner to set the default. Simetimes, it makes sense as a user to switch between styles within the same gallery depending on what they are doing.

2. Missing "next photo" buttons on my screen - (there are no left / right arrows on my screen in this new style and IE9(32bit) Compatibility Mode on Win 7 Pro (64bit) http://schlacter.smugmug.com/Sports/Hannah/2011-SHS-Varsity-Field-Hockey/18833519_MCGbvV#h=1548357181_mZbRDvQ-P-28


3. PLEASE put the whole bottom Row (EDIT, SHARE, LIKE, Img #, Arrows, DOwnload, Info) to be place above Photo.

4. Please put text on the Download and Info icon

5. Consider putting the EDIT button next to the GALLERY button on the very top row.

6. Expand Gallery description

7. Slideshow - enable the user to actually transition time for slide show, don't force into subjective slow, medium, fast.

8. photo-right-side-bump - I actually liked the old bump right to get mini menu for info, thumbs up/down etc.

9. Buy This Photo - please merge your tabs - often the tabs for example for Download do not get noticed by customers.

10. Displaying the thumbnail. Please make the highlighted Thumbnail of the image getting displayed more prevalent so it is easier to quickly see which thumbnail is showing.


Thanks for the continued improvements.

Guy
schlacter.smugmug.com

[lenkaland]

I enjoy the new gallery. As you add features, I wanted to let you know I use the "owner share" a lot.

I make slideshows to embed in my webpage. Love/need that feature- hope it sticks around. Thank you!
Lenka

[Peeler]

I love the new Darkroom layout in the galleries! I hope this will eventually be an option as the default layout that customers will see. The big "Buy Prints & Gifts" tap is a HUGE plus for me. I can't wait to see the finished version. Keep up the great work guys!

[taylowa]

I don't see the "Thumbs Up/Down" option with the new look? Is this going to be an addition once it is live for our users?

[Allen]

I don't see the "Thumbs Up/Down" option with the new look? Is this going to be an addition once it is live for our users?
They are not offering that any more as I read earlier in this thread. Kinda blows away an important feature.

A lot of peeps will really be pissed off when they see their homepage box missing.

[Andy]

They are not offering that any more as I read earlier in this thread. Kinda blows away an important feature.

A lot of peeps will really be pissed off when they see their homepage box missing.

We never said the homepage box would go missing :D What we did say, is that we want to use other factors (FB comments, FB Likes, Twitter shares, [G+?], SmugMug comments etc to determine popularity. Stay tuned.

[Allen]

We never said the homepage box would go missing :D What we did say, is that we want to use other factors (FB comments, FB Likes, Twitter shares, [G+?], SmugMug comments etc to determine popularity. Stay tuned.
Then I'll never get a new "popular" photo. That screens out my whole family and about all my friends.
Stupid idea that they have to log in somewhere to comment on a photo. Also most do not want to say
anything in a comment about a photo just click thumbs up. Why destroy a great working feature.?

This log in for comment thing is absolute ridiculous, if they can't handle inappropriate comments turn "approve
comment" on. Why mess with the masses when they have a solution.

[Andy]

Then I'll never get a new "popular" photo. That screens out my whole family and about all my friends.
Stupid idea that they have to log in somewhere to comment on a photo. Also most do not want to say
anything in a comment about a photo just click thumbs up. Why destroy a great working feature.?

This log in for comment thing is absolute ridiculous, if they can't handle inappropriate comments turn "approve
comment" on. Why mess with the masses when they have a solution.

I t hink you missed the part where I said "SmugMug Comments" as well.

[Allen]

I t hink you missed the part where I said "SmugMug Comments" as well.
Like I said, no one wants to say anything just click thumbs up.

[wholenewlight]

Overall really like the new design.

Love the new buy button - big improvement

As a couple of others have said - keep the caption next to the pic, share buttons underneath. I'll play more and give more feedback.

[Jamfore]

Ok I tried it out. I finally got it to work after some trouble understanding how to make it work. then I did not like it. Nothing wrong with the design and function however I have a color theme going on and did not like the colors. So I "leave" and nothing happened. I had to go in and clear out all my browser information and now I have to put it all back in.

Still have not been able to get the gallery to load to facebook right either. I can however get one picture up there and love this feature and how it refers back to my page.

I am not a computer programer so its was not real clear for me to understand.

[Gjefle]

I love the new look, but I quickly found out that in order to use another new feature - the Facebook upload - I had to "un-join" the new gallery look in order to access the share button and its features. I also had to disable it in order to set a featured photo. Looks like a few of the "old" options just aren't there with the new gallery.

So I love it, but when this feature moves out of the darkroom / beta mode, will we be losing some of these crucial features? Or are they just being left out while it's still at this testing phase?

[korg250]

I like the new design - cleaner and intuitive - but I think the page bullets (buttons for direct page access) are a little too small to click - or at the least the first/last buttons should be bigger.

[photogmomma]

Holy smokes! That's FABULOUS! Can't wait until it's released!

[scseith]

I left the new gallery style to take a look ("join") at Facebook Publishing. A move from that new style to the old gallery style (Facebook Publishing doesn't work with the new style beta I finally figured out) was really revealing.

The older style when immediately contrasted with the new now seems cluttered, a bit harsher, and busy. I haven't spent more than the 30 minutes wandering in the new style, but this inadvertent near side-by-side comparison spoke volumes. Nice work on this--and the Facebook Publishing.

[Lighthawk]

I'm excited to see the new site. When did clicked the green button, nothing happened...

My biggest question with this new UI is will it include a "lightbox" feature where my end clients can edit down their images and share their "lightbox" with others? I'm a assignment/stock photographer and when I share shoots - my client wants a way edit them down to their selection for me to deliver to them.

Cheers,
Craig

Exactly! I have started using the Collect Photos option to select a subset of images from a gallery and would like to make it really easy for clients to select a group of images for me to send them full res files.
Ideally they will not have to navigate a ton of menus, but have a simple button to collect, like the owner does.

[photo_mom]

how awesome this looks and works. It is a very refreshing change and much faster to use.

The Facebook publish option is very cool as well. However, the Xlarge picture isn't as big as what you get when you load directly to Facebook. That's the only drawback I see so far.

[David-Stallard]

We never said the homepage box would go missing :D What we did say, is that we want to use other factors (FB comments, FB Likes, Twitter shares, [G+?], SmugMug comments etc to determine popularity. Stay tuned.

And what about us that don't use 'farcebook' or 'twatter' ? Not everyone is suckered into the whole "I don't have a life - on line community" thing.

Why can't you just concentrate on the important things like less downtime, PAYPAL, as everything else is great as it is.

.DAVID.

[caroline]

Can we please have an update on where we stand on this?
Several months have passed without a coherent response and this thread is way to big to read right through just to find individual comments.

My renwal is due in 6 weeks and I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to know this.

Caroline

[Andy]

Can we please have an update on where we stand on this?
Several months have passed without a coherent response and this thread is way to big to read right through just to find individual comments.

My renwal is due in 6 weeks and I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to know this.

Caroline

Caroline, the new design is still in our Darkroom and it's still in an alpha-state. We've been taking feedback here in this thread. If you've got specific questions that aren't answered in posts 1 and 2 by onethumb, fire away and I'll do my best - thanks!

[caroline]

Caroline, the new design is still in our Darkroom and it's still in an alpha-state. We've been taking feedback here in this thread. If you've got specific questions that aren't answered in posts 1 and 2 by onethumb, fire away and I'll do my best - thanks!

Hi Andy,

My main concern is regarding the ability to use html in captions - unless I've missed it I believe this was not going to be available in the design? Is this still the case?

I believe html will still be OK in gallery descriptions - yes?

Otherwise, I'll sit patiently by and see how things develop, alpha to implementation 18mths wouldn't be unreasonable.

Caroline

[Andy]

Hi Caroline, no new news on either of those right now - but the whole thing is still evolving, thanks!

[tsk1979]

When I click on the "i" button it shows me date modified in the DATE FIELD, and not date taken. Is there a way to change that.
In the earlier older gallery thingy, both used to be shown in basic info

[zepptrekker]

one request I'd like to make is that when you click on a photo to make it full screen, a faint hint of the page is still visible in the background, and this can be somewhat distracting. It would be great if the background went completely black, (or white, or whatever background color someone has selected) so that when viewing a full screen photo the viewer isn't distracted by anything else.

If there is a way I can customize this myself using code, I would love to learn.

Thanks
Abe

[Brendan]

It would be great if the background went completely black, (or white, or whatever background color someone has selected) so that when viewing a full screen photo the viewer isn't distracted by anything else.

If there is a way I can customize this myself using code, I would love to learn.

Thanks
Abe

Abe, if you can use CSS customizations with your account level, try this:

#lightBoxBG
{opacity: 0.97; filter:alpha(opacity=97);}

I don't really remember where I found this, but it works. The first value needs to be between 0 and 1, while the second value needs to be between 0 and 100. 0 is fully transparent; 1 (or 100) is fully opaque.

Cheers,
Brendan

[lancehopson]

Since we are on suggestions... I love SM so don't take this the wrong way, BUT Zen has a killer photo view page. You can display the photos across the top (or bottom I assume) in a slide show style and beside the current photo it lists quick "select" purchase items: 8x10, 5x7, download sizes, etc...

Presenting "quick purchase" options is a HUGE marketing tool and quite often the "BUY" button is overlooked, however if visitors, clients, or whoever sees the option and price laid out right in front of them (especially for downloads of their kids playing sports) they -- in my opinion -- are probably 10x more likely to purchase.

I love this option so much it *almost* swayed me towards Zen.

Example on this URL:
http://www.mp2images.com/p816345787/hf7476a5#hf7476a5
Don't fret Admins. Matthew is a friend of mine and has given permission for me to share this link.
http://www.mp2images.com/p816345787/hf7476a5#hf7476a5

[lancehopson]

Also, another thought... An HTML capable side panel would be fantastic. Maybe the ability to move the "Gallery Description" panel to the right or left side and still be HTML capable. I often find the need or desire to add information to a gallery (and sometimes a substantial amount) but if I add it to the gallery description it only pushes my photos further down the page and out of the "focus" of the page.

Lance

[W.W. Webster]

I've just discovered, to my regret, that the URL for the loupe view of an image in the 'sneak peek' format is different than the URL in the regular SmugMug format.

To be more specific, rather than post images directly to my Facebook page (which gives Facebook the right to use them in any way they see fit and anyone else the ability to right-click them for download), I post links to the loupe view of images I have posted to a non-public SmugMug gallery I have set up for this purpose. Unfortunately, where I have copied a loupe view image URL when in 'sneak peek' mode, the link takes the visitor to the normal page view where not only the image of interest is shown, but also a slew of thumbnails. This must be a bug, surely?

Since becoming aware of this, I have to be careful to 'leave' 'sneak peek' view before copying any URL for posting to Facebook. That's a PITA I'd like to see fixed asap!

[Allen]

I've just discovered, to my regret, that the URL for the loupe view of an image in the 'sneak peek' format is different than the URL in the regular SmugMug format.

To be more specific, rather than post images directly to my Facebook page (which gives Facebook the right to use them in any way they see fit and anyone else the ability to right-click them for download), I post links to the loupe view of images I have posted to a non-public SmugMug gallery I have set up for this purpose. Unfortunately, where I have copied a loupe view image URL when in 'sneak peek' mode, the link takes the visitor to the normal page view where not only the image of interest is shown, but also a slew of thumbnails. This must be a bug, surely?

Since becoming aware of this, I have to be careful to 'leave' 'sneak peek' view before copying any URL for posting to Facebook. That's a PITA I'd like to see fixed asap!
Loupe View? Are you referring to the critique gallery style? This thread only covers the Smugmug style galleries.

[W.W. Webster]

Loupe View? Are you referring to the critique gallery style? This thread only covers the Smugmug style galleries.No - I mean the view of an image you get when you click on it (in 'sneak peek' format) or select and click on a view size in the pop-out that appears when you mouse-over an image (in the present SmugMug format).

[Allen]

No - I mean the view of an image you get when you click on it (in 'sneak peek' format) or select and click on a view size in the pop-out that appears when you mouse-over an image (in the present SmugMug format).
Ah, the lightbox view.

[W.W. Webster]

Ah, the lightbox view.That'll be it!

[zepptrekker]

so I used the "share" button on one of my photos (while NOT logged in) to post it to facebook. when I clicked on the link in facebook, it took me to the photo in the new gallery style. when I click on the photo and go back in to the gallery, and click on the breadcrumb link to my homepage in the upper right, it takes me back to my homepage and all the galleries look the same as before.

this is fine, i like the new look, just not sure if that's your intention at this point, since the darkroom says "Only you as the logged-in owner will notice this; guests will see your site as it always is." or am I mis-understanding that statement?

[seanhoytphoto]

Since we are on suggestions... I love SM so don't take this the wrong way, BUT Zen has a killer photo view page. You can display the photos across the top (or bottom I assume) in a slide show style and beside the current photo it lists quick "select" purchase items: 8x10, 5x7, download sizes, etc...

Presenting "quick purchase" options is a HUGE marketing tool and quite often the "BUY" button is overlooked, however if visitors, clients, or whoever sees the option and price laid out right in front of them (especially for downloads of their kids playing sports) they -- in my opinion -- are probably 10x more likely to purchase.

I love this option so much it *almost* swayed me towards Zen.

Example on this URL:
http://www.mp2images.com/p816345787/hf7476a5#hf7476a5
Don't fret Admins. Matthew is a friend of mine and has given permission for me to share this link.
http://www.mp2images.com/p816345787/hf7476a5#hf7476a5

OK, wow. I like that Zenfolio layout, mostly. First off, I initially pulled it up on my iphone and the layout allows natural swipe navigation of the main images, left and right. That's a huge deal and needs to be a feature with any new Smugmug release. The trend in mobile computing is steeply upward. Many of my clients are hitting my websites with their smart phones. I'd bet that in a few years, most of them will do 90% of their computing on their iphones/androids. It's just going in that direction. The current mobile implementation of SmugMug seems like a huge stopgap.

Secondly, the thumbnail strip at the top is very linear and natural. A+ to that idea. I want that on Smugmug. With the thumbnail strip above and dynamic preloading of the main images, SmugMug could stack verticals and horizontals together below the thumbstrip and have it slide left and right with the thumbstrip. This isn't too far fetched and a very natural concept. (attached mockup)

I think the easing in/out sliding should emulate this: http://samples.bigfolio.com/burlington/#imagegalleries/wedding/poser/5 (flash)
jQuery should be able to do this. Click on the image and then cycle through the shots. This is how I'd imagine the enlargement screen would work: fade in/out.
Elegant. Modern.

I have also been a HUGE advocator for quick pricing. Several posts back in this thread, I proposed that Smugmug repurpose their current (not beta version) javascript slide-out panel to reveal a few common print/download options with pricing and +/- controls. Quick and easy.

[seanhoytphoto]

so I used the "share" button on one of my photos (while NOT logged in) to post it to facebook. when I clicked on the link in facebook, it took me to the photo in the new gallery style. when I click on the photo and go back in to the gallery, and click on the breadcrumb link to my homepage in the upper right, it takes me back to my homepage and all the galleries look the same as before.

this is fine, i like the new look, just not sure if that's your intention at this point, since the darkroom says "Only you as the logged-in owner will notice this; guests will see your site as it always is." or am I mis-understanding that statement?

I think it looks at cookies in your browser. Can you try it in a different browser that's never enabled the beta?

[TayStory]

Well done on the new design! I have been tweaking my site on/off for a few months, but still not quite happy with it. Already, the new design has resolved a few outstanding aesthetic issues in general. It will be a much better starting point for future new users.

This is what I like so far:
- The cleaned up folder paths (or breadcrumbs) is great.
- As is the new page navigator dots/arrows - much cleaner.
- The magnifying glass for the default SmugMug view is more obvious.
- Just one slideshow mode is less confusing.
- Overall default font is much better.
- Display of Captions and Keywords is a huge improvement.

Some suggestions for consideration:
- Perhaps add arrow buttons on SmugMug view page (at bottom, near # of #?), even though cursor keys on your keyboard do the trick, but may not be obvious to mouse-happy users.
- On the large single image view, would be nice to have an auto slideshow button - in the same image size, not full screen (i.e. a la Flickr).
- Please revise restriction of displaying either Filename or Caption. In fact, create a new field (Title?) based on the actual filename, but is editable. By default, Title and Caption should have differing font sizes, much like the difference between Filename and Keywords as shown now. Both Title and Caption could perhaps be separately turned on/off in both SmugMug and slideshow views.
- For photos with Portrait orientation, possible to have an option to display at the same dimensions as the Landscape ones?

Thanks.

[mikyreds]

...
First off, I initially pulled it up on my iphone and the layout allows natural swipe navigation of the main images, left and right. That's a huge deal and needs to be a feature with any new Smugmug release.
...


Just a quick note to add that SmugMug has recently update their mobile layout and it works very well in my Iphone ... including the swipe gesture.

It's not very fast ... but is very beautifull

P.S.
my first post ... Hi everybody

[seanhoytphoto]

Just a quick note to add that SmugMug has recently update their mobile layout and it works very well in my Iphone ... including the swipe gesture.

It's not very fast ... but is very beautifull

P.S.
my first post ... Hi everybody

Yeah, it looks nice but it's a stopgap meaning it's been feature-stripped; my clients can't order prints from it. You ask: "Should they?" The data shows that more and more people are ditching their computers and using their smartphones for 99% of their daily online tasks. I want my gallery provider to be ready for this, in fact, I want them to innovate and impress my clients. This means they can swipe left and right on large images and transition back and forth to a grid-view easily. This means they can add images to a cart easily. Maybe we can also have some form of easy checkout? Doesn't amazon have a pay phrase or something? It's only a matter of time; the writing is on the wall!

[Allen]

Yeah, it looks nice but it's a stopgap meaning it's been feature-stripped; my clients can't order prints from it. You ask: "Should they?" The data shows that more and more people are ditching their computers and using their smartphones for 99% of their daily online tasks. I want my gallery provider to be ready for this, in fact, I want them to innovate and impress my clients. This means they can swipe left and right on large images and transition back and forth to a grid-view easily. This means they can add images to a cart easily. Maybe we can also have some form of easy checkout? Doesn't amazon have a pay phrase or something? It's only a matter of time; the writing is on the wall!
Your clients will not see this new style, only you after adding cookie. They will see your galleries as they were.

[seanhoytphoto]

Your clients will not see this new style, only you after adding cookie. They will see your galleries as they were.

Hey there, we are talking about the mobile Smugmug layout.

[Allen]

Hey there, we are talking about the mobile Smugmug layout.
I don't think this thread was meant cover mobile, it's only about the new style. Way too much off-topic.

[dianegoogins]

I am to the point of just giving up this smugmug thing. I can't understand why it is so difficult to just re-create a customization for my site. :( If anyone can help, let me know.

[Andy]

I am to the point of just giving up this smugmug thing. I can't understand why it is so difficult to just re-create a customization for my site. :( If anyone can help, let me know.

Hi Diane! I'm so sorry you're frustrated- but the good news is we can help! Email us, http://help.smugmug.com ATTN: Eric and we'll get you the help you need asap.

[Smug Eric]

Hey Diane. Can you give me an idea of what you are trying to do? If you can write up a post in the customization forum I'm sure we can help get you sorted out. Or like Andy suggested you can email the help desk with ATTN: Eric and I can help you with your customization there as well.

[seanhoytphoto]

I don't think this thread was meant cover mobile, it's only about the new style. Way too much off-topic.

Sorry, no. It's hardly off topic. We are talking about layout here. In bird terms for you, the golden goose would be a scheme that works in a desktop browser yet can easily be ported to mobile with minimal rework.

Someone pointed out a Zenfolio layout several posts back and I noted that not only did I like some elements in it, it worked well on mobile (I don't think as a mobile redirect). Mobile smartphones and tablets are the future; If we confine our feedback to the desktop design at hand and ignore ties to mobile, the design is likely to be moot and in the wastebasket in a few years (or less). http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/07/28-of-us-smartphone-owners-use-them-as-primary-net-connection.ars (trend is UPWARD)

[Dave_Anderson]

Sorry, no. It's hardly off topic. We are talking about layout here. In bird terms for you, the golden goose would be a scheme that works in a desktop browser yet can easily be ported to mobile with minimal rework.

Someone pointed out a Zenfolio layout several posts back and I noted that not only did I like some elements in it, it worked well on mobile (I don't think as a mobile redirect). Mobile smartphones and tablets are the future; If we confine our feedback to the desktop design at hand and ignore ties to mobile, the design is likely to be moot and in the wastebasket in a few years (or less). http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/07/28-of-us-smartphone-owners-use-them-as-primary-net-connection.ars (trend is UPWARD)
They are part of the future, not all of it. These devices will never replace the desktop fully except for the most casual of users, and to suggest otherwise is wishful thinking at best. I agree that it would be nice to have my site render well on a smartphone but I would definitely place that as second priority. After all, any smartphone that truly deserves to be called "smart" can render a regular web page just fine. I have a large customization project on hold waiting for the "new design" to go live and if SM were to drop the ball on that in favor of building a phone-specific site I would pick up and leave.

[seanhoytphoto]

They are part of the future, not all of it. These devices will never replace the desktop fully except for the most casual of users, and to suggest otherwise is wishful thinking at best. I agree that it would be nice to have my site render well on a smartphone but I would definitely place that as second priority. After all, any smartphone that truly deserves to be called "smart" can render a regular web page just fine. I have a large customization project on hold waiting for the "new design" to go live and if SM were to drop the ball on that in favor of building a phone-specific site I would pick up and leave.

Content generators will always use large desktops or whatever device provides a large workspace. Consumers will all go tablets and smartphones. I'll put my life's savings on that bet. Have you not see teenagers these days?

The content presentation will shift to those device types, not simply a faithful render of a desktop browser. The input device (finger) is too different. Ok, Allen is right. This is somewhat off track now. I'm gonna bug out.

[Dave_Anderson]

Content generators will always use large desktops or whatever device provides a large workspace. Consumers will all go tablets and smartphones. I'll put my life's savings on that bet. Have you not see teenagers these days?

The content presentation will shift to those device types, not simply a faithful render of a desktop browser. The input device (finger) is too different. Ok, Allen is right. This is somewhat off track now. I'm gonna bug out.

Teenagers on the whole seem to want everything given to them or to steal it... many of them have no sense of intellectual property such as photographs and believe that if it is displayed on the web it is their god-given right to take and use it as they see fit. Not the demographic I'm shooting for with my sales, so maybe it's better if they can't see my work. :D

/sarcasm

Again, I think smartphone support is worthwhile but definitely as a much lower priority. The variations in screen sizes and browsers are far greater than in the desktop/laptop world and I for one prefer that SM not be distracted with that can of worms until they get the desktop presentation nailed.

[lifeinfocus]

Adobe announced today, November 10, 2011 - "Adobe Systems Inc halted development of its Flash Player for mobile browsers, surrendering to Apple Inc in a war over Web standards ....."

Will this lead to a further Flash decline in favor of HTML5?

If so, is Smugmug's new design moving to HTML5?

[Shantyman]

I think, that this new design should be selectable from more options.

I wrote my idea, and it's here (http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/1514627-new-gallery-style-immediate-fullscreen?ref=title) so I don't want to repeat thoughts.

Look e.g. :
http://marcintyszka.com/

The site is clean, and there are no huge thumbnails at the left as at our new design. There's one photo, user can click on it and there's next photo loading.

I want to say that it should be possibility to get clean, very simple design of site. OK, for some people new design is great, but there should be options to configure thumbnails at the left and all icons and keywords to make site clean and simple, and to present only the one picture or picture and arrows without need to click on any "Fullscreen" or "Slideshow" button.

Now, thanks to John Friend and his great Slideshow (HTML 5 ready) i created my site very clean with two arrows for move gallery foward and backward, and also keypress -> and <- to navigate.

So if smugmug prepared such gallery style it would be a revolution. ;-)

Best thanks 4 all to Smugmug ;-)

[Andy]

Adobe announced today, November 10, 2011 - "Adobe Systems Inc halted development of its Flash Player for mobile browsers, surrendering to Apple Inc in a war over Web standards ....."

Will this lead to a further Flash decline in favor of HTML5?

If so, is Smugmug's new design moving to HTML5?

We are using HTML5 in our uploader, and in our slideshows now as well. I expect we'll use it in more places, too.

[tsk1979]

When I click on the "i" button it shows me date modified in the DATE FIELD, and not date taken. Is there a way to change that.
In the earlier older gallery thingy, both used to be shown in basic info
Hi
Any updates to this?

[Andy]

Hi
Any updates to this?

We'll get it fixed in the new style, can't say when though. Thanks.

[dpollitt]

The new design is very nice, and I am eager to see it live for my customers. Do we have any ETA on that at this point? It has been five months since the introduction of it, and each day that I look at the current production version of the site I wish it would be updated.

Lets move forward and improve the design for the masses.

[tsk1979]

We'll get it fixed in the new style, can't say when though. Thanks.
Thanks Andy.
I have another "feature request".
right now, if I want to see Longtiude/latitude/Altitude in EXIF/IPTC, there is no way except for downloading the image, and doing right click in windows.
Is it possible, that the detailed field shows GPS related fields of the exif too?
That will be simply great!
This can later be enhanced and we can be given a feature. For example, search for pictures with Altitude>3000m

[lancehopson]

The new design is very nice, and I am eager to see it live for my customers. Do we have any ETA on that at this point? It has been five months since the introduction of it, and each day that I look at the current production version of the site I wish it would be updated.

Lets move forward and improve the design for the masses.

Anyone have any news? To be honest I'm getting rather frustrated with the stagnancy of the SM site design. I've had my own site "redesign" on hold for months, waiting on SM's new designs and offerings, but with soccer season fast approaching (yes, sports photographer) I'm feeling the pressure to move on to another host.

[Malte]

No news. It's still designated an "alpha" preview, which is meant to say "we're not even going to speculate on a release window". "Beta" would have hinted at 6-12 months but that's come and gone. I'm very unhappy.


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=55.941110,12.806682

[Andy]

I'm very unhappy.


You won't be when you see what we're gonna come out with, promise. This thread, and the feedback that you and everyone else has supplied, has been amazing.

[sskinner]

I'm really looking forward to seeing what results from all the talk of what's coming. Hopefully it will be sooner than later. I'm very excited for the full rollout of the new design, and some love for SM on mobile devices and tablets.

For what I pay annually for smugmug, I feel like SM should be further along with all this.

[caroline]

You won't be when you see what we're gonna come out with, promise. This thread, and the feedback that you and everyone else has supplied, has been amazing.

Andy, I think people's frustration comes from the total lack of any indication of timing on this - unless of course we've missed it. I know the response from you is that you don't give dates etc etc, but something to indicate more specifically how development is progressing would be good - please :-)

My renewal is just a month away now and I want be sure that I can continue for the next year exactly as in previous years without any loss of the way I like to customize. If I renew and you roll out the new designs, and I find they don't suit me, will I get a partial refund on my subscription?

I don't want to leave Smugmug, this will be my 5th anniversary.

Caroline

[Andy]

Andy, I think people's frustration comes from the total lack of any indication of timing on this - unless of course we've missed it. I know the response from you is that you don't give dates etc etc, but something to indicate more specifically how development is progressing would be good - please :-)

My renewal is just a month away now and I want be sure that I can continue for the next year exactly as in previous years without any loss of the way I like to customize. If I renew and you roll out the new designs, and I find they don't suit me, will I get a partial refund on my subscription?

I don't want to leave Smugmug, this will be my 5th anniversary.

Caroline

Caroline I encourage you to re-read post #2 and our CEO's comments there about customizing, and "using the old way" as well. Thanks! http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1621380&postcount=2

We don't intend to harm folks that have customized.

[Luc De Jaeger]

No news. It's still designated an "alpha" preview, which is meant to say "we're not even going to speculate on a release window". "Beta" would have hinted at 6-12 months but that's come and gone. I'm very unhappy.


The fact that it takes so long for any update might just be a sign or indication that SmugMug is overhauling their initial new design from the bottom up... It's just my gut feeling but... It takes time to rewrite, reprogram and code everything from the bottom up. That's why I consider the recent silence to be extremely auspicious (absorbing the feedback and reprogramming it all cannot be done overnight -- really NOT). I think we indeed will be positively surprised with what they will present next!

Also consider that it's in pre-alpha and that it was a sneak peek... Most companies will never let you look at it in such an early phase. It's from the feedback in such an early phase that SM can learn lots about customer desires and program the new design accordingly. In case it was in Beta or a Release Candidate, it would have been a nightmare to rewrite everything to fulfill the customers' wishes...

I firmly stand by SM!:thumb
Luc

[LoisR]

Being new to SmugMug, I can't comment on what the changes will mean to those who have painstakingly customized their pages, but I certainly do hope the 'new' includes a much more user-friendly way to do it!

Being a tinkerer, I love the idea that you can have so much control over the look of your pages, but sadly, that means you have to tinker around a lot just to get up and running (unless you want the very plain 'I just put my photos on SmugMug' look).

And if this is not appropriate to this thread, I apologize, but I really hope the new SM includes an easy, user-friendly way to incorporate a Client Proofing/Viewing page where the customer may insert name and password to be taken directly to their private gallery.

Guess I'll join the rest in saying I'm really looking forward to the new design!

Lois
riesepix.com (http://riesepix.com) - Totally 'under construction' as I find the time to tinker...!

[sskinner]

I've been loving the new design, except tonight I found a reason to switch back to the older one - the buy option in the new look doesn't have ANY options for buying/creating cards. DOH!

I just did 3 photo shoots this week for people doing holiday cards and I am so glad I didn't turn on my customers to the new look for reviewing everything.

[Malte]

I don't think you can turn it on for anyone but yourself yet.

Malte


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=55.941400,12.806204

[Andy]

I don't think you can turn it on for anyone but yourself yet.

Malte


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=55.941400,12.806204

Correct.

[Mark Dickinson]

I wonder how malta handles clients that he shot with, then the NEXT DAMN DAY they want photos. :) Stay up all night and lose sleep? The current system works, works well, I have 13k in sales to date and over 2000 comments I imagine for album slection. Listen to some jack johnson for a while you'll slow down :)

[WinsomeWorks]

I've been loving the new design, except tonight I found a reason to switch back to the older one - the buy option in the new look doesn't have ANY options for buying/creating cards. DOH!

I just did 3 photo shoots this week for people doing holiday cards and I am so glad I didn't turn on my customers to the new look for reviewing everything. Only you (as the site owner) can see the new design. Your customers can't see it yet. They'll just see it however you had it set up before. Log out & you should see that...

[rainforest1155]

Only you (as the site owner) can see the new design. Your customers can't see it yet. They'll just see it however you had it set up before. Log out & you should see that...
If logging out doesn't do the trick, you might have to opt out of the new gallery style via the /darkroom page while logged in or use a different browser.

[Lighthawk]

i'm excited to see the new site. When did clicked the green button, nothing happened...

My biggest question with this new ui is will it include a "lightbox" feature where my end clients can edit down their images and share their "lightbox" with others? I'm a assignment/stock photographer and when i share shoots - my client wants a way edit them down to their selection for me to deliver to them. If you could allow them to do their own "lightbox" (collection) that would be great. I understand that you have an "event" feature but this doesnt work quite right. I also have clients that go to my general site and pick out their fav 5 - 10 images for use in an ad, story, etc.... Do you think anything like this is possible or in the works? Or is there any type of way to customize the site to allow for clients to "lightbox" their favs?

Cheers,
craig

x2!

[Lighthawk]

I have opted in to both the publish to FB and the new gallery style.
I have been successful using the publish function, but only when I am using the old gallery style.

As soon as I opt in to the new gallery style, I lose the share button. I did find I can share one photo, but I'm looking to have access to the publish feature too. I've enabled all the share settings within the gallery settings BTW. It works fine if I opt out of the new gallery style.

Also, I am not seeing anything different in the new style, so maybe there's conflicting issues here.

[rouxster]

I love the new design. I thinks that it is a clean and modern look. I didn't spend much time on the new design, but I did notice a couple of things. These may have been brought up in other discussions, but this thread is getting pretty long, so I couldn't look at everything.

My navbar is gone.
I would like to see the spacing between the thumbnails a little tighter.
Last, I'm not crazy about how you change pages on the thumbnails. The faded arrow on the first and last picture, I don't care for. First, it takes away from that thumbnail and if you want to quickly jump to a page, you can't do that anymore.
Overall, a great new design. I can't wait to see it in production and the future improvements you will be making :thumb

[rainforest1155]

I have opted in to both the publish to FB and the new gallery style.
I have been successful using the publish function, but only when I am using the old gallery style.

As soon as I opt in to the new gallery style, I lose the share button. I did find I can share one photo, but I'm looking to have access to the publish feature too. I've enabled all the share settings within the gallery settings BTW. It works fine if I opt out of the new gallery style.

Also, I am not seeing anything different in the new style, so maybe there's conflicting issues here.
Yes, you can't use the new style with the publish to facebook option. It's mentioned in the details for the publish to facebook option on the /darkroom page.

Regarding you not noticing anything different for the new style, do you maybe use a custom domain? You would need to opt in for the new style on your custom domain separately on yourdomain.com/darkroom . Obviously you have to replace yourdomain.com with your own custom domain address.

[rainforest1155]

My navbar is gone.
I would like to see the spacing between the thumbnails a little tighter.
Last, I'm not crazy about how you change pages on the thumbnails. The faded arrow on the first and last picture, I don't care for. First, it takes away from that thumbnail and if you want to quickly jump to a page, you can't do that anymore.
Overall, a great new design. I can't wait to see it in production and the future improvements you will be making :thumb

1. Yes, customizations are not supported on the new style yet as mentioned in the first post.

3. If you click on the last thumbnail, you'll notice that that brings you to the next page where that thumbnail is the first actual thumbnail. The faded ones are just previews and serve as page turning buttons.
You can still jump pages via the circle buttons below the thumbnails. If you have a gallery with tons of pages, a page picker is shown instead that allows you direct access to any page.

I hope this helps.

[The 48th Ronin]

I'm hoping the navbar will be able to stay. The header is also not shown on gallery pages, I definitely want this on all my pages. Will this be available in the new design?

Thanks,

Brian Carey
http://www.briancareyphotography.com/

[Andy]

I'm hoping the navbar will be able to stay. The header is also not shown on gallery pages, I definitely want this on all my pages. Will this be available in the new design?

Thanks,

Brian Carey
http://www.briancareyphotography.com/

Hi, these questions, and more, are answered in posts 1 and 2 of this thread - we're not showing any customizing right now, just the gallery design :thumb

[W.W. Webster]

I've just discovered, to my regret, that the URL for the loupe view of an image in the 'sneak peek' format is different than the URL in the regular SmugMug format ... this must be a bug, surely ... that's a PITA I'd like to see fixed asap!Is this a known bug, or am I imaging it? This, and any other similar inconsistencies, mean it is not possible to use the sneak peek and my present (customised) look interchangeably.

How would I know if this has or will be fixed so I can confidently use the sneak peek view again? I'm not talking about about a cosmetic issue here, I'm talking about a (not yet acknowledged) bug!

[Andy]

Is this a known bug, or am I imaging it? This, and any other similar inconsistencies, mean it is not possible to use the sneak peek and my present (customised) look interchangeably.

How would I know if this has or will be fixed so I can confidently use the sneak peek view again? I'm not talking about about a cosmetic issue here, I'm talking about a (not yet acknowledged) bug!

What do you mean, "loupe view?" Can you show me a piccie?

[W.W. Webster]

This was later clarified as being known as 'lightbox' view!

[Andy]

The URLs are indeed different, so you'll want to give out URLs from the current system right now, not the ones from the new system. The new urls will open the image on a gallery page, not in lightbox view, for visitors, right now.

[W.W. Webster]

That's what I reported! I take it that there's no plan to 'fix' it?

[Andy]

That's what I reported! I take it that there's no plan to 'fix' it?

Nothing to "fix" right now - they're different in the alpha preview. Stay tuned for more.

[W.W. Webster]

Nothing to "fix" right now - they're different in the alpha preview. Stay tuned for more.:thumb

[Dave_Anderson]

This thread is definitely losing it's interest.

My advice:

SM: Make small incremental upgrades to your site and improve functionality that your user base want's improved --- the scale of upgrade you are proposing in this thread is pure stupidity

Please take a look at the text below, excerpted from the first post in this thread. Re-architecting the whole infrastructure is not something that can be done piecemeal. SM has run up against a wall, the original infrastructure design is not going where it needs to go and it's too hard to customize now. They want to fix all of that and the "small incremental changes" approach that they have employed over the last several years has become a patchwork that needs re-thinking.

We've been furiously working at overhauling SmugMug from the ground up...

...We love our product, and know you do too, so you won't find a drastic shift in direction here. Under the hood, though, there's been a massive amount of work rebuilding everything from infrastructure to design...

... 2. Customizable. We've re-architected the entire way our pages operate so that it's far easier, and more future-proof, for you to customize to your hearts content. Better CSS, better JS, and lots more power....

I can appreciate the magnitude of this task. I work in software, and from 2000-2005 I worked for a company that had to re-architect its enterprise-level procurement software. Same story, the patchwork didn't have any legs left and the only way forward was to re-architect it. We too did everything we could to ease the pain of migrating, but once we reached the other side it all proved to be worthwhile and quite frankly it would have been impossible to get there by making incremental changes.

Same is true in my current job, held since 2005. Only this time, we are re-architecting an entire operating system. Again, we would have never made it here with incremental changes.

[Halfpint]

Please take a look at the text below, excerpted from the first post in this thread. Re-architecting the whole infrastructure is not something that can be done piecemeal. SM has run up against a wall, the original infrastructure design is not going where it needs to go and it's too hard to customize now. They want to fix all of that and the "small incremental changes" approach that they have employed over the last several years has become a patchwork that needs re-thinking.



I can appreciate the magnitude of this task. I work in software, and from 2000-2005 I worked for a company that had to re-architect its enterprise-level procurement software. Same story, the patchwork didn't have any legs left and the only way forward was to re-architect it. We too did everything we could to ease the pain of migrating, but once we reached the other side it all proved to be worthwhile and quite frankly it would have been impossible to get there by making incremental changes.

Same is true in my current job, held since 2005. Only this time, we are re-architecting an entire operating system. Again, we would have never made it here with incremental changes.


Thanks for your feedback Dave. You no doubt have more experience than I do in this sort of thing. However, you kind of misrepresented my original post, did you not!

[Dave_Anderson]

I didn't intend to remove too much context -- I wanted to address your point that you feel SM should make small incremental changes. I apologize for the misunderstanding, as it seems you have subsequently decided to remove your post.

[bryanbrazil]

Just finished modifying/simplifying my site using ideas from the new design...let me know what you think!

www.brazphoto.com

[olli]

Very much like the new look. The simpler the better works for me. I'm looking froward to it.

I haven't read through all 37 pages so my apologies if this has already been asked and answered, but is there any indication of when this will go live?

[Andy]

Very much like the new look. The simpler the better works for me. I'm looking froward to it.

I haven't read through all 37 pages so my apologies if this has already been asked and answered, but is there any indication of when this will go live?

Posts 1 and 2 will be updated when we have news on that :thumb

[rainforest1155]

Hi Olli,

Check the "Finally, let me go over the rollout and migration plan." section from Don's initial post:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=198816
I'm guessing once step 3 is reached, we'd let customers know that they could change their site over. Note that the plan can change at any time and isn't set in stone.

[olli]

Thanks.

[lwarfi]

I've been using the new version so much that I forgot what the old version is like. :lust

I share the concerns about customization. One of my frustrations with Smugmug is wading through long forum threads trying to figure out what you need to do.

Here are some other comments from my usage. (In no order)
1. I'm not a fan of the dots for paging through thumbnails. I thought it was decorative at first! (Yes, I am a PC users and haven't bought any iStuff since an early iPod.)

2. On the size drop down, I would suggest FIT rather than the cryptic SMART.

3. In the alpha version the download link works even if your pricing doesn't allow downloads. (At first I thought I messed up my pricing).

4. I want to +1 the desires for more space for the main image and less for thumbnails with greater separation.

5. The slideshow button is a little lost on the left hand side. I didn't notice it for the longest while. Most of the other functions are upper right. I seems like it belongs there.

6. Under Chrome zoomed to 100%, monitor size 1920 x 1080 the comments section is completely off the screen. I didn't know it was there until I looked at it with IE. (No biggy for me, I don't encourage comments).

7. This is all desktop / laptop centric. Many casual users will be tablet / mobile. What interfaces are we providing for them?

Having managed software development projects for many years, I expected many more problems from "pre-alpha software". I think you will be frustrating users because you still have much work before it will be released.

[Hog Leg]

Not Crazy about the new look. I lost my header and menu in the new gallery. Also, I have just trained my customers to use SmugMug. Now your'e changing it . And the reason is??? I thought the customization feature was to do that with?

[tom_o]

A couple of comments after making the switch full time.

1) The navigation needs to be cleaned up. In a gallery, if I click on my name in the header, next to 'gallery' and 'help', a dropdown appears. Hovering should bring the dropdown, a click should take me home.

2) Setting prices. Good job so far, but this needs work. If I edit prices from within a gallery, I should be able to exit pricing back into that gallery. So far, as I've seen, there's no way to do that. You can only back out as far as the 'manage pricing lists' screen. Seems like a bit of a dead end.

3) Setting the prices has been fairly easy. Applying those changes to a gallery hangs and crashes the site for me. Happened both last night and just now.

Overall, I like the new look.

[tom_o]

Pricelists still hang and crash the site for me. Have cleared browser cache, etc. Boo.

[Andy]

Pricelists still hang and crash the site for me. Have cleared browser cache, etc. Boo.

Tom please write us http://help.smugmug.com we'll assist from the help desk. Be sure to include exactly what browser, version, and what OS you are on thanks.

[tom_o]

Tom please write us http://help.smugmug.com we'll assist from the help desk. Be sure to include exactly what browser, version, and what OS you are on thanks.

Done. Thanks!

[Epicaricacy]

Hi, bene playing with the new look, a couple of quick comments

1 - Important stuff below the photos - hence off screen. The info, download and navigations dots would be better placed above the images. There is certainly room to the left of the buy button for the photo specific icons
1b) - I do like the navigation on the thumbnails.
2 - I was looking for navigation arrows either side of the large image... just a natural reaction to viewing images online nowadays. Perhaps add these?

Overall i like the new design of the gallery pages, but would like to see these couple of changes - or even make them user selectable...