SmugMug Feature Requests #3

[southeasternphotography]

First, I love your support. Y'all are super! Now the request:

I am sure all Pro users would want this. Currently, there is no way to satisfy some of the fields needed (almost required) for search engines to make Smugmug galleries easily and completely catorgorized(sp?). If you run one of the programs (free) to see how well search engines can find your pages, there are multiple failures. I understand that if you are a website programmer guru, you might be able to place the correct tags somewhere through the Control panel. I don't understand the language enough to do that...I am a photographer, not a programmer (anymore)!!

It would be really great if Smugmug could create a "fill in the blanks" (with advice or explanations) page with the fields of tags these progams need. This would get more traffic for the galleries AND for Smugmug. And that is the point of Smugmug...to help generate traffic for us and to grab more customers to Smugmug!

I would have no problem if Smugmug added their own tags to my fields automatically to help their main site, too. This may not be easy to do, but it would be a godsend for us! I hope enough others feel the same way. It really is important to the search engines, too.

Thanks ... hope this wasn't too long.
southeasternphotography

[Andy]

Thanks ... hope this wasn't too long.
southeasternphotography
Not at all.

Keywords!

http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/Pros
http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/Pros/AddingKeywordsToMetadata

You control it - you decide. We can help, sure, all of the community. Make a post in Pro Sales Support :deal

[CavalierPhoto]

To add to the "Beef up the stats page..." it would be nice to have the gallery links currently available on the stats page go directly into the gallery stats.

Thanks guys and keep up the great work! :thumb

The upgrade is awesome, but I'd still like to go directly into the "Gallery Stats" for each gallery listed on the www.yourpage.smugmug.com/homepage/stats.mg (where "yourpage" is your own smugmug page) instead of having to click on the gallery listed and then click on "Gallery Tools" to select "Gallery Stats" for each specific gallery.

Wishfully thinking out loud,
Chris V.

[Andy]

The upgrade is awesome, but I'd still like to go directly into the "Gallery Stats" for each gallery listed on the www.yourpage.com/homepage/stats.mg instead of having to click on the gallery listed and then click on "Gallery Tools" to select "Gallery Stats" for each specific gallery.

Wishfully thinking out loud,
Chris V.Thanks!

[Dawn byGrace]

I don't but I may have missed the reply to this earlier post.

psr (http://www.dgrin.com/member.php?u=3627) vbmenu_register("postmenu_477456", true);
Beginner grinner

Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 6


Photo Packages
I just noticed that one of your new competitors (BackPrint) offers photo packages. They do it by putting together several standard print sizes, such as two 4x6, or 1 8x10, 2 5x7, 2 4x6, and 8 wallets for a set wholesale price which can then be marked up. From my perspective as a photographer, now I can easily sell packages of one photograph without my customer having to separately order each individual size. Sure would be nice to have this for team portraits.

Andy like all the others that have seconded and thirded I have to agree. This would be a great added feature to Smugmug. I have so many customers wanting to know if they can get package deals. Please let us know if this is possible or not. We all look forward to you response.

[Andy]

Andy like all the others that have seconded and thirded I have to agree. This would be a great added feature to Smugmug. I have so many customers wanting to know if they can get package deals. Please let us know if this is possible or not. We all look forward to you response.
:wave Hi Dawn, it's surely possible- and we want to have them. It's on the list of things to do, but I don't have a timeframe for you. Sorry I don't have a better answer for you.

Welcome to Dgrin!

[Rhuarc]

Maybe I just amissed a reply on this one, but are there any plans for making so that you can have one image uploaded, and then have it displayed in several galleries? The main reason i can see this being nice is say I go on vacation, I like to have on gallery with all my shots uploaded from taht trip. But then there are 10 sunset shots from the trip I also want to have in a sunset gallery. It would be nice to be able to just put links to those pictures in the sunset gallery so they show up, but don't take up more disk space. It would be the same as if they were being shown on a blog, just a linked image. But if it was done within the gallery structure it would look the exact same as the other shots in that gallery.

[Andy]

Maybe I just amissed a reply on this one, but are there any plans for making so that you can have one image uploaded, and then have it displayed in several galleries? The main reason i can see this being nice is say I go on vacation, I like to have on gallery with all my shots uploaded from taht trip. But then there are 10 sunset shots from the trip I also want to have in a sunset gallery. It would be nice to be able to just put links to those pictures in the sunset gallery so they show up, but don't take up more disk space. It would be the same as if they were being shown on a blog, just a linked image. But if it was done within the gallery structure it would look the exact same as the other shots in that gallery.
Thanks for posting - it's not doable now, other than with keyword galleries.

[Rhuarc]

Thanks for posting - it's not doable now, other than with keyword galleries.

Ok, thanks for the response Andy... Maybe add this one to the list of possiblities? :wink

[xtina]

I would like the email share link to automatically go to the first picture in the gallery instead of to the picture that is featured in the email. I would also like to be able to delete the invitations I no longer want in my control panel. And I want the ability to put links in the email that are clickable.
Thanks

[Andy]

I would like the email share link to automatically go to the first picture in the gallery instead of to the picture that is featured in the email.

To do this, click the share button when you are viewing the first photo in the gallery.

I would also like to be able to delete the invitations I no longer want in my control panel. And I want the ability to put links in the email that are clickable.
Thanksthanks for the FRs! :wave

[Allen]

Add a button next to the cart button named "Wish List". Customers could then
add photos to this with their name, short note and email and the photog
would then know exactly what photos they want.

[evan]

We need a way to upload multiple versions of the same image for different sizes.

We put our logo on our prints, and the logo we put on 8x10s is too small when you print, say, wallets from the same source. Plus, if you crop a 5x7 from an image that was cropped 8x10, you'll cut the logo clean off.

This would also pave the way for disallowing client cropping, which is another feature I'd like to see (a feature I'd like to see removed that is).

I'm sure it would be prohibitively difficult to implement but I'm asking anyway.

[Andy]

We need a way to upload multiple versions of the same image for different sizes.

We put our logo on our prints, and the logo we put on 8x10s is too small when you print, say, wallets from the same source. Plus, if you crop a 5x7 from an image that was cropped 8x10, you'll cut the logo clean off.

This would also pave the way for disallowing client cropping, which is another feature I'd like to see (a feature I'd like to see removed that is).

I'm sure it would be prohibitively difficult to implement but I'm asking anyway.
Hi Evan :wave welcome to Dgrin :D
What's your website, I'd like to have a look. Thanks!

[evan]

http://coonrodphoto.smugmug.com

we're just experimenting with the service currently (on the free trial), but I personally am digging it so far.

[Andy]

http://coonrodphoto.smugmug.com

we're just experimenting with the service currently (on the free trial), but I personally am digging it so far.Unfortunately, your on-photo logo (vs the SmugMug-watermark), will cause a lot of grief, IMO.

* put it too low, it gets chopped due to "bleed/trim"
http://www.smugmug.com/help/bleed-trim

* put it too high/inwards, it detracts from the photo

* the customer may choose to crop it out (and no, we don't have a way to disable cropping, sorry).

Be sure your galleries are on Proof Delay, so you can adjust the crops / replace photos as needed. That's the very best solution, if you need to have your logo printed on the print by the lab. Then, you can apply the logo on the exact size and crop chosen :)

http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/ProofDelayForHappyCustomers
http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/ProofDelaySolveCroppingWoes

[Cindy]

Add a button next to the cart button named "Wish List". Customers could then
add photos to this with their name, short note and email and the photog
would then know exactly what photos they want.

And they could share it with friends and family members telling them what they want for birthdays, Christmas, etc.
And it could work for registries (shower, wedding, baby, etc) and cool stuff like that... to tell people what they're wishing (hoping) they'll buy em.

This would be a GREAT feature :thumb

[spoot]

I would love to be able to create a virtual gallery based on keyword(s). This gallery could sit inside any category --> sub-category structure. This was orginally posted on 11-28-2006.

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=431718&postcount=6

I am new to smugmug and wanted to see if this feature has any legs.

Curtis

[Andy]

I am new to smugmug and wanted to see if this feature has any legs.

CurtisIt does indeed have some legs. I can't say when/if/how it would be implemented, but I know that it's something that we'd like to be able to have.

:wave welcome and thanks for posting!

[evan]

Maybe this already exists and I overlooked it, but is there a feed you can grab to get the featured galleries? I'd like to have featured galleries displayed on my site. IF there isn't a feed like this then there should be.

[Andy]

Maybe this already exists and I overlooked it, but is there a feed you can grab to get the featured galleries? I'd like to have featured galleries displayed on my site. IF there isn't a feed like this then there should be.
Hi, there is not a feed for "featured" galleries, sorry. Thanks for letting us know how important it is to you!

[sskoutas]

I think what I'd like to see added is an easy one. Show the password protected padlock icon in the "bulk settings" screen.

Why? I have 33 galleries. That is going to grow substantially. I password protect many of those galleries, and use "bulk settings" to change that password monthly. It would be really nice to be able to see the padlock icon (or otherwise sort out the protected galleries) so I can apply the new month's bulk settings to the right galleries and be less likely to miss one. It's tough enough with 33 galleries... I can't imagine it with hundreds.

On another related note, is there anyway we could have password management? You know, let you flag galleries as "no password," "current default password," or "custom password?" That way, you could set a default password in one screen and have it filter down to all galleries using that default value, but galleries that have no password would still have open public access, and galleries with custom passwords would be completely unaffected.

OK...I'm off the soap box now.

(last note - I'm a fairly new member, and I love what you folks are doing here. What a wonderful job! Thanks!)

[Andy]

I think what I'd like to see added is an easy one. Show the password protected padlock icon in the "bulk settings" screen.

Why? I have 33 galleries. That is going to grow substantially. I password protect many of those galleries, and use "bulk settings" to change that password monthly. It would be really nice to be able to see the padlock icon (or otherwise sort out the protected galleries) so I can apply the new month's bulk settings to the right galleries and be less likely to miss one. It's tough enough with 33 galleries... I can't imagine it with hundreds.

On another related note, is there anyway we could have password management? You know, let you flag galleries as "no password," "current default password," or "custom password?" That way, you could set a default password in one screen and have it filter down to all galleries using that default value, but galleries that have no password would still have open public access, and galleries with custom passwords would be completely unaffected.

OK...I'm off the soap box now.

(last note - I'm a fairly new member, and I love what you folks are doing here. What a wonderful job! Thanks!)
Thanks, I'll make sure the team sees your suggestions!

[cabbey]

With the new smugmug layouts combining gallery and photo comments into one list, it's really easy for photo comments to go unseen as someone is paging through images. It seems that the comments are sorted first gallery scoped, then image scoped. Could that be reversed? If the per image comments were first on the list, then as you're paging through the images in a gallery with the awesomely fast new navigation arrow keys, then it's more likely that you'll see that there are comments on the image as they change in and out.

[{JT}]

The comments are date scoped actually - latest comment first, regardless of type. But yeah, we could add a sorting option at some time - I will make a note of it.

With the new smugmug layouts combining gallery and photo comments into one list, it's really easy for photo comments to go unseen as someone is paging through images. It seems that the comments are sorted first gallery scoped, then image scoped. Could that be reversed? If the per image comments were first on the list, then as you're paging through the images in a gallery with the awesomely fast new navigation arrow keys, then it's more likely that you'll see that there are comments on the image as they change in and out.

[cabbey]

The comments are date scoped actually - latest comment first, regardless of type.
Ah, that makes more sense, and reduces (but doesn't eliminate) the odds of hitting a situation like we did with DaveV's comment in the dgrin winner's galery.
But yeah, we could add a sorting option at some time - I will make a note of it.
Thanks JT!

[Gary Glass]

I wish it was easier to arrange Featured Galleries. Whenever I load a new gallery I want to put it at the top of my featured galleries, which means I have to take one off and move the other three down. Since I can only make one change at a time this is tedious.

[lokerd]

Can this thread be made into a sticky for "Feature Requests" (like
you have for the main area), so we can either 1) know that a request has
already been requested and/or 2) give our "Amen" to a request.

Like I see Dogwood, back in September, made the suggestion for the
file name to be on the replacement page:

"One idea though-- would it be possible to list the file name
on the replace photo page? There's the thumbnail, but a file name would make it easier to make sure I was replacing that exact photo since sometimes thumbs can look similar. Just a suggestion to improve an already great feature."

This is something that would seem to be really easy...and really important.
But it hasn't been addressed. I know you all have a million things to do and
you all do a great job...but there just seem to be a few things that really
need addressing sooner than the next big update...and I think if you knew
how many people need some of these requests done, it might help to
prioritize some of these requests.

To me, the replace feature (having to
replace one file at a time) and the lack of the file name showing on the
order page are two features that REALLY bite my rear end every time a
customer order comes in, especially on the longer ones. It makes me not want to replace their photos unless I REALLY need to...and that is not the right thing to do. But like I had a wedding order the other day with 700+ prints order!! Fortunately, they were all 4x6s, and I don't do a of special tweaks for. But I have had other LARGER order with hundreds of mixed sizes and I end up really curing the interface of 1) the replace dropping you back at the top of the list (ARGH! CURSE! CURSE! CURSE!) 2) having to replace one at a time, and 3) not seeing the file name on the replace page.

[Andy]

Can this thread be made into a sticky for "Feature Requests" (like
you have for the main area), so we can either 1) know that a request has
already been requested and/or 2) give our "Amen" to a request.
Hi Drew, thanks for posting :) We'll keep them here, in the Features Request thread, which is where our whole company looks and keeps tabs on all the requests from you, our customers.

Like I see Dogwood, back in September, made the suggestion for the
file name to be on the replacement page:

"One idea though-- would it be possible to list the file name
on the replace photo page? There's the thumbnail, but a file name would make it easier to make sure I was replacing that exact photo since sometimes thumbs can look similar. Just a suggestion to improve an already great feature."

This is something that would seem to be really easy...and really important.
But it hasn't been addressed. I know you all have a million things to do and
you all do a great job...but there just seem to be a few things that really
need addressing sooner than the next big update...and I think if you knew
how many people need some of these requests done, it might help to
prioritize some of these requests.
I agree with you (and dogwood) and I'll see what I can do about it :thumb

[Gary Glass]

I wish it was easier to arrange Featured Galleries. Whenever I load a new gallery I want to put it at the top of my featured galleries, which means I have to take one off and move the other three down. Since I can only make one change at a time this is tedious.

Also I'd like to be able to configure how many galleries I want to feature. I might want more than 4.

[Andy]

Also I'd like to be able to configure how many galleries I want to feature. I might want more than 4.
This, we've talked about - and it's not likely to change, sorry. More than four? You could create a 2nd homepage using the 2nd homepage hack, and have as many showing there as you like....

[apiercy]

I would like to be able to send my own "Thank You" e-mail when I customer places an order - or atleast have my logo and company name included in the one that SmugMug sends. I think that sometimes the customer gets confused when they receive the confirmation email from SM and not our company.

[Andy]

I would like to be able to send my own "Thank You" e-mail when I customer places an order - or atleast have my logo and company name included in the one that SmugMug sends. I think that sometimes the customer gets confused when they receive the confirmation email from SM and not our company.
Hi, :wave

You can and should send your own thank-you email. I do it for every order. You can get the email address easily from the pro sales reports in your control panel.

[apiercy]

Hi Andy,

Yes I am currently doing that, but again I think that when the customer receives the first e-mail from SmugMug they are a little confused as to who they have ordered photos from - us or some guy named SmugMug :D. Not really a big deal, I just thought it would be nicer for the origional message to be more customized from the pro.

[Art Scott]

The "Go To Next page" is only at the top left of the galleries....Could there be the same option at the bottom of the pages (left of the gallery) also so when perusing a gallery one doesnot have to go to the top eveytime to "go to the next page"??

This would make the Gallery Perusing experience more enjoyable for all.

[Andy]

The "Go To Next page" is only at the top left of the galleries....Could there be the same option at the bottom of the pages (left of the gallery) also so when perusing a gallery one doesnot have to go to the top eveytime to "go to the next page"??

This would make the Gallery Perusing experience more enjoyable for all.

What viewing style (we have many)? And how about a gallery link :thumb

[Art Scott]

What viewing style (we have many)? And how about a gallery link :thumb

Viewing style...most of my personal galleries are Smugmug.....but the style truly depends on whose galleries the peruser is perusing....for instance I want to peruse YOUR galleries...the viewing style will be whatever your galleries are set to.........

Gallery link....ok....Here is one of MINE (http://www.arthur-scott.com/gallery/1045499#49386289)

[Andy]

Viewing style...most of my personal galleries are Smugmug.....but the style truly depends on whose galleries the peruser is perusing....for instance I want to peruse YOUR galleries...the viewing style will be whatever your galleries are set to.........

Gallery link....ok....Here is one of MINE (http://www.arthur-scott.com/gallery/1045499#49386289)
Yeah there's no bottom page / album nav in SmugMug style.. thanks for the feature request.

[chuckcarroll]

I love the Smugmaps features. So naturally I have some suggestions for it. :):

1. Clustering - when two or more photos are in exactly the same location, or close enough that they appear in the same location at a given zoom level, you can only see one of them by clicking on the marker on the map. Some way of clustering together photos which are too close to each other to appear with distinct markers would be nice.

2. Zooming on large sets of photos - when looking at a set of more than 150 geotagged photos (such as the "all geotagged photos on Smugmug"), only 150 (I presume the most recent) are displayed. This is understandable, due to the speed of Google maps at displaying large numbers of markers (although maybe clustering would help with this, too). However, when you zoom in on an area, only those markers from the original 150 which are within the new map area are still displayed. Instead, it would be nice if Smugmaps displayed the most recent 150 which are within the new map area.

3. On the "around the world" map on a user's page, I'd like to see all photos, not just the most recent 150. (Maybe this is another place where clustering would be helpful.)

4. Maps of individual photos - when looking at an individual geotagged photo, it should be possible to get to a map with a single marker, showing where that photo was taken. (As it is, the only option from a single photo is "map this," which takes you to the Smugmap of the entire gallery, and it's difficult to pick out where the particular photo you were just looking at is.)

5. "Map this" from keyword pages.

Again, I just wanted to say how much I like Smugmaps overall, and I only criticize because I love. :lust

[Andy]

I love the Smugmaps features. So naturally I have some suggestions for it. :):

1. Clustering - when two or more photos are in exactly the same location, or close enough that they appear in the same location at a given zoom level, you can only see one of them by clicking on the marker on the map. Some way of clustering together photos which are too close to each other to appear with distinct markers would be nice.

2. Zooming on large sets of photos - when looking at a set of more than 150 geotagged photos (such as the "all geotagged photos on Smugmug"), only 150 (I presume the most recent) are displayed. This is understandable, due to the speed of Google maps at displaying large numbers of markers (although maybe clustering would help with this, too). However, when you zoom in on an area, only those markers from the original 150 which are within the new map area are still displayed. Instead, it would be nice if Smugmaps displayed the most recent 150 which are within the new map area.

3. On the "around the world" map on a user's page, I'd like to see all photos, not just the most recent 150. (Maybe this is another place where clustering would be helpful.)

4. Maps of individual photos - when looking at an individual geotagged photo, it should be possible to get to a map with a single marker, showing where that photo was taken. (As it is, the only option from a single photo is "map this," which takes you to the Smugmap of the entire gallery, and it's difficult to pick out where the particular photo you were just looking at is.)

5. "Map this" from keyword pages.

Again, I just wanted to say how much I like Smugmaps overall, and I only criticize because I love. :lust

Thanks for the suggestions. I've made sure that our Product Manager has seen this!

[Ryan Armbrust]

Hello,

I am wondering if there is a way to change the smugmug communities. I have a number of them and would like to add my co-branding to them. The only problem is that if you are a member of my community, your gallery looks like my webpage! EVEN IF YOU ARE A GUEST AT THIER WEBSITE AND NOT IN MY COMMUNITY.

I think the communities would be more popular if you could co-brand and not effect other peoples gallery look.

Is there anyway to just add my banner to my communities?


Thanks,
Ryan

[Andy]

Hello,

I am wondering if there is a way to change the smugmug communities. I have a number of them and would like to add my co-branding to them. The only problem is that if you are a member of my community, your gallery looks like my webpage! EVEN IF YOU ARE A GUEST AT THIER WEBSITE AND NOT IN MY COMMUNITY.

I think the communities would be more popular if you could co-brand and not effect other peoples gallery look.

Is there anyway to just add my banner to my communities?


Thanks,
Ryan
Hi Ryan,

I'm sure I've answered this before :D There's only two choices right now: 1) YOUR branding (all of it) or 2) no branding. I'm sorry I still don't have a better answer for you...

[digitalpins]

Hi,

Hopefully I am putting this in the right place for a request or its just something thought was cool and would be neat for smugmug to have. On the site below its really neat how the images kind of glows or lightup on the mouseover and then when you click on an image it opens up. Ok here is the link to the website which I thought was cool.

http://www.upheavaldesign.com/photos/


.

[Zenigata]

I suggest you to add a better video handling (flash player for example), the support for other codecs than MPEG1 (.avi, .wmv and mpeg4 for example) and for bigger files.

Thanks

[jenna16]

Hi,

More homepage layout options, especially for bio section

Actually, I think the best model for multiple layout options is not another company, but in smugmug's gallery pages. It's just the homepage that is so not flexible (themes aside). I see that there are many "hack" laout options for the home page. I have even tried some of them.
http://greenstein.smugmug.com.

I would really like the ability to do a slideshow on the home page without coding myself (and upgrading to pro). I would also, or alternativley like an easier way to resize the bio image...some of this stuff I can figure out myself, or with help, but I have been getting smugmug subscriptions as gifts for my friends having new babies, and it is a bit much for most people. That being said, my friends whom I have converted, have become just as addicted as me to smugmug - and I'm just talking about moms who take photos of their kids and vacations. Once they get how to use smugmug, they LOVE it, but they would never have done it without my complete insistence.

I would also ask that when you are making your feature upgrades you keep in mind that not all your customers are pros...

Thanks,

jenna

[Andy]

Hi,

More homepage layout options, especially for bio section

Actually, I think the best model for multiple layout options is not another company, but in smugmug's gallery pages. It's just the homepage that is so not flexible (themes aside). I see that there are many "hack" laout options for the home page. I have even tried some of them.
http://greenstein.smugmug.com.

I would really like the ability to do a slideshow on the home page without coding myself (and upgrading to pro).
Well, stay tuned, we might just have something for you :D {JT} is working on some cool new slideshow stuff and we hope to have it on the site in the near future :thumb

I would also, or alternativley like an easier way to resize the bio image...some of this stuff I can figure out myself, or with help, but I have been getting smugmug subscriptions as gifts for my friends having new babies, and it is a bit much for most people. cool! and Thanks! http://www.smugmug.com/help/html-help.mg, you can add any image you like to the bio box.

That being said, my friends whom I have converted, have become just as addicted as me to smugmug - and I'm just talking about moms who take photos of their kids and vacations. Once they get how to use smugmug, they LOVE it, but they would never have done it without my complete insistence.

I would also ask that when you are making your feature upgrades you keep in mind that not all your customers are pros...

Thanks,

jennaWe do, indeed. In fact, a lot of stuff lately (and some to come) is not "pro" only :thumb

[Tedology]

Hello all, I'm new here. :)

Please forgive me if this suggestion has been posted. I'll understand if the moderator would like to delete it because of that reason. :)

I'd like to suggest there's a way to moderate any comments BEFORE they're posted.

Perhaps the gallery owner gets an email "<so and so> has made a comment on your gallery and/or photo. Click this link to approve it or click this link to reject it."

Or the email includes a link to the comment with an APPROVE or REJECT button.

Again, my apologies if this has been suggested and I'm beating the proverbial dead horse! :)

[Andy]

Hello all, I'm new here. :)

Please forgive me if this suggestion has been posted. I'll understand if the moderator would like to delete it because of that reason. :)

I'd like to suggest there's a way to moderate any comments BEFORE they're posted.

Perhaps the gallery owner gets an email "<so and so> has made a comment on your gallery and/or photo. Click this link to approve it or click this link to reject it."

Or the email includes a link to the comment with an APPROVE or REJECT button.

Again, my apologies if this has been suggested and I'm beating the proverbial dead horse! :)
Hi Ted :wave

Go to your control panel, comments, and turn notifications and approvals on. Then you'll be all set :thumb

http://www.smugmug.com/help/control-panel
http://www.smugmug.com/help/photo-sharing-comments

I hope this helps!

[Tedology]

Hi Ted :wave

Go to your control panel, comments, and turn notifications and approvals on. Then you'll be all set :thumb

http://www.smugmug.com/help/control-panel
http://www.smugmug.com/help/photo-sharing-comments

I hope this helps!

You're awesome, Andy! That's exactly what I need! :barb

So much to learn. So little time! :noob

[dpope]

Hi,

I am new to SM and proof delay. Today, after uploading edited images to replace the smashed gallery images that were ordered, I encountered a couple of things that could be considered for modification.

At the top of the page with the browse button (for identifying the local replace file), is a thumbnail of the image that will be replaced in the gallery. It would be extremely helpful to include the file name as well. That would eliminate the need to write it down on paper before navigating to that screen, in anticipation of locating the edited file on the local machine.

Also, I found the process of editing and uploading replacement files, one at a time, to be very tedious. It forces the user to remain at the computer and manually initiate the replacement process for each individual image. A bulk upload replacement capability would save the user a lot of time.

Thanks,

David

[Andy]

Hi,

I am new to SM and proof delay. Today, after uploading edited images to replace the smashed gallery images that were ordered, I encountered a couple of things that could be considered for modification.

At the top of the page with the browse button (for identifying the local replace file), is a thumbnail of the image that will be replaced in the gallery. It would be extremely helpful to include the file name as well. That would eliminate the need to write it down on paper before navigating to that screen, in anticipation of locating the edited file on the local machine.

Also, I found the process of editing and uploading replacement files, one at a time, to be very tedious. It forces the user to remain at the computer and manually initiate the replacement process for each individual image. A bulk upload replacement capability would save the user a lot of time.

Thanks,

DavidThanks for the suggestions!

[doublemeat]

I only have two requests, to fix two problems that keep smugmug from being "perfect"--in fact, makes it problematic for my (fairly pedestrian I would think) needs:

Fix the seriously broken keyword system. Before stamps and coffee mugs and all that stuff. It is horribly broken and makes the service almost unusable for me. (RE the "feature" of adding filname elements on import, ignoring tags with numbers in them, inconsistent results when adding quotes and/or commas, etc.)
Increase the maximum non-original image size! 800 pixels is baffling! Are we in 1995? Cameras these days take pictures more than 3 or 4 times that width. (Particularly pro accounts.) I like the feature of automagically watermarking and hiding the originals, while offering full-rez prints. But for the benefit of protecting my work from theft, I have to torture my friends and family--and cripple my prospects for wowing people into buying prints--with max width of 800!? At least give us more options--such as 1280, and 2048. Let your USERS decide what they feel comfortable with as a maximum preview size. (I would choose 2048.) I realize you might feel you could lose some profit, if visitors believe they can get "good enough" prints or wallpaper just by downloading. But if you don't, you'll definitely lose some % of your users above and beyond what you should, and I would wager you'll LOSE MONEY because visitors are unimpressed by the puny pictures that do nothing for a sense of immersion in the scene.
Thank you!
Jim Collier (http://photo.jimcollier.com/)

[Andy]

I only have two requests, to fix two problems that keep smugmug from being "perfect"--in fact, makes it problematic for my (fairly pedestrian I would think) needs:

Fix the seriously broken keyword system. Before stamps and coffee mugs and all that stuff. It is horribly broken and makes the service almost unusable for me. (RE the "feature" of adding filname elements on import, ignoring tags with numbers in them, inconsistent results when adding quotes and/or commas, etc.)
Increase the maximum non-original image size! 800 pixels is baffling! Are we in 1995? Cameras these days take pictures more than 3 or 4 times that width. (Particularly pro accounts.) I like the feature of automagically watermarking and hiding the originals, while offering full-rez prints. But for the benefit of protecting my work from theft, I have to torture my friends and family--and cripple my prospects for wowing people into buying prints--with max width of 800!? At least give us more options--such as 1280, and 2048. Let your USERS decide what they feel comfortable with as a maximum preview size. (I would choose 2048.) I realize you might feel you could lose some profit, if visitors believe they can get "good enough" prints or wallpaper just by downloading. But if you don't, you'll definitely lose some % of your users above and beyond what you should, and I would wager you'll LOSE MONEY because visitors are unimpressed by the puny pictures that do nothing for a sense of immersion in the scene.
Thank you!
Jim Collier (http://photo.jimcollier.com/)
Thank you for posting, Jim :wave

[jfriend]

Here's an idea for OpenID. Now that you have embraced OpenID, I'm thinking that you could become a consumer of OpenID and use it for access control to galleries. In that way, I could set up a gallery and configure it so that family members are allowed right in with no password by telling Smugmug which OpenIDs are allowed in to this gallery.

Since OpenID isn't that popular yet, you could start by making it an option on password protected galleries so Smugmug would check to see if their openID cookie identified them as someone who should get into this gallery and if not, they'd still have the option of entering a password.

You could eventually offer galleries that only had OpenID auth, no password. So, if a viewer tried to open that gallery and hadn't previously done any OpenID authentication (e.g. no OpenID cookie), they are simply prompted for their OpenID login info to identify them and decide whether they should get into this gallery or not.

This would give you access control features without having to implement user logins for non-members (which is one of the things OpenID is designed to do).

[Andy]

Here's an idea for OpenID. Now that you have embraced OpenID, I'm thinking that you could become a consumer of OpenID and use it for access control to galleries. In that way, I could set up a gallery and configure it so that family members are allowed right in with no password by telling Smugmug which OpenIDs are allowed in to this gallery.

Since OpenID isn't that popular yet, you could start by making it an option on password protected galleries so Smugmug would check to see if their openID cookie identified them as someone who should get into this gallery and if not, they'd still have the option of entering a password.

You could eventually offer galleries that only had OpenID auth, no password. So, if a viewer tried to open that gallery and hadn't previously done any OpenID authentication (e.g. no OpenID cookie), they are simply prompted for their OpenID login info to identify them and decide whether they should get into this gallery or not.

This would give you access control features without having to implement user logins for non-members (which is one of the things OpenID is designed to do).Thanks, I made sure the team got this.

[onethumb]

Here's an idea for OpenID. Now that you have embraced OpenID, I'm thinking that you could become a consumer of OpenID and use it for access control to galleries. In that way, I could set up a gallery and configure it so that family members are allowed right in with no password by telling Smugmug which OpenIDs are allowed in to this gallery.

Since OpenID isn't that popular yet, you could start by making it an option on password protected galleries so Smugmug would check to see if their openID cookie identified them as someone who should get into this gallery and if not, they'd still have the option of entering a password.

You could eventually offer galleries that only had OpenID auth, no password. So, if a viewer tried to open that gallery and hadn't previously done any OpenID authentication (e.g. no OpenID cookie), they are simply prompted for their OpenID login info to identify them and decide whether they should get into this gallery or not.

This would give you access control features without having to implement user logins for non-members (which is one of the things OpenID is designed to do).

We've thought about this, discussed it, and are in love with the idea.

Alas, we're prevented by some stupid patent from doing it. I wish it weren't so. :(

Don

[chrisc]

Just want to add myself to the list of folks asking for virtual galleries and keywords working in private galleries.

Keep up the good work!

[jfriend]

We've thought about this, discussed it, and are in love with the idea.

Alas, we're prevented by some stupid patent from doing it. I wish it weren't so. :(

DonSomebody has a patent on "access control for galleries"?

[onethumb]

Somebody has a patent on "access control for galleries"?

Yes, when in conjunction with printing, they do. It's stupid, and exemplifies everything that's wrong with our patent system. It was filed by a law firm, purely to sue people, and doesn't describe a working product or a product that was even intended to even work.

Don

[lokerd]

Is there anyway the file name can be included in the email that is sent to us?

It would be (right now...and several times in the past) VERY helpful.

I realize that is info is in the CP...it is just awkward to HAVE to go to the CP just to find out what has been ordered. For one, in communicating with the client it would be helpful to have it in the email. And also because when you click on the photo to adj the crop and/or replace the photo, you still can't see the file name.

Anyway...just hoping it could be added to the feature request list. :)

Thanks!

Drew

[I Simonius]

http://www.photoworkshop.com/public/bio_intro.html

I really LOVE:lust the look and feel of these Flash portfolios and wish SM couild incorporate such a feature in the pro accounts somehow

I think it looks VERY pro:thumb

[sskoutas]

I've got another easy one, I think. When you are logged in to your site, you see the following Navbar:
Tools: New Gallery | Control Panel | Order Backup | Themes

I'd love to see another one - Customize

It would save clicking Control Panel, scrolling down, finding and then clicking customize

Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I'm doing this dozens of times a day lately, and after a while the eyes get a little crossed and "customize" becomes harder to find in the list.

Thanks for considering it.

[dmc]

I've got another easy one, I think. When you are logged in to your site, you see the following Navbar:
Tools: New Gallery | Control Panel | Order Backup | Themes

I'd love to see another one - Customize

It would save clicking Control Panel, scrolling down, finding and then clicking customize

Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I'm doing this dozens of times a day lately, and after a while the eyes get a little crossed and "customize" becomes harder to find in the list.

Thanks for considering it.
for now, you can bookmark your "customize" link and go right to it that way...

http://yournickname.smugmug.com/homepage/cobrand.mg

[devbobo]

http://www.photoworkshop.com/public/bio_intro.html

I really LOVE:lust the look and feel of these Flash portfolios and wish SM couild incorporate such a feature in the pro accounts somehow

I think it looks VERY pro:thumb

Hi Simon,

If you run an external server...this type of integration is available via the API.

Here's one example (http://hacks.introversion.com.au/SmugSSP/demo.html) of integration with Slideshow Pro.

Cheers,

David

[I Simonius]

Hi Simon,

If you run an external server...this type of integration is available via the API.

Here's one example (http://hacks.introversion.com.au/SmugSSP/demo.html) of integration with Slideshow Pro.

Cheers,

David

Sorry David, don't know what an API is and certainly am unlikely to have an external server

What I am saying is what I would love is for SM to incorporate such a feature

[sskoutas]

my dad used toifor now, you can bookmark your "customize" link and go right to it that way...

http://yournickname.smugmug.com/homepage/cobrand.mg

Like my dad used to tell me, "There's an easy way and a hard way for everything." Now why didn't I think of that. :dunno

[Gary Glass]

my dad used toi

Like my dad used to tell me, "There's an easy way and a hard way for everything." Now why didn't I think of that. :dunno

However, one of my longstanding requests is for a well-organized admin screen (or screens). I find I spend too much time clicking around inside my site looking for ways to do some common admin-only things: Every time I want to arrange photos I have to remember to go to a photo first -- to my mind you'd do this at the gallery level. Every time I want to arrange galleries I have to search for that little link on the home page. Every time I square all my thumbnails I have to hunt around for a way to check whether I missed any, until I finally remember I can go to the bulk arrange photos screen to see them all at once -- but since what I want to do really has nothing to do with arranging photos, it usually takes me a couple of minutes to remember how to find that screen again.

Seems to me a nicely organized admin screen would make life a lot simpler.

[Andy]

I've got another easy one, I think. When you are logged in to your site, you see the following Navbar:
Tools: New Gallery | Control Panel | Order Backup | Themes

I'd love to see another one - Customize

It would save clicking Control Panel, scrolling down, finding and then clicking customize

Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I'm doing this dozens of times a day lately, and after a while the eyes get a little crossed and "customize" becomes harder to find in the list.

Thanks for considering it.You can also use Jorge's EXCELLENT SmugManager :D

http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/SmugMugHacksAndApps

[Andy]

Seems to me a nicely organized admin screen would make life a lot simpler.
Jorge has done it. ^ ^ ^
SmugManager to the resqu0000

[sskoutas]

You can also use Jorge's EXCELLENT SmugManager :D

http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/SmugMugHacksAndApps

Cool Beans, Andy. I'll check it out. Honestly, this site is so big and there's so much stuff just in customization that I haven't found it all, nevermind read it all. Kudos to you all for putting together so much know-how for your membership.

[sskoutas]

You can also use Jorge's EXCELLENT SmugManager :D

http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/SmugMugHacksAndApps

That's the ticket, right there! Excellent tool!

[Foton]

Hi,

Would it be possible to let the user decide on one single picture that will become the thumbnail for that gallery, even if the gallery is password protected?

Since most of my galleries are passwored it looks a bit dull on my front page with all those "Protected galleries"-icons. I can see the advantage of letting users know which galleries they can access without a password, but it still would be nice to let the site owner chose one static pic to be the thumbnail if they wanted to.

Thanks.

[ivar]

Hi,

Would it be possible to let the user decide on one single picture that will become the thumbnail for that gallery, even if the gallery is password protected?

Since most of my galleries are passwored it looks a bit dull on my front page with all those "Protected galleries"-icons. I can see the advantage of letting users know which galleries they can access without a password, but it still would be nice to let the site owner chose one static pic to be the thumbnail if they wanted to.

Thanks.Hi Foton, and welcome to dgrin :wave

That's actually already possible! Go to the photo that you wish to use as gallery thumbnail, and look in the 'photo tools' menu. Click on 'feature photo (http://www.smugmug.com/help/photo-website)' and that's it :thumb

[Andy]

Hi,

Would it be possible to let the user decide on one single picture that will become the thumbnail for that gallery, even if the gallery is password protected?
Hi Foton, and :wave welcome :) Just use "feature photo" (in the photo tools menu underneath the photo) and then you'll have that photo as the representative thumbnail.

I hope this helps!

[ivar]

:lol3 talk about a warm welcome

[Andy]

:lol3 talk about a warm welcome
hhaha 3 of us to the rescue!!!!!!!

[Gary Glass]

Jorge has done it. ^ ^ ^
SmugManager to the resqu0000

SmugManager is a nice piece of work, but note that it doesn't do any of the things I mentioned (or if it does I don't see it):

Every time I want to arrange photos I have to remember to go to a photo first -- to my mind you'd do this at the gallery level.
Every time I want to arrange galleries I have to search for that little link on the home page.
Every time I square all my thumbnails I have to hunt around for a way to check whether I missed any, until I finally remember I can go to the bulk arrange photos screen to see them all at once -- but since what I want to do really has nothing to do with arranging photos, it usually takes me a couple of minutes to remember how to find that screen again.


Those are just a few of the obvious things I'd like to see on a well-organized admin screen. Also: bulk zoom thumbnails. Arrange featured galleries (drag & drop would be sweet).

(Another argument for doing this is to separate editing / management from presentation. What I mean is when I'm working on my site I paste some code into customizations, update, then want to check if I got what I wanted. I can't really do that unless I first log out or switch to a different browser. So when I'm trying to get everything looking the same in FF and IE this is really an aggravation, because I'm logging into FF to tweak stuff for IE, then logging out of FF and into IE to tweak stuff for FF, etc. But if I could login without changing the appearance of my site, that'd be a huge time saver.)

[Andy]

SmugManager is a nice piece of work, but note that it doesn't do any of the things I mentioned (or if it does I don't see it):

Every time I want to arrange photos I have to remember to go to a photo first -- to my mind you'd do this at the gallery level.
Every time I want to arrange galleries I have to search for that little link on the home page.
Every time I square all my thumbnails I have to hunt around for a way to check whether I missed any, until I finally remember I can go to the bulk arrange photos screen to see them all at once -- but since what I want to do really has nothing to do with arranging photos, it usually takes me a couple of minutes to remember how to find that screen again.


Those are just a few of the obvious things I'd like to see on a well-organized admin screen. Also: bulk zoom thumbnails. Arrange featured galleries (drag & drop would be sweet).

(Another argument for doing this is to separate editing / management from presentation. What I mean is when I'm working on my site I paste some code into customizations, update, then want to check if I got what I wanted. I can't really do that unless I first log out or switch to a different browser. So when I'm trying to get everything looking the same in FF and IE this is really an aggravation, because I'm logging into FF to tweak stuff for IE, then logging out of FF and into IE to tweak stuff for FF, etc. But if I could login without changing the appearance of my site, that'd be a huge time saver.)Thanks Gary - appreciate the further explanation. It's entirely possible that I was thinking wrong!

[lokerd]

I can't really do that unless I first log out or switch to a different browser. So when I'm trying to get everything looking the same in FF and IE this is really an aggravation, because I'm logging into FF to tweak stuff for IE, then logging out of FF and into IE to tweak stuff for FF, etc. But if I could login without changing the appearance of my site, that'd be a huge time saver.)
Simple...buy another computer. Come on now...you know were looking for a reason to buy a new one. Seriously though. I do use three or more different computers in front of me, home and at work. At work, I can literally access all three mouses with in 3' of each other, and all 5 screens (one computer has 3 monitors) are with in 4 ft of each other. At home, I will have up to 4 computers in front of me...two desktops, two laptops, two Macs, two PCs.

And they are all doing different things.

Just a thought. :)

Drew

[Foton]

Hi Foton, and welcome to dgrin :wave

That's actually already possible! Go to the photo that you wish to use as gallery thumbnail, and look in the 'photo tools' menu. Click on 'feature photo (http://www.smugmug.com/help/photo-website)' and that's it :thumb

Oh now I feel dumb for not looking for the feature before asking here. But I'm happy this is possible.

Thanks for the quick response from both of you! :clap

[jenna16]

Thanks Gary - appreciate the further explanation. It's entirely possible that I was thinking wrong!

I completely agree about the one admin screen. I'm used to the interface now, but it is not so intuitive. A lot of the items in the photo dropdown are really gallery changes. bulk arrange, etc. Also, didn't there used to be a way to arrange the featured galleries all at once? Now it seems you have to go to each gallery and hope you're rearranging the right way. It would be nice to see them all at one time, just like you can the individual photos in a gallery.

One more thing - do you have a snapfish converter? I was trying to convert my cousin (verbally) and she said that all her photos are already up on snapfish. Which converters are available, and how hard are they to use?

Jenna

[Andy]

One more thing - do you have a snapfish converter? I was trying to convert my cousin (verbally) and she said that all her photos are already up on snapfish. Which converters are available, and how hard are they to use?

Jenna

In the hacks forum, I'm aware of:

SmuggLr - Flickr to SmugMug
base2smug - pbase to SmugMug

I haven't seen a Snapfish converter, I'm sorry.

[dmc]

... A lot of the items in the photo dropdown are really gallery changes. bulk arrange, etc. ...
Jenna

I detailed this request a while back here
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=343774#post343774

[Andy]

I detailed this request a while back here
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=343774#post343774
You both will have to duke it out with {JT} :D

[Gary Glass]

I detailed this request a while back here
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=343774#post343774

I'm in complete agreement with DMC. I also only use journal galleries, and I find setting one up tedious. I'm sure there are a number of UI improvements that could be made to streamline the SM user's workflow.

[dmc]

I'm in complete agreement with DMC. I also only use journal galleries, and I find setting one up tedious. I'm sure there are a number of UI improvements that could be made to streamline the SM user's workflow.
in the mean time, use this code from devbobo... it puts a photo tools menu under each pic while in journal style... (while logged in of course) ... makes getting to the tools a little easier...

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=413337#post413337

looks like this

[ronburk]

Probably not a practical request anytime soon, but...

After my first few hours whacking away at customization, I can see what the problem is. Smugmug is (quite sensibly) an HTML hoster that has prescribed customization grafted onto it in the obvious way. This works great when you just want to tweak a few colors or fonts and not have to become some kind of HTML expert. Alas, I'm on the opposite end of the geek spectrum from the principal target customer -- I want to just plop down my own raw HTML and have bits of Smugmug content inserted where and when I direct.

This is kind of the inverse of the current customization system. The same thing crops up when using XSLT to generate HTML. People typically start by trying to supply an overall HTML framework with little bits and pieces that can be customized by the XSLT transformation. But as the number of desired tweaks rises, complexity gets out of hand. At that point, it becomes much cleaner to just say "OK, smarty pants, you give me your HTML template that tells me whether and when you want my wonderful generated code inserted on your behalf."

Lessee, trying to make this sound more like a request...

It would be nice (for me, anyway!) if nickname.smugmug.com/gallery/<id>/html.html was a POSTable URL that I could store my own HTML in, which would then be used to generate the HTML code for viewing that gallery. This assumes (with pie-in-the-sky alacrity) that much current functionality (e.g., GenerateMeThatDangFooter()) is abstracted as callable JavaScript functions and modular CSS that I can include via standard .js and .css files on smugmug.com).

I know... I'll go back to flailing away now :-).

[Gary Glass]

in the mean time, use this code from devbobo... it puts a photo tools menu under each pic while in journal style... (while logged in of course) ... makes getting to the tools a little easier...

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=413337#post413337

looks like this

Thanks, DMC. That'll save me some clicks.

[dpope]

I would like to see the image filenames included in the order e-mails we receive. Are suggestions like this relatively easy to program, and if so, how often are desired suggestions typically integrated into the site?

Is there a batch process for image replacement in the works?

Thanks,

David

[Jason Dunn]

I'm really liking the January updates to Smugmug - the fact that everything is so much faster (image viewing) and there's no complete page reload is just great. I also noticed that at some point along the way it became possible for me to re-order my galleries on the home page, which is awesome and in fact the lack of said feature was the sole thing keeping me from uploading many of my older photo shoots. Well done Smugmug! :clap

But...(hey, this is the feedback thread after all)

I can't help but think that some aspects of Smugmug's default image resolutions are stuck in 2003. Monitors have gotten bigger, resolutions higher, and with every upgrade my Smugmug photo page (photos.jasondunn.com) gets smaller and smaller.

Two specifics requests:

1) Allow us to specifiy a bigger default gallery photo size. The current photos size, 67px x 100px, is ridiculously small. Many people in the world are visual (like many photographers for instance) and when they hit a gallery home page they look at the images they see, not the titles of the galleries. Let us have bigger gallery images representing our work! If our templates can support it, why not 150px x 200px or something similar? If the home page with the galleries is the portal to our world of photography, why is everything so teeny-tiny? I've asked for this in the past, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to see it...and I can't think of a single reason why it couldn't be implemented.

2) Bigger size "Large" images. 800px by 536px is a good size on my tiny 10.6" screen laptop, but on my 24" LCD monitors? No way - it's just not large enough. I've seen this mentioned in the forums, that Smugmug is considering adding an "XL" size. I say go for it! But I think the XL size should be a good bump up, not just 20% bigger. I don't know what the magical number is, but I'd guess somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1200px wide.

And one last, slightly vague request: I still feel like things are a bit too hard to do on Smugmug. Too many steps, too many clicks, too much head-scratching, not enough optimization. If business is going well enough, please consider hiring someone who specializes in Web workflow stuff to take a hard look at the way Smugmug does things with regards to album creation/uploading - I know it can be made better!

Keep up the great work! :D

[Andy]

I'm really liking the January updates to Smugmug - the fact that everything is so much faster (image viewing) and there's no complete page reload is just great. I also noticed that at some point along the way it became possible for me to re-order my galleries on the home page, which is awesome and in fact the lack of said feature was the sole thing keeping me from uploading many of my older photo shoots. Well done Smugmug! :clap

But...(hey, this is the feedback thread after all)

I can't help but think that some aspects of Smugmug's default image resolutions are stuck in 2003. Monitors have gotten bigger, resolutions higher, and with every upgrade my Smugmug photo page (photos.jasondunn.com) gets smaller and smaller.

Two specifics requests:

1) Allow us to specifiy a bigger default gallery photo size. The current photos size, 67px x 100px, is ridiculously small. Many people in the world are visual (like many photographers for instance) and when they hit a gallery home page they look at the images they see, not the titles of the galleries. Let us have bigger gallery images representing our work! If our templates can support it, why not 150px x 200px or something similar? If the home page with the galleries is the portal to our world of photography, why is everything so teeny-tiny? I've asked for this in the past, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to see it...and I can't think of a single reason why it couldn't be implemented.

2) Bigger size "Large" images. 800px by 536px is a good size on my tiny 10.6" screen laptop, but on my 24" LCD monitors? No way - it's just not large enough. I've seen this mentioned in the forums, that Smugmug is considering adding an "XL" size. I say go for it! But I think the XL size should be a good bump up, not just 20% bigger. I don't know what the magical number is, but I'd guess somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1200px wide.

:wave please have a look at these two very important threads. I think we are on the same wavelength as you :D
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=32241
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=54157


And one last, slightly vague request: I still feel like things are a bit too hard to do on Smugmug. Too many steps, too many clicks, too much head-scratching, not enough optimization. If business is going well enough, please consider hiring someone who specializes in Web workflow stuff to take a hard look at the way Smugmug does things with regards to album creation/uploading - I know it can be made better!

Keep up the great work! :D

We'd love to improve things, if possible - what would greatly help here is to turn this vague requeset into gory, specific details. Thanks!

[{JT}]

Rob, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I completely understand what you would like to see happen - but must say that it probably never will.

A lot of our features require us to have complete control over the HTML on the page: to rearrange the order of things, to swap other things out, etc. I understand we could still do this with XSLT - but it would only complicate things on our end and require more testing to make small changes happen.

I won't say never happen, because nothing is impossible. But we have much more on our plate to think about; including making customizing easier for pros .

Thanks again for your thoughts, if you have anything to add - I am all ears.

JT


Probably not a practical request anytime soon, but...

After my first few hours whacking away at customization, I can see what the problem is. Smugmug is (quite sensibly) an HTML hoster that has prescribed customization grafted onto it in the obvious way. This works great when you just want to tweak a few colors or fonts and not have to become some kind of HTML expert. Alas, I'm on the opposite end of the geek spectrum from the principal target customer -- I want to just plop down my own raw HTML and have bits of Smugmug content inserted where and when I direct.

This is kind of the inverse of the current customization system. The same thing crops up when using XSLT to generate HTML. People typically start by trying to supply an overall HTML framework with little bits and pieces that can be customized by the XSLT transformation. But as the number of desired tweaks rises, complexity gets out of hand. At that point, it becomes much cleaner to just say "OK, smarty pants, you give me your HTML template that tells me whether and when you want my wonderful generated code inserted on your behalf."

Lessee, trying to make this sound more like a request...

It would be nice (for me, anyway!) if nickname.smugmug.com/gallery/<id>/html.html was a POSTable URL that I could store my own HTML in, which would then be used to generate the HTML code for viewing that gallery. This assumes (with pie-in-the-sky alacrity) that much current functionality (e.g., GenerateMeThatDangFooter()) is abstracted as callable JavaScript functions and modular CSS that I can include via standard .js and .css files on smugmug.com).

I know... I'll go back to flailing away now :-).

[ashsimmonds]

here's a post i made in another thread ---> http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=515322

you know the page where you can update a bunch of keywords or delete a bunch of pics.... make it so that you can select a bunch of pics like that, and then choose from a list the kind of code you would like outputted for that selection.

eg. i just uploaded 131 photos of Lamborghinis (http://gallery.aussieexotics.com/gallery/2621987), but i only want to show 32 of them (http://gallery.aussieexotics.com/keyword/bullrun20070325-wallpaper) on a blog page or forum. i'd like to select them all, and have SmugMug output the required code for me to copy/paste into my selected style - be it small images in HTML format with link to the original image file for my blog or medium images with links to the large images within the gallery for posting on forums.....

[denisegoldberg]

I'm using a 4-across display of categories / galleries. I wanted to change it to 3-across and at the same time change the photo shown from tiny to thumb.

Changing to 3-across is easy, but changing the photo from tiny to thumb wasn't possible. Andy answered my query with this: 5 or less, you will get 150px Th Thumbs. 6 or more, you will get 100px Ti Thumbs.
I'd love to see an option added so that I can specify whether to use tiny or thumbs - regardless of the number of categories or galleries.

In case it's of any use, here's a link to the original conversation: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=57372

--- Denise

[ronburk]

> if you have anything to add - I am all ears.

How about just letting folks replace the home page with their own raw HTML, and letting folks upload additional HTML pages to be stored at URLs of their choosing? It's pretty easy to mimic the color scheme and layout of SmugMug-generated pages enough to blend in well. That leaves SmugMug-coded pages to do what they do best, and lets folks do things those pages were never intended to do without tying themselves into knots fighting the system.

This would make it much easier to create arbitrarily complex organizations of gallerys.

For example, someone could create an HTML home page containing a graphic image of their family tree. Each name box in the genealogical tree could be a hot link to a separately uploaded HTML page that contains lots of detail about that person -- and lists all the galleries containing photos of that person (or links to galleries using the appropriate keyword filters to only show images of that relative, or... whatever you can think of).

This would also open up some creativity for folks who can't code HTML, but can run one of the popular web page authoring tools. It also opens up creativity for designers -- instead of just designing themes, they can design organizational structures as well.

That might also open some partnering opportunities with ISVs. For example, if I already sell genealogy or scrapbooking software that generates web pages, and I can easily make it generate web pages that use SmugMug gallery photos and plug into SmugMug gallery structure, then that's an additional selling point for my software and a few more customers going to check out SmugMug. (E.g., "Go to me.smugmug.com to view our cool family scrapbook -- and at any point you can click on a link that lets you order suitable-for-framing originals of the photos I used in creating the virtual scrapbook.").

All for the price of adding a feature that's essentially just a file copy -- and you already have a file copy service in place! :-)

Of course, people can do this now by hosting the HTML themselves and cross-linking, but that loses SmugMug some branding (you don't send people to SmugMug to look at your SmugMug galleries in that case, you send them to your own pages), and leaves some irritating and unsolvable navigational glitches (hitting the UP button on your Google toolbar doesn't take your visitors back to the original "home page" they came in on).

You already allow enough unbridled JavaScript that I can't see that this adds additional security concerns. It could be some extra work to enforce co-branding on the uploaded pages, but might not be worth the trouble -- the pages either will eventually make use of SmugMug-generated gallery pages, or else the author went to the extra work of using SmugMug for no good reason (and the pages all feature the smugmug.com name in every URL). Probably just saying "You have to have this text w/hotlink visible on every page." would be good enough 90% of the time.

[Andy]

I would LOVE a way to BULK change the gallery categories and subcategories.

I recently changed all my categories per year. It took me all night, because I had to go in one by one and change each category for each gallery. Very time consuming.

If we had a bulk tool, it could be literally done in minutes. Am I missing something because I'm pretty sure there isn't one?

My friend at beaverhausen.smugmug.com also recently changed his category and subcategory settings. He has put on his homepage a note about it (he shouldn't have to do this):

Welcome to the home of my 40,000+ photographs I've taken over the past 4 years. I recently recategorized this site. I am now placing all galleries which I have done for an assignment in the "Professional" category. All others will go under "Personal Work". I still have to move the 220+ Louisvillemojo.com (http://www.louisvillemojo.com/) galleries underneath the appropriate subcategories. These represent a large group of what I've worked on for the past 2 1/2 years. Note: there are some Louisvillemojo.com galleries under some of the other categories as well.

Making sure you know that SmugBrowser and Firefox are really great for this.

http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/SmugMugHacksAndApps

[Andy]

Is there an easy way to avoid uploading duplicate photos into a gallery?

For instance, if I have 100 photos in a gallery and want to add some more, but I'm not sure what photos are there?

Can smugmug check and compare file names before upload and/or only upload those that have changed or are new?

Perhaps this should be a feature request if it is not currently available.Starexplorer www.starexplorer.com will do this function btw...

[{JT}]

Currently, storing a HTML page on our site would be impossible. Customers don't really have a physical directory stored on our server with their pictures inside of it, everything is handled by a database. So mimicking a file/folder would require a lot of backend changes.

Plus, this route would complicate the customization process rather than simplify it. (I have learned that more options does not always make things easier to do). One pros sees your excellent site and now they want it - but don't have the slightest clue about HTML or how to write it (they are a photographer first and foremost, why should they?). They expect example code, 24x7 support, Andy's home phone number, etc.

I will keep it in mind for possible future enhancements, but we have a lot more things that we want to do before then (like customization wizards) :)

It sounds like you are talented enough though that you may be interested in using our API to create a totally customized site; serialized PHP makes it very easy to do:
http://smugmug.jot.com/API

If you have more suggestions, please keep them coming!
JT

> if you have anything to add - I am all ears.

How about just letting folks replace the home page with their own raw HTML, and letting folks upload additional HTML pages to be stored at URLs of their choosing? It's pretty easy to mimic the color scheme and layout of SmugMug-generated pages enough to blend in well. That leaves SmugMug-coded pages to do what they do best, and lets folks do things those pages were never intended to do without tying themselves into knots fighting the system.

This would make it much easier to create arbitrarily complex organizations of gallerys.

For example, someone could create an HTML home page containing a graphic image of their family tree. Each name box in the genealogical tree could be a hot link to a separately uploaded HTML page that contains lots of detail about that person -- and lists all the galleries containing photos of that person (or links to galleries using the appropriate keyword filters to only show images of that relative, or... whatever you can think of).

This would also open up some creativity for folks who can't code HTML, but can run one of the popular web page authoring tools. It also opens up creativity for designers -- instead of just designing themes, they can design organizational structures as well.

That might also open some partnering opportunities with ISVs. For example, if I already sell genealogy or scrapbooking software that generates web pages, and I can easily make it generate web pages that use SmugMug gallery photos and plug into SmugMug gallery structure, then that's an additional selling point for my software and a few more customers going to check out SmugMug. (E.g., "Go to me.smugmug.com to view our cool family scrapbook -- and at any point you can click on a link that lets you order suitable-for-framing originals of the photos I used in creating the virtual scrapbook.").

All for the price of adding a feature that's essentially just a file copy -- and you already have a file copy service in place! :-)

Of course, people can do this now by hosting the HTML themselves and cross-linking, but that loses SmugMug some branding (you don't send people to SmugMug to look at your SmugMug galleries in that case, you send them to your own pages), and leaves some irritating and unsolvable navigational glitches (hitting the UP button on your Google toolbar doesn't take your visitors back to the original "home page" they came in on).

You already allow enough unbridled JavaScript that I can't see that this adds additional security concerns. It could be some extra work to enforce co-branding on the uploaded pages, but might not be worth the trouble -- the pages either will eventually make use of SmugMug-generated gallery pages, or else the author went to the extra work of using SmugMug for no good reason (and the pages all feature the smugmug.com name in every URL). Probably just saying "You have to have this text w/hotlink visible on every page." would be good enough 90% of the time.

[Andy]

http://www.photoworkshop.com/public/bio_intro.html

I really LOVE:lust the look and feel of these Flash portfolios and wish SM couild incorporate such a feature in the pro accounts somehow

I think it looks VERY pro:thumb
Simon, you showed us this 2x - we know you like it :thumb

It's probably do-able via customization - make a post in the customizing forum when you are ready :D