SmugMug Taxonomy/Hierarchy/Site Structure?

[dgrinjackson]

Hi all,

I was looking for recommendations for setting up the taxonomy or hierarchy that would be the most user friendly approach. I'm a newer user and I've poked around a bit, but haven't seen any suggestions on the forums or help pages, but I noticed there were some different approaches to organization so I'd really like some guidance if you don't mind.

I'd eventually like to add galleries, sub-galleries, guestbooks, pricing pages, etc.

So would it make sense for my highest level to be something like "Galleries", "GuestBook", "Pricing", "Contact Me", etc.. (It looked like I had to setup a "Gallery" for each one of those areas?)

then add high level galleries under my main galleries...like..."Featured Works"...."Professional Projects"..."Personal"...then further sub galleries under that, etc? Is that even possible?

Thanks for the help, suggestions, etc.

Mike

[DavidTO]

Just to be clear, what you're really talking about is categories and subcategories. Galleries are galleries, and only reside in categories, not other galleries.

You could make a category called "Galleries" and then have subcategories in there to handle the different categories you want within Galleries.

The question of whether you do it that way is answered by how many levels deep you need to go. You only get two. So, do you use one for "Galleries", or not is up to how many levels you need to go past that.

[dgrinjackson]

Just to be clear, what you're really talking about is categories and subcategories. Galleries are galleries, and only reside in categories, not other galleries.

You could make a category called "Galleries" and then have subcategories in there to handle the different categories you want within Galleries.

The question of whether you do it that way is answered by how many levels deep you need to go. You only get two. So, do you use one for "Galleries", or not is up to how many levels you need to go past that.

OK, I think I see. So it sounds like I would want to setup my site structure to include "categories" of "Featured Work", "Professional Projects", "Personal Projects"...for example....

....then have sub-categories for the different things I'd like to feature or categorize under each of those...like (under "Professional Projects") I would add the areas of competency that I focus in like "Weddings", "Commercial Buildings", "Residential Buildings", "Professional Portraits", "Family Portraits, etc...

...then I'd create Galleries so that people, for example, that I did a family portrait of would traverse through my site by drilling down through "Professional Projects" to "Family Portraits"...then...their specific Gallery.

Does that about capture the jist of what you were saying?

One last question, if you don't mind...so if I wanted to create a "Pricing" type "page" for peope to navigate to....I would do that as a Gallery that I would associate to some category? Is that how it works? Or, is that something all together different?

Thanks for all the help!!!

Mike

[DavidTO]

OK, I think I see. So it sounds like I would want to setup my site structure to include "categories" of "Featured Work", "Professional Projects", "Personal Projects"...for example....

Are your personal projects going to be public? If private, then you don't necessarily need to apply the same logic, since the public won't be seeing them. If they're just for family, there are other ways of sharing just those galleries. If they're going to be public, then yes.


....then have sub-categories for the different things I'd like to feature or categorize under each of those...like (under "Professional Projects") I would add the areas of competency that I focus in like "Weddings", "Commercial Buildings", "Residential Buildings", "Professional Portraits", "Family Portraits, etc...
Yes, one way to do it.

...then I'd create Galleries so that people, for example, that I did a family portrait of would traverse through my site by drilling down through "Professional Projects" to "Family Portraits"...then...their specific Gallery. Yes, but what that would mean is that you couldn't further categorize Family Portraits. it's a trade-off.

Does that about capture the jist of what you were saying?

One last question, if you don't mind...so if I wanted to create a "Pricing" type "page" for peope to navigate to....I would do that as a Gallery that I would associate to some category? Is that how it works? Or, is that something all together different?

Thanks for all the help!!!

Mike

This is where you can use your navbar to avoid categories altogether. Make a navbar link that says "About" or "Info" or whatever. That will link to a specific HTML only gallery, like this one that I have: http://davidrosenthal.smugmug.com/gallery/2277241, except that yours would have your pricing, or perhaps a link to your pricing page, as well as links to other pages such as referrals, or what your equipment is, or your bio, etc.