True, but it works fine in preview mode. I did have to add a <center> so the count wouldn't be left justified. Other issues are keeping me from unveiling yet.
Did anyone really believe there wouldn't be teething issues along the way?
Naive IMHO if they did - it's the way of life.
Waiting in anticipation of getting the 'bugs' ironed out
Nor I did expect the volume of bugs and the missing features that have been promise and yet to be deliver.
This is at best an amateurish launch. There should have never being launched with number of obvious bugs and lack of documentation.
The lack of Pro features missing from the release that has been begged for years is insulting after such a big price hike. The problem with Smugmug is not how it looks but how it works. That was not address at all and we are expect to wait another 1 or 2 years in the hope that the features are added. That is insulting.
Too bad that I made the mistake of trusting and staying. I even defended the price increase!
I could care less how "pretty" it looks if there are no pro level functionality.
It is hilarious hearing those saying that thy are amaze how quickly they got their sites up... Hey, you are using pre-fab templates, what did you expect? Custom sites? lol
Nor I did expect the volume of bugs and the missing features that have been promise and yet to be deliver.
This is at best an amateurish launch. There should have never being launched with number of obvious bugs and lack of documentation.
The lack of Pro features missing from the release that has been begged for years is insulting after such a big price hike. The problem with Smugmug is not how it looks but how it works. That was not address at all and we are expect to wait another 1 or 2 years in the hope that the features are added. That is insulting.
Too bad that I made the mistake of trusting and staying. I even defended the price increase!
I could care less how "pretty" it looks if there are no pro level functionality.
It is hilarious hearing those saying that thy are amaze how quickly they got their sites up... Hey, you are using pre-fab templates, what did you expect? Custom sites? lol
Sorry you feel that way David. The new platform allows us to build out more features and fix bugs live time, so I don't think you will need to wait as long as you think for new features.
I also put a lot of effort over the years into customizing my old SM site...... Many thanks to Allen, Denise and others over the years helping to make SM better for the rest of us! I think now you guys might have more time on your hands with the new design!
Our thanks also to Al, Denise, Joe, Nick, and countless others for all your help and assistance over the years.
Having only just watched the launch-fest video (and yes, seriously, was that their Andy Warhol moment - talk about self-petting for some of the speakers), and now going through the video tutorial, I'm now wondering if we're going to get ANOTHER price increase.
There'll be more slideshow options, I'm sure. Anna Lisa, you over-think so many things I don't know how you get through each day (SAID WITH LOVE!)...
That's pretty sanctimonious from someone who left SM's employ some time back and decides to come back to the dgrin forums in support of SM's new 'platform', Andy.
I thought better of you.
Anna Lisa isn't over-thinking anything - they are just stating the damn obvious.
Sorry you feel that way David. The new platform allows us to build out more features and fix bugs live time, so I don't think you will need to wait as long as you think for new features.
I'm Sorry? Fix bugs LIVE Time? You're testing in production now, are you?
OK, having viewed the tutorials and reading the posts here, would most people agree that a simple conditional statement at the front of our admin pages has a tickbox - "Keep Old (Legacy) Until I choose to migrate", be at least a better option, until they allow us JS? Aside from the fact they have not given us any date (yet again) as to when we're forced to move to the so-called "new" plug-n-play version, at least give people the CHOICE. Even better, let people keep their sites the way they are rather than migrating to the same-same look?
My general feeling is most people like the new UI, but the pro's, who try to stand out from the Flickr et. al. crowd, need to create a UX (User Experience), for our CLIENTS, not just a "build GUI" - drag and drop - wow, how innovative - removing JS disallows OUR OWN INNOVATION - in so, so, so many ways.
And if you stuff with my watermarks and RCP, we'll be gone.
Nice attempt at a new site - seriously. But again, strategically, it's flawed IMHO.
OK, having viewed the tutorials and reading the posts here, would most people agree that a simple conditional statement at the front of our admin pages has a tickbox - "Keep Old (Legacy) Until I choose to migrate", be at least a better option, until they allow us JS? Aside from the fact they have not given us any date (yet again) as to when we're forced to move to the so-called "new" plug-n-play version, at least give people the CHOICE. Even better, let people keep their sites the way they are rather than migrating to the same-same look?
My general feeling is most people like the new UI, but the pro's, who try to stand out from the Flickr et. al. crowd, need to create a UX (User Experience), for our CLIENTS, not just a "build GUI" - drag and drop - wow, how innovative - removing JS disallows OUR OWN INNOVATION - in so, so, so many ways.
And if you stuff with my watermarks and RCP, we'll be gone.
Nice attempt at a new site - seriously. But again, strategically, it's flawed IMHO.
You have the option to stay on Legacy right now. We are not forcing you to migrate. Simply keep using Legacy as you used to.
There is no full customisation until JS functionalities are brought back...
Why would Smugmug decide on removing such customisations and still call it easy to customise? Why?
Comments also need to be brought back. Force comments to be approved by owners before being published is to be the default. Why force would-be commentors to log in to FB? Why? I don't trust FB. I wouldn't even bother to log on just to comment.
In my 11 years at SmugMug, I don’t remember a time when there was such a gap between the excitement our employees feel and the concern many of you feel. For this I blame....Baldy.
Honestly, I felt the best thing I could do for everyone was to ship, and make it great. So I immersed myself in hiring, investing in systems, product design, etc. I would occasionally respond to interview requests, like with Fredrick Van and open up as much as I could. But I didn’t really say in one easy-to-find place on dgrin what Don and I had said elsewhere.
And poor Michael Bonocore... He’s a great guy, widely loved and a long-term customer, but we didn’t let him talk about future product releases. Our fault, not his. But credit to him for getting me to post this. That is, if you find it helpful, credit him. If you find it to be corporate blah blah, blame me (and spread a little blame to our lawyers, please, who don’t approve of this message).
In 2011, we showed some markups of "SmugMug's New Design." The post was a big hit and got many customers excited to upgrade. Now in early 2013, many people are wondering where it is.
The feedback we took away from the thread and customers we spoke to was we need more than a pretty face. What about customization (a huge topic), and more powerful, easier organization?
If we were just a template-driven site, we could have been live long ago. But we made the decision many years ago to allow very deep customization, something not many sites do. And the customization capabilities that so many of our customers want makes this a very big challenge, not something we could do by placing a pretty skin over our existing software.
So we made the boldest decision in our 11 years, to pause incremental development (except for back-end infrastructure to give us more uptime and speed) while we focused on a far more ambitious release than we had envisioned when we posted that thread.
It’s so very painful for both you and us to not be releasing incremental improvements, because we know it makes it look to the outside world like nothing is happening. The good and somewhat unfair news is we get to see it every day and get so excited we keep burning the midnight oil. The demos we’ve been able to do under NDA have been key to building an amazing team of designers and engineers, who are buzzing (some of them customers, like Michael).
But... Why don’t you give us a date?! Surely you have one.
We wrestled with this. We have sometimes had success announcing dates in years past, hitting them, and holding a launch party.
We chose not to with this release for several reasons. The primary one is as we take some people and companies under NDA (a few of them here on dgrin) and get them involved in the development, they sometimes have important insight that changes our roadmap. They really value the fact that we would take the time to incorporate their needs. We always ask, “Is this critical for the release or can we do it sometime later?” And when the answer is it’s critical enough to delay, we try to take that seriously.
I know some of you have worked at companies like I perceive Adobe to be where they adhere to a date and ship an update to Photoshop every year or two. And some have worked for companies like Apple (I used to work for Steve Jobs at NeXT) where they have an ambitious goal and sometimes sacrifice the date for the goal. That’s where we are on this project. We missed an internal date, which was hard, but decided the most important thing in this case was to achieve the product goals that evolved into what they are now.
Can you share some screenshots?
Oh how we’d love to. The legal and competitive costs of doing so are just too high, as we learned the multi-million dollar way. For example, some companies constantly patent what they expect us to develop, in hopes that they can beat us to the patent office and then to court. We wish that didn't have such enormous repercussions on our roadmap and costs. But we’ve spent millions on patent lawsuits, money that could have been spent on product development. We understand now why companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google have to operate the same way.
How do you justify raising prices before releasing an updated product that has been promised for a while?
That was my idea and I don’t think an hour has gone by when I haven’t thought of it. My guess is Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, did the same after their price change, which must have been devastating for them to read about in the media. I’m inspired by the success they achieved in the year that followed, but you can bet I know exactly what will happen to your loyalty if we don’t turn our price raise into the improved product we’ve alluded to. I’m just grateful you’ve given us this chance. But I’m also very confident that we’re building the product we could not have built without either raising prices, raising venture capital, or losing our independence.
I call a customer a day and if you want to be one of those, send me a PM and I should be able to get some of you on the list. Otherwise, as I tell everyone who invites me to anything, I’m on lockdown 24x7 working on product.
All the best,
Baldy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ whoALSE => Allen
One form of time travel is thru Captured Moments
There is no full customisation until JS functionalities are brought back...
Why would Smugmug decide on removing such customisations and still call it easy to customise? Why?
Comments also need to be brought back. Force comments to be approved by owners before being published is to be the default. Why force would-be commentors to log in to FB? Why? I don't trust FB. I wouldn't even bother to log on just to comment.
We received lots of feedback about negative & anonymous comments, and had been asked repeatedly to eliminate annonymous comments. I truly am sorry that this is not the solution you are looking for.
We received lots of feedback about negative & anonymous comments, and had been asked repeatedly to eliminate annonymous comments. I truly am sorry that this is not the solution you are looking for.
The comments thing isn't my particular issue, but SM is really bad about making decisions like this that are only good for part of the population. Pretty simple here guys... make anonymous comments or pre-approved comments optional per site (or gallery).
Reminds me of the multi-year fight we had about SM adding keywords based on the filename. The user population seemed to be split over whether they found that useful or a bug. Eventually we got an option so WE could decide whether we wanted SM "helping" us by adding keywords when we uploaded photos or not.
SM needs to get out of the one-size-fits-all approach to responding to feedback/requests, particularly for relatively simple things like this. I realize there will be major items that are too expensive to take this approach, but this isn't one of them.
I've been reading many of these posts over the last couple of days. What most of them say to me is that people are not putting in the time to understand the new system. Yes, it is a new system and it will take you a bit of effort to figure it out. Instead of spending all the time typing out your complaints, dig in.
I spent 4 or 5 hours yesterday and 3 today updating my site and, if I do say so myself, it looks infinitely better than my legacy site. If I had spent 100 hours on the legacy system I could have never accomplished what I did in 8 hours.
Is everything completely and easily understandable, no. Is there enough documentation, no. Does the new system work (mostly) and rock (completely) Yes I say. Did all my galleries convert, yes.
I'm telling you, put in a little effort and you will find that this is a huge improvement.
I've been reading many of these posts over the last couple of days. What most of them say to me is that people are not putting in the time to understand the new system. Yes, it is a new system and it will take you a bit of effort to figure it out. Instead of spending all the time typing out your complaints, dig in.
I spent 4 or 5 hours yesterday and 3 today updating my site and, if I do say so myself, it looks infinitely better than my legacy site. If I had spent 100 hours on the legacy system I could have never accomplished what I did in 8 hours.
Is everything completely and easily understandable, no. Is there enough documentation, no. Does the new system work (mostly) and rock (completely) Yes I say. Did all my galleries convert, yes.
I'm telling you, put in a little effort and you will find that this is a huge improvement.
Yes, I fully agree. Unfortunately its much easier to complain, rant and rave than to actually get in there and work on the new site and figure out how it works. Then if a bug is discovered report it. See How to Report a Bug. In attempting to explain this to people recently I've discovered that would simply rather complain than be more proactive.
The new SM is 1000 times better than the old SM. So for the vast majority of users it is a home run effort and result. But its a new world.
Is it exactly like the Old SM with regards to every whiz bang feature? No. Should it be? No, not necessarily. The new SM functions differently now.
With regards to certain features being removed I think there needs to a separate thread or subforum on feature requests, long lost favorites - bring back my favorite whiz bang XYZ, maybe even voting for some of those cherished items. Its not like SM is somehow now sealed in stone to never change again. Rather they can build upon this new, greatly improved foundation. But because it was a Full Rewrite they did not have time add in every little thing that was there before. And some things will simply be different like the way customization works now.
Let's face it, with millions of customers SM will not have *every* feature desired. But if enough find it really useful then maybe it will get added back in or added for the first time if new.
In the meantime why not enjoy all the other great aspects which the site has to offer?
I've been reading many of these posts over the last couple of days. What most of them say to me is that people are not putting in the time to understand the new system. Yes, it is a new system and it will take you a bit of effort to figure it out. Instead of spending all the time typing out your complaints, dig in.
There's some truth to this. I happened to have a couple of days free, and have spent a lot of time and have my site ready to unveil (not actually sure why I have not yet frankly, just a bit paranoid). It's not nearly as terrible as some make it out.
And parts are a bit arcane, so you must spend some time -- but not NEARLY as much time as the old Smugmug.
I'm also from a development background. I completely understand the philosophy here, including eliminating javascript (and policing HTML, though I wish they had done that better). You can't build a stable platform when people have years of actual code (not just markup) they expect to still work.
But... there's a lot of basic features that didn't make the transition (like anonymous comments -- if it was a problem, give us a checkbox! I think 100% of mine are anonymous from people). And other features that I believe we had a right to expect, like upgraded slide shows, since so many of us already have them with JFriend's.
The excuse that "now it's easier to do those things" is both true, and a lame excuse. It should have been in there. There's been too much "waiting".
All that said -- I applaud Smugmug for taking the "rewrite from the ground up". It is what was required. It was the only way.
And it is a LOT prettier.
But too long waiting, too many bugs, too few new features, much prettier but for a complete rewrite there should have been more substance.
Sorry you feel that way David. The new platform allows us to build out more features and fix bugs live time, so I don't think you will need to wait as long as you think for new features.
Well, you have until May next year when my current Smugmug expires.
What I would like to know is the list of features we can expect implemented in the near future with a estimated time table.
There's some truth to this. I happened to have a couple of days free, and have spent a lot of time and have my site ready to unveil (not actually sure why I have not yet frankly, just a bit paranoid). It's not nearly as terrible as some make it out.
And parts are a bit arcane, so you must spend some time -- but not NEARLY as much time as the old Smugmug.
I'm also from a development background. I completely understand the philosophy here, including eliminating javascript (and policing HTML, though I wish they had done that better). You can't build a stable platform when people have years of actual code (not just markup) they expect to still work.
But... there's a lot of basic features that didn't make the transition (like anonymous comments -- if it was a problem, give us a checkbox! I think 100% of mine are anonymous from people). And other features that I believe we had a right to expect, like upgraded slide shows, since so many of us already have them with JFriend's.
The excuse that "now it's easier to do those things" is both true, and a lame excuse. It should have been in there. There's been too much "waiting".
All that said -- I applaud Smugmug for taking the "rewrite from the ground up". It is what was required. It was the only way.
And it is a LOT prettier.
But too long waiting, too many bugs, too few new features, much prettier but for a complete rewrite there should have been more substance.
If you work in the IT industry then you will also realize that SM's rewrite was one of the most challenging of its kind. The reason for this = massive numbers of customers who have so much of there own code spaghetti twisted throughout their sites. For developers, hackers and the like it was a wonderful thing no other host would even consider offering. So we had all these elaborate customizations to the point that it almost became similar to an open source project with all the various contributors. Unfortunately all that freedom meant a living nightmare when it was time to rearchitect. So now I think some Major lessons learned have occurred as a result. While we still do have great freedom, more than almost any host, certain things have been reigned in. Can anyone say 'Stop the Insanity!'
Will things like the new slideshow evolve and improve over time based on user feedback? I think that's a reasonable assumption or at a the very least something SM will consider. But it's nothing to lose sleep over IMO. Will all the JFriend scripts and umteen other customization scripts, tricks, hacks, etc... continue? I don't see the need as much now. But with certain custom code options still open I think there will be some. They actually left in more custom code options than I was anticipating for this initial roll out.
Sorry you feel that way David. The new platform allows us to build out more features and fix bugs live time, so I don't think you will need to wait as long as you think for new features.
There is no full customisation until JS functionalities are brought back...
Why would Smugmug decide on removing such customisations and still call it easy to customise? Why?
Comments also need to be brought back. Force comments to be approved by owners before being published is to be the default. Why force would-be commentors to log in to FB? Why? I don't trust FB. I wouldn't even bother to log on just to comment.
What they did was overhaul the easy customizer for those who just want a basic, look like everyone elses, website. That is all. Core functions that we have bee asking for years are not there.
In my opinion, they should have not done this release. They just created two kind of Smugmug users: the first class Smugger that is using the new Smugmug and the second class Smugger that will remain in legacy spite having financed with their money the new Smugmug that cannot use.
We, the second class smuggers, have the worst of both world because the new one does not have we wanted nor the old one has what we wanted.
If you work in the IT industry then you will also realize that SM rewrite was one of the most challenging of its kind. The reason for this = massive numbers of customers who have so much of there own code spaghetti twisted throughout their sites. For developers, hackers and the like it was a wonderful thing no other host would even consider offering. So we had all these elaborate customizations to the point that it almost became similar to an open source project with all the various contributors. Unfortunately all that freedom meant a living nightmare when it time to rearchitect. So now I think some Major lessons learned have occurred as a result. While we still do have great freedom, more than almost any host, certain things have been reigned in. Can anyone say 'Stop the Insanity!'
Will things like the new slideshow evolve and improve over time based on user feedback? I think that's a reasonable assumption or at a the very least something SM will consider. But it's nothing to lose sleep over IMO. Will all the JFriend scripts and umteen other customization scripts, tricks, hacks, etc... continue? I don't see the need as much now. But with certain custom code options still open I think there will be some. They actually left in more custom code options than I was anticipating for this initial roll out.
I could careless how "challenging" it was. Your comments are insulting.
We have a new slide show that is less than what we had? Come on, seriously you expect me to accept your explanation... You expect me to throw Smugmug the pity towel? No way. They screwed up in so many level...
We paid for it. We had a price hike in order to financed qualified personal to accomplish this "challenging" upgrade.
What's most pathetic is seeings so many people defending and feeling sorry for Smugmug. This is a company that made some promises to justify a price increase in their price. They raised prices without giving us anything in return, except promises. We, like idiots, accepted their explanations and promises.
Because they could not deliver as fast as most of us expected, they released a half baked, without any documentation or tutorials, and lacking all of the features most of us were expecting.
And you expect me to be "nice" and "kind" to them? Please! The have my money and I have nothing.
What they did was overhaul the easy customizer for those who just want a basic, look like everyone elses, website. That is all. Core functions that we have bee asking for years are not there.
In my opinion, they should have not done this release. They just created two kind of Smugmug users: the first class Smugger that is using the new Smugmug and the second class Smugger that will remain in legacy spite having financed with their money the new Smugmug that cannot use.
We, the second class smuggers, have the worst of both world because the new one does not have we wanted nor the old one has what we wanted.
I think those two are greatly oversimplified and incorrect. Instead I see four major groups of users which I posted in another thread.
There are many things which are known ahead of time with a product change of this magnitude:
1. There will be bugs. Not everything gets caught, especially with so many different use cases and almost endless customizations, custom code, etc...
2. Customization will be a lot different. So old patterns don't work in the new enviroment. That was made clear.
3. The look will be totally different than the old SM.
4. The New SM will not have every feature request that was every mentioned or desired.
5. Certain things will go away in favor of a cleaner design - its more about the pictures, less about every little doodad option/button.
Given these known factors you will have four main groups:
I. People who love the new SM over the older version
II. People who like many aspect of the new SM but still wish for 'other' features
III. People who would love SM if they could figure it out and/or get their issues resolved
IV. People who can't stand the new product and will most likely leave
IMO, the vast majority fall into the first category of which I'm apart. Two and three are next. With far fewer in the last category. Legacy users are a mixed bag for a number of reasons mostly related to still struggling with change. Overall this is a huge success for SM and many more new users will be added, more than ever before. But will some leave? Of course.
For those who plan on sticking around try to excercise a little patience and courtesy when addressing your particular issues. Once resolved you don't want to feel like the back side of a donkey. Of course there will be complaints. That's the nature of customer service during such big events. The heros are working fast and furious to fix newly discovered bugs I'm sure. Other things like design, layout, extra feature requests, etc... will have to wait for another day IMO.
His comment for sure is insulting. From what I have read, a fanboi defending SM. We paid for a sub-quality service.
Huh? I guess anyone who likes the new SM is fanboy which would be the vast majority of users! If that reality somehow bothers you there's not much that can be done about that. When on a rant/rampage/having a fit it's sometimes hard to hear anyone else's opinion which differs from one's own. But the things which we are discussing are simply features which may be improved upon in the future. Certainly nothing worth becoming rude, irate, etc... over. Will attempting to chastise SM or anyone who dares disagree with these rants somehow give you what you want sooner?
Huh? I guess anyone who likes the new SM is fanboy which would be the vast majority of users! If that reality somehow bothers you there's not much that can be done about that. When on a rant/rampage/having a fit it's sometimes hard to hear anyone else's opinion which differs from one's own. But the things which we are discussing are simply features which may be improved upon in the future. Certainly nothing worth becoming rude, irate, etc... over. Will attempting to chastise SM or anyone who dares disagree with these rants somehow give you what you want sooner?
First, I think I like the new Smugmug better than the old. "Think". But I think so.
But that doesn't keep me from being very disappointed that this major rewrite has so many gaping holes. I don't ask that they do javascript -- I get that. But look at the map module -- it's pathetic. "Recent" or "Popular" -- what happened to what we had? Give me one good reason (a la javascript) that it couldn't have been implemented to select "Current gallery, specific gallery, all photos" or some such?
I certainly have not been intending to be rude, but I absolutely feel no reason not to chastise SM. They asked us for YEARS to wait for the new, wonderful features. They gave us a great new look, but they TOOK AWAY more features than they added if you ignore appearance and talk functionality.
IF this had been delivered 2 years ago as "here's the beginning of the brave new Smumug" I'd say "great, what's next". You can't both be VERY late and also under-deliver, and then expect everyone to be happy. At this point I think claims of "we will deliver new functionality real soon" with a certain degree of skepticism.
In the meantime why not enjoy all the other great aspects which the site has to offer?
Mostly because their changes have broken _CORE FUNCTIONALITY_ I spent hundreds of hours building. That core functionality is NOT AVAILABLE in the New Smugmug.
Originally Posted by Baldy [snip]
If we were just a template-driven site, we could have been live long ago. But we made the decision many years ago to allow very deep customization, something not many sites do. And the customization capabilities that so many of our customers want makes this a very big challenge, not something we could do by placing a pretty skin over our existing software.
"Very deep customisation"? Do you even hear yourself? New Smugmug is about REMOVING very deep customisation. Smugmug is now just a template driven site.
Is it your plan to continue to move Smugmug away from customisation and towards just have better templates?
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Nor I did expect the volume of bugs and the missing features that have been promise and yet to be deliver.
This is at best an amateurish launch. There should have never being launched with number of obvious bugs and lack of documentation.
The lack of Pro features missing from the release that has been begged for years is insulting after such a big price hike. The problem with Smugmug is not how it looks but how it works. That was not address at all and we are expect to wait another 1 or 2 years in the hope that the features are added. That is insulting.
Too bad that I made the mistake of trusting and staying. I even defended the price increase!
I could care less how "pretty" it looks if there are no pro level functionality.
It is hilarious hearing those saying that thy are amaze how quickly they got their sites up... Hey, you are using pre-fab templates, what did you expect? Custom sites? lol
Sorry you feel that way David. The new platform allows us to build out more features and fix bugs live time, so I don't think you will need to wait as long as you think for new features.
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I would not be staying if I haven't got so much data with Smugmug. And no, I won't be recommending anyone to sign up.
whoALSE => Allen
One form of time travel is thru Captured Moments
Our thanks also to Al, Denise, Joe, Nick, and countless others for all your help and assistance over the years.
Having only just watched the launch-fest video (and yes, seriously, was that their Andy Warhol moment - talk about self-petting for some of the speakers), and now going through the video tutorial, I'm now wondering if we're going to get ANOTHER price increase.
http://www.despatchesgallery.com
That's pretty sanctimonious from someone who left SM's employ some time back and decides to come back to the dgrin forums in support of SM's new 'platform', Andy.
I thought better of you.
Anna Lisa isn't over-thinking anything - they are just stating the damn obvious.
http://www.despatchesgallery.com
I'm guessing because they killed JS?
http://www.despatchesgallery.com
I'm Sorry? Fix bugs LIVE Time? You're testing in production now, are you?
Oh joy.
http://www.despatchesgallery.com
My general feeling is most people like the new UI, but the pro's, who try to stand out from the Flickr et. al. crowd, need to create a UX (User Experience), for our CLIENTS, not just a "build GUI" - drag and drop - wow, how innovative - removing JS disallows OUR OWN INNOVATION - in so, so, so many ways.
And if you stuff with my watermarks and RCP, we'll be gone.
Nice attempt at a new site - seriously. But again, strategically, it's flawed IMHO.
http://www.despatchesgallery.com
No, I mean we can fix bugs ALOT quicker than in the old SmugMug, which was a much deeper code base that required lots of searching to find the issue.
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You have the option to stay on Legacy right now. We are not forcing you to migrate. Simply keep using Legacy as you used to.
Michael
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Why would Smugmug decide on removing such customisations and still call it easy to customise? Why?
Comments also need to be brought back. Force comments to be approved by owners before being published is to be the default. Why force would-be commentors to log in to FB? Why? I don't trust FB. I wouldn't even bother to log on just to comment.
whoALSE => Allen
One form of time travel is thru Captured Moments
We received lots of feedback about negative & anonymous comments, and had been asked repeatedly to eliminate annonymous comments. I truly am sorry that this is not the solution you are looking for.
Michael
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The comments thing isn't my particular issue, but SM is really bad about making decisions like this that are only good for part of the population. Pretty simple here guys... make anonymous comments or pre-approved comments optional per site (or gallery).
Reminds me of the multi-year fight we had about SM adding keywords based on the filename. The user population seemed to be split over whether they found that useful or a bug. Eventually we got an option so WE could decide whether we wanted SM "helping" us by adding keywords when we uploaded photos or not.
SM needs to get out of the one-size-fits-all approach to responding to feedback/requests, particularly for relatively simple things like this. I realize there will be major items that are too expensive to take this approach, but this isn't one of them.
Jay
Not in this case. There used to be an option on the easy customiser to edit the protection message.
Smugmug blogged only a few months ago about what a good idea it was:
http://news.smugmug.com/2013/03/18/smug-tip-of-the-week-stop-slapping-your-customers/
I do hope it comes back.
Yep… even removed the ability to as in their own words… "Stop Slapping Your Customers".
Now there's a super great improvement approach
I spent 4 or 5 hours yesterday and 3 today updating my site and, if I do say so myself, it looks infinitely better than my legacy site. If I had spent 100 hours on the legacy system I could have never accomplished what I did in 8 hours.
Is everything completely and easily understandable, no. Is there enough documentation, no. Does the new system work (mostly) and rock (completely) Yes I say. Did all my galleries convert, yes.
I'm telling you, put in a little effort and you will find that this is a huge improvement.
www.palermini.com
Yes, I fully agree. Unfortunately its much easier to complain, rant and rave than to actually get in there and work on the new site and figure out how it works. Then if a bug is discovered report it. See How to Report a Bug. In attempting to explain this to people recently I've discovered that would simply rather complain than be more proactive.
The new SM is 1000 times better than the old SM. So for the vast majority of users it is a home run effort and result. But its a new world.
Is it exactly like the Old SM with regards to every whiz bang feature? No. Should it be? No, not necessarily. The new SM functions differently now.
With regards to certain features being removed I think there needs to a separate thread or subforum on feature requests, long lost favorites - bring back my favorite whiz bang XYZ, maybe even voting for some of those cherished items. Its not like SM is somehow now sealed in stone to never change again. Rather they can build upon this new, greatly improved foundation. But because it was a Full Rewrite they did not have time add in every little thing that was there before. And some things will simply be different like the way customization works now.
Let's face it, with millions of customers SM will not have *every* feature desired. But if enough find it really useful then maybe it will get added back in or added for the first time if new.
In the meantime why not enjoy all the other great aspects which the site has to offer?
My Smugmug Gallery
And parts are a bit arcane, so you must spend some time -- but not NEARLY as much time as the old Smugmug.
I'm also from a development background. I completely understand the philosophy here, including eliminating javascript (and policing HTML, though I wish they had done that better). You can't build a stable platform when people have years of actual code (not just markup) they expect to still work.
But... there's a lot of basic features that didn't make the transition (like anonymous comments -- if it was a problem, give us a checkbox! I think 100% of mine are anonymous from people). And other features that I believe we had a right to expect, like upgraded slide shows, since so many of us already have them with JFriend's.
The excuse that "now it's easier to do those things" is both true, and a lame excuse. It should have been in there. There's been too much "waiting".
All that said -- I applaud Smugmug for taking the "rewrite from the ground up". It is what was required. It was the only way.
And it is a LOT prettier.
But too long waiting, too many bugs, too few new features, much prettier but for a complete rewrite there should have been more substance.
Well, you have until May next year when my current Smugmug expires.
What I would like to know is the list of features we can expect implemented in the near future with a estimated time table.
If you work in the IT industry then you will also realize that SM's rewrite was one of the most challenging of its kind. The reason for this = massive numbers of customers who have so much of there own code spaghetti twisted throughout their sites. For developers, hackers and the like it was a wonderful thing no other host would even consider offering. So we had all these elaborate customizations to the point that it almost became similar to an open source project with all the various contributors. Unfortunately all that freedom meant a living nightmare when it was time to rearchitect. So now I think some Major lessons learned have occurred as a result. While we still do have great freedom, more than almost any host, certain things have been reigned in. Can anyone say 'Stop the Insanity!'
Will things like the new slideshow evolve and improve over time based on user feedback? I think that's a reasonable assumption or at a the very least something SM will consider. But it's nothing to lose sleep over IMO. Will all the JFriend scripts and umteen other customization scripts, tricks, hacks, etc... continue? I don't see the need as much now. But with certain custom code options still open I think there will be some. They actually left in more custom code options than I was anticipating for this initial roll out.
My Smugmug Gallery
What they did was overhaul the easy customizer for those who just want a basic, look like everyone elses, website. That is all. Core functions that we have bee asking for years are not there.
In my opinion, they should have not done this release. They just created two kind of Smugmug users: the first class Smugger that is using the new Smugmug and the second class Smugger that will remain in legacy spite having financed with their money the new Smugmug that cannot use.
We, the second class smuggers, have the worst of both world because the new one does not have we wanted nor the old one has what we wanted.
I could careless how "challenging" it was. Your comments are insulting.
We have a new slide show that is less than what we had? Come on, seriously you expect me to accept your explanation... You expect me to throw Smugmug the pity towel? No way. They screwed up in so many level...
We paid for it. We had a price hike in order to financed qualified personal to accomplish this "challenging" upgrade.
What's most pathetic is seeings so many people defending and feeling sorry for Smugmug. This is a company that made some promises to justify a price increase in their price. They raised prices without giving us anything in return, except promises. We, like idiots, accepted their explanations and promises.
Because they could not deliver as fast as most of us expected, they released a half baked, without any documentation or tutorials, and lacking all of the features most of us were expecting.
And you expect me to be "nice" and "kind" to them? Please! The have my money and I have nothing.
I think those two are greatly oversimplified and incorrect. Instead I see four major groups of users which I posted in another thread.
There are many things which are known ahead of time with a product change of this magnitude:
1. There will be bugs. Not everything gets caught, especially with so many different use cases and almost endless customizations, custom code, etc...
2. Customization will be a lot different. So old patterns don't work in the new enviroment. That was made clear.
3. The look will be totally different than the old SM.
4. The New SM will not have every feature request that was every mentioned or desired.
5. Certain things will go away in favor of a cleaner design - its more about the pictures, less about every little doodad option/button.
Given these known factors you will have four main groups:
I. People who love the new SM over the older version
II. People who like many aspect of the new SM but still wish for 'other' features
III. People who would love SM if they could figure it out and/or get their issues resolved
IV. People who can't stand the new product and will most likely leave
IMO, the vast majority fall into the first category of which I'm apart. Two and three are next. With far fewer in the last category. Legacy users are a mixed bag for a number of reasons mostly related to still struggling with change. Overall this is a huge success for SM and many more new users will be added, more than ever before. But will some leave? Of course.
For those who plan on sticking around try to excercise a little patience and courtesy when addressing your particular issues. Once resolved you don't want to feel like the back side of a donkey. Of course there will be complaints. That's the nature of customer service during such big events. The heros are working fast and furious to fix newly discovered bugs I'm sure. Other things like design, layout, extra feature requests, etc... will have to wait for another day IMO.
My Smugmug Gallery
whoALSE => Allen
One form of time travel is thru Captured Moments
Huh? I guess anyone who likes the new SM is fanboy which would be the vast majority of users! If that reality somehow bothers you there's not much that can be done about that. When on a rant/rampage/having a fit it's sometimes hard to hear anyone else's opinion which differs from one's own. But the things which we are discussing are simply features which may be improved upon in the future. Certainly nothing worth becoming rude, irate, etc... over. Will attempting to chastise SM or anyone who dares disagree with these rants somehow give you what you want sooner?
My Smugmug Gallery
First, I think I like the new Smugmug better than the old. "Think". But I think so.
But that doesn't keep me from being very disappointed that this major rewrite has so many gaping holes. I don't ask that they do javascript -- I get that. But look at the map module -- it's pathetic. "Recent" or "Popular" -- what happened to what we had? Give me one good reason (a la javascript) that it couldn't have been implemented to select "Current gallery, specific gallery, all photos" or some such?
I certainly have not been intending to be rude, but I absolutely feel no reason not to chastise SM. They asked us for YEARS to wait for the new, wonderful features. They gave us a great new look, but they TOOK AWAY more features than they added if you ignore appearance and talk functionality.
IF this had been delivered 2 years ago as "here's the beginning of the brave new Smumug" I'd say "great, what's next". You can't both be VERY late and also under-deliver, and then expect everyone to be happy. At this point I think claims of "we will deliver new functionality real soon" with a certain degree of skepticism.
It's a matter of perspective. Personally I feel like I have a lot more than I had before.
Mostly because their changes have broken _CORE FUNCTIONALITY_ I spent hundreds of hours building. That core functionality is NOT AVAILABLE in the New Smugmug.
Now, is that a fair reason to be upset?
Cheers - N
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)
"Very deep customisation"? Do you even hear yourself? New Smugmug is about REMOVING very deep customisation. Smugmug is now just a template driven site.
Is it your plan to continue to move Smugmug away from customisation and towards just have better templates?
Cheers - N
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)