Custom Menu Links (About, etc...) Broken

dereksurfs · August 1, 2013

Hi,

I'll start out with saying that I really love the new SM. So great job guys! But I did find one issue which I'm sure is a bug. I added in a new 'About' next to Home and Browse in the header menu. I published it just like I did all my other changes. Yet it is only visible when I am logged in. Once I log out it goes away. So 'Publish' is not picking up changes to the menu properly right now although it works for other areas. It's like its locked in 'Preview' mode for menu item changes which are visible to the owner only.

Step to reproduce:

Customize Site > Entire Site > Menu > Links > Add > Create a new About with link > Done > Publish

It looks and works great until I log out. Then its gone.

dereksurfs · August 1, 2013

** Update: I figured out a work around for this issue. The About the Photographer page I am referencing is a 'Hidden' page. When the page selection tool allows you to select a page it works only for the user. Unless you enter the URL in manually it will not even show up on the menu unless logged in. To fix this the page selector tool should reference the URL of the page internally. That way its essentially the same thing under the hood and will always show up for *all* users.

Allen · August 1, 2013

dereksurfs wrote: »

... To fix this the page selector tool should reference the URL of the page internally....

What do you mean by "internally".

dereksurfs · August 1, 2013

Allen wrote: »

What do you mean by "internally".

Allen,

When you setup new Menu items it gives you these options:

A. Entering the page URL manually
B. Navigating to the page and selecting it

If you choose option B it will not work. So SM is referencing that page through some other internal identifier than the URL. For hidden pages this mechansim works fine as long as the Owner is logged in. But for anyone else they will not be allowed to see the Menu item or the page it references. That 'internal' reference functions differently which I am recommending change to work the same for consistency sake. Or there needs to a much better description of usage explicity stating that this option of menu creation is only visable to the owner.

HeroOfCanton · August 1, 2013

There is a known issue for menu items not showing up if you point them to an Unlisted gallery, as you've discovered. A bug report has been filed.

dereksurfs · August 1, 2013

HeroOfCanton wrote: »

There is a known issue for menu items not showing up if you point them to an Unlisted gallery, as you've discovered. A bug report has been filed.

Thanks for the follow-up HeroOfCanton. It helps knowing you guys are aware of this and working on it.

Best regards,

nickjk · August 2, 2013

Hopefully this will be something they can fix quickly and easily, because unlisted galleries are THE way I can share photos with some of my family, and it's a shame that upgrading to the new SM has broken something so important to my site!

Cheers,

dereksurfs · August 2, 2013

nickjk wrote: »

Hopefully this will be something they can fix quickly and easily, because unlisted galleries are THE way I can share photos with some of my family, and it's a shame that upgrading to the new SM has broken something so important to my site!

Cheers,

Nick,

You don't have to wait!

Read above again. Just specify the URL in the Menu item instead linking it directly to the page. It works right now like that. Check out my website using it: http://landandseaphoto.smugmug.com/

SmugMeg · August 2, 2013

Hey Derek,

Just to clarify: If the Page is set to be public, instead of unlisted, there's no need to specify the URL; linking to the page itself should work just fine. The current bug is just with unlisted content. Linking it to the page is generally a better option since if you later decide to move the page around in the organizer, the link will still work.

There's not really a reason that you would need to make something like an About page unlisted, since it won't show up anywhere on your site unless you link to it, like via a menu or by putting a Pages block somewhere. After all, it's a page that you want all your visitors to see, not something you want to keep hidden behind the scenes.

Setting it to unlisted will also cause random characters to appear after the link, like: www.mysite.com/About/n-3FG5L
Setting it to public will allow you to have a clean link like: www.mysite.com/About

Hope that helps!

Megan

dereksurfs · August 2, 2013

SmugMeg wrote: »

Hey Derek,

Just to clarify: If the Page is set to be public, instead of unlisted, there's no need to specify the URL; linking to the page itself should work just fine. The current bug is just with unlisted content. Linking it to the page is generally a better option since if you later decide to move the page around in the organizer, the link will still work.

There's not really a reason that you would need to make something like an About page unlisted, since it won't show up anywhere on your site unless you link to it, like via a menu or by putting a Pages block somewhere. After all, it's a page that you want all your visitors to see, not something you want to keep hidden behind the scenes.

Setting it to unlisted will also cause random characters to appear after the link, like: www.mysite.com/About/n-3FG5L
Setting it to public will allow you to have a clean link like: www.mysite.com/About

Hope that helps!

Megan

Yes, I realize this is only the case for unlisted folders. But I prefer that configuration. I tried what you described. However I don't not want pages showing when someone is looking at my site's content, only galleries. That's just the layout I prefer.

In addition while this bug only addresses the Menu use case there are others with hidden folder issues as well. Either way the work around I have works great for now. It doesn't bother me at all if the URL ends with a few random characters.

mbonocore · August 8, 2013

Heya Derek,

We made some changes to the way these scenarios are handled. Unlisted galleries and folders can now show to the visitors if you manually select them. If you use a "From this Folder" option, unlisted galleries will still not show to the logged out user.

Also, anytime your nav bar links are displaying content that is private (therefore not viewable by the logged out user) you will see the word "Private" next to the link...therefore warning you there is something in there your viewers won't see.

Custom Menu Links (About, etc...) Broken

Comments