Smugmug: Did user JS just change?

[GeekyGirl]

On our page lucasfamily.smugmug.com, I was using a mix of the random image generator (like at the top of the forum pages) and the thumb enlarge (from bigguyweb's site). The thumb enlarge is now broken. As you mouse over they will enlarge and then shrink back to a smaller size than they started. Also the gallery thumbs at the bottom of our page are now enlarging on mouse over. (Those are supposed to stay the default static size.)

When browsing an album, the thumb enlarging works like it should, so I guess it is only broken on the index page.

I don't speak javascript, so I can't figure out how to fix it. I hope someone can help me out. I appologize in advance if using the javascript and idea from bigguyweb's page is "uncool." I tried to credit him both in the CSS and javascript. I'm learning both, and its actually been really helpful to me to look at other people's code.

Thanks!

[Naums]

Hello,

I successfully installed (with help from Andy and Anton) the Syronex Email Encoding function on my site in Oct last year.

Recently, the "email me" hypertext disappeared from my site's "Contact Me" page. The page should read something like: If you have any questions about my photos, please email me. The "email me" part is now missing. I have not changed anything on the site or any of the code.

Could this be caused by the change in SmugMug's JS? How can I fix this?
Thank you for your assistance.

My site is: naumannphoto.smugmug.com

Mark

[scoodog]

Originally Posted by jfriend

Further if you are going to refer to all javascript customizations as "unsupported hacks" that can break at any time without advance notification, warning and time to plan, then I don't know how any serious professional could think about using this kind of customization because it's a ticking time bomb in their site. If the flexibility to use most javascript customizations goes away because you never know when they will break, then so do some of the signficant advantages of customizing Smugmug.

I agree. I lost trust in smugmug with this move. My JavaScript stops working, and I find out from a family member what my photo site is "broken." Thanks very little, smugmug. I am considering removing all customizations and, if that's the case, just jumping ship to flickr.

[Dalantech]

The small random images that show up here in the Dgrin banner still work, and yet my site's banner is broken due to the recent JS changes. How can I get my banner image script to work again?

[Andy]

Originally Posted by scoodog

I agree. I lost trust in smugmug with this move. My JavaScript stops working, and I find out from a family member what my photo site is "broken." Thanks very little, smugmug. I am considering removing all customizations and, if that's the case, just jumping ship to flickr.

I'm looking at your site right now, what is in need of fixing please

[Andy]

Originally Posted by scoodog

I agree. I lost trust in smugmug with this move. My JavaScript stops working, and I find out from a family member what my photo site is "broken." Thanks very little, smugmug. I am considering removing all customizations and, if that's the case, just jumping ship to flickr.

You'd leave, because we are trying to make things faster and better, and the site more secure.... but were not able to contact all people who had JS in their headers? And that we didn't foresee this? I'm very sorry about and have posted here a mea culpa:

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=759212&postcount=18

and Lee has and update here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=764401#post764401

So, we did announce this, in our Release Notes, but you're posting a week later. You found out from a family member, when? We have tried to stress the importance of keeping up on our release notes, and in the case of another pending change to the way javascript will be handled, it'll be announced here, and in release notes.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Dalantech

The small random images that show up here in the Dgrin banner still work, and yet my site's banner is broken due to the recent JS changes. How can I get my banner image script to work again?

Don't touch your customizing today, we'll get you sorted out.

- Andy

[bigwebguy]

It is obvious that we (I) underestimated a) the variety of hacks that were out there and b) the importance of having many hacks at the top of the page.

I apologize for not doing the proper research before making this change. We do have a test site loaded up with customizations and hacks. Unfortunately it didn't have a hack that required being at the top. It does now.

The purpose of moving scripts to the bottom is to improve page load performance. When a browser hits a script tag in the page it stops doing *everything* else, that includes downloading images and drawing the page. By moving scripts to the bottom we let the browser do all the downloading and drawing first so the page is visually complete by the time the browser starts on the scripts.

We will be moving your existing scripts back to the top, just like it was before this change. We will also be adding a second javascript box for footer javascript so your customization screen will now have two javascript boxes. The first one called 'header javascript' is the current 'javascript' box, just renamed to better show where it will appear on the page. The new 'footer javascript' box will be empty by default and will be loaded at the bottom of the page. If you have stuff in your header javascript box that does not need to execute at the top of the page, it is recommended that you move it to the footer javascript box.

We hope to have this released by the end of the week.

Lee

[Shudderz]

Originally Posted by bigwebguy

We will be moving your existing scripts back to the top, just like it was before this change.

Lee

will this fix the moving filmstrip? I'm afraid my previous post got buried in other posts. I like the filmstrip style, but don't like the thumbs moving. I have had the right code in place, but seems the last few days they have begun moving again.

Thanks!

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Shudderz

will this fix the moving filmstrip? I'm afraid my previous post got buried in other posts. I like the filmstrip style, but don't like the thumbs moving. I have had the right code in place, but seems the last few days they have begun moving again.

Thanks!

Yes indeed.

[flyingdutchie]

Originally Posted by bigwebguy

It is obvious that we (I) underestimated a) the variety of hacks that were out there and b) the importance of having many hacks at the top of the page.

I apologize for not doing the proper research before making this change. We do have a test site loaded up with customizations and hacks. Unfortunately it didn't have a hack that required being at the top. It does now.

The purpose of moving scripts to the bottom is to improve page load performance. When a browser hits a script tag in the page it stops doing *everything* else, that includes downloading images and drawing the page. By moving scripts to the bottom we let the browser do all the downloading and drawing first so the page is visually complete by the time the browser starts on the scripts.

We will be moving your existing scripts back to the top, just like it was before this change. We will also be adding a second javascript box for footer javascript so your customization screen will now have two javascript boxes. The first one called 'header javascript' is the current 'javascript' box, just renamed to better show where it will appear on the page. The new 'footer javascript' box will be empty by default and will be loaded at the bottom of the page. If you have stuff in your header javascript box that does not need to execute at the top of the page, it is recommended that you move it to the footer javascript box.

We hope to have this released by the end of the week.

Lee

This is great!
It is great that you apologize for the extra work that people (and smugmug) had to go through to make their sites work again.

And it is great there will be two options now, so that scripts can be loaded again on the top of the page (and the bottom of the page).

I will seperate my script to take advantage of this: Only put script in the 'header javascript section' that is absolutely necessary to be put there. Put the rest in the 'footer javascript section'.

[Shudderz]

Originally Posted by Andy

Yes indeed.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

[Barb]

Originally Posted by Dalantech

The small random images that show up here in the Dgrin banner still work, and yet my site's banner is broken due to the recent JS changes. How can I get my banner image script to work again?

Hi,

I'm very sorry that your banner is not working! This should be fixed after we make some changes to the site this evening. Can you hang tight until tomorrow? It should all be functioning again as it did before. I would hate to make a bunch of changes now, since it should be working again soon. I apologize for the hassle.

[DrDavid]

Originally Posted by Barb

Hi,

I'm very sorry that your banner is not working! This should be fixed after we make some changes to the site this evening. Can you hang tight until tomorrow? It should all be functioning again as it did before. I would hate to make a bunch of changes now, since it should be working again soon. I apologize for the hassle.

The really sad part about all this is that really needed features (like coupons, packages, discounts, etc..) for Pro users hasn't been added, most likely because the programmers were scrambling to fix something that wasn't really broken. Sure, speed is an issue, and I intend to make use of the footer JS box for most of my hacks that don't require being in the header (so, this is a welcome new feature IMHO).

But, the current workarounds to allow the use of coupons, etc.. need to use Paypal/google checkout IN ADDITION to smugmug's excellent cart--and it's a pain. I don't *want* to do self-fulfillment. Besides, Smug stands to GAIN more revenue from adding additional features to the Pro shopping cart.

Now, maybe coupons will show up tonight too, but, I doubt it -- programmers are human too, and there's only a set amount of time during the day to code.

We had a great security update recently, this new header/footer JS box sounds pretty cool to me (and something I know *I* will make use of to speed up the site where I can, while ALSO allowing more control). But, some of the usability issues need to be addressed too (like coupons, credits, etc..).

Oh, and please, please, please... NO ONE who pays for a service minds the occassional email letting them know about changes in the service. I understand about your anti-spam policy, and I like it... But, an email alerting to a large change (you can do a simple query to grab only users who have something in the JS box) wouldn't be spam, it'd be welcomed communication.

David

[Andy]

Originally Posted by DrDavid

The really sad part about all this is that really needed features (like coupons, packages, discounts, etc..) for Pro users hasn't been added, most likely because the programmers were scrambling to fix something that wasn't really broken.

Nope, sorry, it's not the case.

Sure, speed is an issue, and I intend to make use of the footer JS box for most of my hacks that don't require being in the header (so, this is a welcome new feature IMHO).

But, the current workarounds to allow the use of coupons, etc.. need to use Paypal/google checkout IN ADDITION to smugmug's excellent cart--and it's a pain. I don't *want* to do self-fulfillment. Besides, Smug stands to GAIN more revenue from adding additional features to the Pro shopping cart.

Now, maybe coupons will show up tonight too, but, I doubt it

So do I. But they are on our list and quite important to us

-- programmers are human too, and there's only a set amount of time during the day to code.

We had a great security update recently, this new header/footer JS box sounds pretty cool to me (and something I know *I* will make use of to speed up the site where I can, while ALSO allowing more control). But, some of the usability issues need to be addressed too (like coupons, credits, etc..).

Oh, and please, please, please... NO ONE who pays for a service minds the occassional email letting them know about changes in the service. I understand about your anti-spam policy, and I like it... But, an email alerting to a large change (you can do a simple query to grab only users who have something in the JS box) wouldn't be spam, it'd be welcomed communication.

David

We have release notes, news box, and system messages for this. We'll continue to use them, thanks1

[DrDavid]

Originally Posted by Andy

Nope, sorry, it's not the case.

Alright.. Well, I stand corrected But, seriously. I love Smugmug; I've told tons of people about it. I've blogged about it. I've done videos about it. I'm a big SM fan. But, I just *wish* that coupons, etc.. could be added as a feature for Pros.

I keep hearing about zenfolio; and as I see it they have two big plusses. 1) They allow metallic, and true B&W Kodak prints, and 2) They have a coupon system. Although, up until a few days ago, they didn't have order-proofing (which I think was really dumb). But, they're still, IMHO, no where near as nice as SM to use. SM has the chance to really blow Zenfolio out of the water. Offering coupons would make SM vs. Zenfolio a no brainer.

Oh, one other minor suggestion.. I'd love to see BZT be a standard part of SM; and a gallery option that specifies "Square thumbnails" to have the thumbnails auto-generate as squares would be (I can't imagine) too much work; you already have working code to use.. Just add a small amount of logic to thumbnail normal vs. thumbnail as squares. You guys have got to be using imagemagik to do the thumbnails, so, this should be easy to do.

Anyways, as usual, just my completely un-solicited two-cents.

David

[jfriend]

Originally Posted by Andy

We have release notes, news box, and system messages for this. We'll continue to use them, thanks1

Andy, I think you're missing a point here. If you are making changes that may impact our site (and because of people's customizations, history has shown that almost any change may impact a customized site), you need to tell us about it in a place that nearly all of your customers are going to see. I don't look at my own site or the control panel every day to see system messages. I don't look at the release notes for what's new every day. If that's your only way of notifying me, I won't know about changes in a very timely manner. History has also shown that the release notes are not updated coincident with site changes any way. You're asking me to "poll" for change notifications when you could just send them right to me.

I do check my email multiple times a day (as do most people who do email). If you are making an upgrade to the site, you should let us know in a way that we are most likely to see quickly. I think that means email. Why the resistance to the most effective way to notify us of upcoming changes? It seems foolish. Let people opt-out or opt-in if you're worried about the SPAM perception issue.

[DrDavid]

I personally would WELCOME email alerts. I've even signed up with a few of the dev mailing lists that SM offers.

So, why not add a new mailing list for "release notes"? I'd sign up in a heart-beat!

David

[Erick L]

Originally Posted by Andy

We have release notes, news box, and system messages for this. We'll continue to use them, thanks1

There are messages on my logged-in homepage that I don't care for and can't even get rid of. I think a message saying that sites might not display properly coud've been shown there, as well as via email.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Erick L

There are messages on my logged-in homepage that I don't care for and can't even get rid of. I think a message saying that sites might not display properly coud've been shown there, as well as via email.

Hi Erick, I'm sorry about that! You can't get rid of the news box, because you customized away the "get rid of me" link

You have this:

/* Useless stuff */

.boxTop {display: none;}

Change it to this:

/* Useless stuff */
.boxTop {display: none;}
.loggedIn .boxTop {display: block;}

Do that, and the convenient "hide" button will be visible for you, and so whenever we use a homepage news item, you'll see it, then you can click hide, and it will live in the list of news items in your control panel.