SmugMug Feature Requests #6

AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
edited March 13, 2006 in SmugMug Support
Please put your feature requests in this thread.

Occasionally we will move a thread, or posts from a thread, to here, for the sake of having everything in one place. Thanks in advance for your input and telling us like it is!

Here's the prior feature request thread

Thanks!
«13456711

Comments

  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    Journal Medium, Journal Large
    self explanatory :):



    Also, let me choose how many pictures per page.....I don't like hitting next, next, next...

    This is all I want for christmas! :D
  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    Gallery Customization
    Allow me to change Gallery created date (so I can set it to the actual event date, not when I uploaded the pics)

    ability to define a default viewing style:
  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    Gallery organization
    Allow me to sort my Categories and sub-categories by position (regardless of my gallery sort)

    Allow sorting of my galleries within a Category (either by position, date, or other options)

    Allow Sub-Categories to show up below the Category's galleries
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    I should add that we don't want you to repeat requests from the previous thread unless you're adding something new.

    Thanks!
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    You can control category and gallery order
    dmc wrote:
    Allow me to sort my Categories and sub-categories by position (regardless of my gallery sort)

    Allow sorting of my galleries within a Category (either by position, date, or other options)

    Allow Sub-Categories to show up below the Category's galleries
    Just in case you didn't realize, you can control both category order and gallery order within the category. It isn't as simple as you like to do, but any category order can be accomplished and any gallery order within the category
    can be accomplished.

    What took me awhile to understand is that the category order is controlled by the first gallery from each category that appears in the gallery order. So, to make category A come first, you makes sure that a gallery in category A comes first in the gallery order. To make category B come second, you make sure that only category A's galleries come before the first gallery in category B.

    So, if you had the followiing structure:

    Category A
    - Gallery 1
    - Gallery 2
    - Gallery 3

    Category B
    - Gallery 10
    - Gallery 11
    - Gallery 12

    Category C
    - Gallery 20
    - Gallery 21
    - Gallery 22

    And you want your categories to display as B, C, A and you want the galleries in reverse numeric order, you can accomplish this by putting the galleries into the following order

    12, 11, 10, 22, 21, 20, 3, 2, 1

    The fact that gallery 12 comes first will cause category B to be listed first. The fact that gallery 12, 11 and 10 are in this order will control their display order within category B. The fact that gallery 22 comes next will cause category C to be the 2nd category displayed and so on...

    I will not argue that this is intuitive so your feature request for something easier is a good one. It took me more than a year to understand how it works now. It would be clearly easier if categories had their own order and galleries within a category had their own order. But, today's implementation can be made to produce any result you want with a little work.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    statistics data file
    You could get a thousand requests on how to provide statistics...

    I was going to ask for a reset statistics button so I could see new "hits" but I thought of something better....

    Let us download our statistic data, for current or previous months, to a file.mwink.gif

    skip the thumbnail hits, but give me the data you have on the hits, and include the url to the gallery and/or pic. This way I could put it in excel, sort it anyway I want, follow the url to the pics I want to see, whatever.... Get's you guys out of the loop, and I get the info I am interested in.clap.gif
  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    You can control category and gallery order
    jfriend wrote:
    Just in case you didn't realize,
    trust me, I know all about it...... you proved my point!

    thanks though, seriously.
  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    Andy wrote:
    I should add that we don't want you to repeat requests from the previous thread unless you're adding something new.

    Thanks!
    How can we see what is being considered, scheduled, or thrown out? I put stuff in, and it falls out of sight after a while... It would be cool if you guys maintained some kind of list we could look at so we know if the request is indeed repeated!

    thumb.gif
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    dmc wrote:
    How can we see what is being considered, scheduled, or thrown out? I put stuff in, and it falls out of sight after a while... It would be cool if you guys maintained some kind of list we could look at so we know if the request is indeed repeated!

    thumb.gif

    Hi dmc, it's all there in the public thread. And our responses. And our track record of continued innovation - new features - and improvements. We're very open about new stuff coming in, some things get discussed at great length, and we'll give an indication about likelihood. Other things, we'll discuss and we'll say "can't promise if/when, but it's very important to us and we know to you, too." Becuase if we find out, for example, that what customer A thinks is a really easy feature, and initially we love it, but upon further digging we find some correlation to sub-system Z, and therefore it becomes a rather difficult feature to implement - now, if we'd said: "sure, we can implement that in 10 days time" we'd be spending the ensuing two weeks fanning flames becuase we didn't deliver. In addition, we don't make everything public - our roadmap or specific exact stuff that we're coming out with - by such and such a date. You can, however, see when we're really excited about something and judge for yourself. The bottomline is, except in really rare circumstances (I can think of only one time) we don't talk about new things in detail, in advance.

    I hope this helps,
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    dmc wrote:

    Let us download our statistic data, for current or previous months, to a file.mwink.gif


    You can do that already. Star Explorer deal.gif
  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    Andy wrote:
    Hi dmc, it's all there in the public thread. And our responses....
    I don't disagree, and I don't really want to garbage up this thread either (you can delete this later?) but this is important

    The discussions are great, you have this thread, that thread, blogs, we get information about new releases when they come out, but there really is something missing....

    We need a list... only updated by you (smugmug). It has our requests, and smugmug's current or final determination on whether the request is being considered, implemented, or deterimined to be not the direction smugmug wants to go....
    It could have priority, estimated date of implementation, comments, etc.

    If we could peruse the list, we would know what is going on. Right now we have lots of discussion.... I can look into the past to see if it has been talked about... but I can't tell if anything is planned.

    This thread is a perfect example, the requests are put in, but then discussion takes place, we go off topic, the thread gets big, the request get buried, then I don't know if anyone noticed the original request....

    I'm done for today, I'll let others in......
  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    Andy wrote:
    You can do that already. Star Explorer deal.gif
    really? cool, I'll check it out!
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    dmc wrote:

    We need a list...

    Hi dmc, thanks again for your valuable input. We really appreciate it when you lay it on us straight. We try to be equally straight, so please re-read my post above... thanks again!

    All the best,
  • dmcdmc Registered Users Posts: 427 Major grins
    edited December 2, 2005
    Andy wrote:
    Hi dmc, thanks again for your valuable input. We really appreciate it when you lay it on us straight. We try to be equally straight, so please re-read my post above... thanks again!

    All the best,
    I just did.... I should have read better the first time... I guess it is this strategy of not telling us "what's coming" is what gets frustrating... I'm sure there are market reasons for what you are doing.... ok.... gotcha.
  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,007 Major grins
    edited December 3, 2005
    Goggle Map Suggestions
    The following are a few of my observations and suggestions for Goggle maps.

    There seems to be a limit of 150 photos showing in Goggle maps from the home
    page. Is there a way to refresh the map view to get a new set of photos?

    I would also like to be able to zoom and frame of a particular area of the world and
    have photos from all Smugmug public galleries of that area shown. Maybe a refresh to
    show another set. This would be great for vacation planning

    Random Smugmug photos. Be able to generate a set of random public photos on the
    world view. And of course refresh for new set.

    AL
    Al - Just a volunteer here having fun
    My Website index | My Blog
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 3, 2005
    Allen wrote:
    The following are a few of my observations and suggestions for Goggle maps.

    AL

    Thanks for the input, Al. Moved to the features thread.
  • jpdwjpdw Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
    edited December 3, 2005
    Hi All,
    I've got a request!

    The ability to add a description to a category would be really useful.

    At the moment it's possible to add a description to individual galleries but being able to have a similar feature for groups of galleries (by category) would be good.

    Apologies if this has been requested before - I've searched lots of the old threads but not found anything.

    Can I also add another "vote" to the request for user-settable timezones on comments et, (I found this posted as a request on an older thread).


    BTW... While I'm posting, just wanna say how great smugmug is. After trying a few others, I signed up pretty much as soon as I found the site!
  • NikolaiNikolai Registered Users Posts: 19,035 Major grins
    edited December 4, 2005
    Update production API request
    Since the time the current production API were rolled out, many new "properties" were added to albums and images (e.g. GPS coordinates).
    Is it possible to add at least some of those new properties as optional struct members to the existing production API?
    Unless I'm greatly mistaken on how things work on a server side, it would be simply a matter of parsing those few new tags and putting the parsed values into already existing DB fields. And, of course, adding them to the docs.
    This would be HUGE xmas gift for every smugmug customer who's using 3d party tools (and S*E alone speaks for more than 200+ people).
    Thanks!
    "May the f/stop be with you!"
  • NikolaiNikolai Registered Users Posts: 19,035 Major grins
    edited December 4, 2005
    Thanks for the referral Andy!
    dmc wrote:
    really? cool, I'll check it out!
    Yes, DMC, you can download and store stats in the database (starting with S*E Power Edition). I must warn you, though, that currently SM only provides stats for the last 3 months only. So unless you do that at least every other month the data will be gone and S*E will be able to help you anymore. The good news: if you do download it - it will stay with you indefinitely (or at least until your PC crashes, but that's a backup question:-). So just make it a habit to download the prior month stats in the beginning of each one - and you'll be finethumb.gif

    HTH
    "May the f/stop be with you!"
  • DodgeV83DodgeV83 Registered Users Posts: 379 Major grins
    edited December 5, 2005
    Mpeg-1 is a headache!
    Of course the only FREE Mpeg-1 batch converter out there, TMpgenc, does not correctly output my 16:9 video files from my DVD-cam! I've spent countless hours trying to get it to work and it just won't. FX MPEG Writer (which Smugmug recommends) worked on the first try, but does not support batch converting without paying a fee! :cry

    There are many FREE batch Mpeg-4, WMV, Divx, Xvid...etc encoders out there, but Smugmug doesn't support them! :cry

    I can't post a 1 minute long video at any reasonable size without artifacts because of the 16mb and Mpeg1 limitations. :cry

    PLEASE GIVE US MPEG-4! I don't care about the lowest common denominator, I know my audience has players that are compatible with MPEG-4. Any WINDOWS system 98 or above has a Windows Media Player version which can play MPEG-4. Quicktime can run MPEG-4 for Macs. Linux has many players which support MPEG-4, I've even got WMV9 to run on Linux.

    I know its not hard to code, I have a PHP script which runs on my home server that can support ALL of the mentioned formats.

    What would the internet be like if all web-sites were built to run perfectly on a 100MHZ Windows 95 computer?

    At least give us Flash Video! There are free encoders we can use to make flash videos too! Why not? Thats what Google Video uses.

    Edit: I take that back, Flash wouldn't allow the users to easily download videos, and I'm not sure if there are any free batch Flash Video encoders. Mpeg-4 all the way!
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 5, 2005
    DodgeV83 wrote:
    Mpeg-4 all the way!

    Hi Dodge,

    Thanks for writing. I'm afraid I have no new news. Here's the last thread where we discussed it and I wish I had a better answer for you.

    All the best,
  • 3rdPlanetPhotography3rdPlanetPhotography Banned Posts: 920 Major grins
    edited December 5, 2005
    Sales Info
    Just a thoughts....

    Will there be any future enhancement to include a way to Purge the Sales Information?


    kc7dji
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 5, 2005
    kc7dji wrote:
    Just a thoughts....

    Will there be any future enhancement to include a way to Purge the Sales Information?


    kc7dji

    Hi kc,

    Thanks so much for posting. We have heard this from folks, yes. And we're discussing it. Some want it, some want the permanent record. We did a nice change in the past few weeks, putting the most recent orders at the top of the screen (this was a direct result of hearing this request from our pros)... that helps, I hope... There are considerations - purging - OH NO I need that information (2 months later) .... help@smugmug.com - and you can see how that might cause some support issues. So, we're noodling this around.

    Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us!

    All the best,
  • 3rdPlanetPhotography3rdPlanetPhotography Banned Posts: 920 Major grins
    edited December 5, 2005
    Andy,

    Thanks for the reply. I do understand why some wouldn't want to purge. That's why I'd make it a "button" and maybe even a confirmation after clicking the button. As a web software developer myself we have a phrase, "Here's the gun and here's the bullet. Do with it as you choose." rolleyes1.gif

    Anyway, thanks for listening. I love my pro account, execpt on renewal day.

    kc7dji

    Andy wrote:
    Hi kc,

    Thanks so much for posting. We have heard this from folks, yes. And we're discussing it. Some want it, some want the permanent record. We did a nice change in the past few weeks, putting the most recent orders at the top of the screen (this was a direct result of hearing this request from our pros)... that helps, I hope... There are considerations - purging - OH NO I need that information (2 months later) .... help@smugmug.com - and you can see how that might cause some support issues. So, we're noodling this around.

    Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us!

    All the best,
  • Techman1Techman1 Registered Users Posts: 155 Major grins
    edited December 6, 2005
    Two things along this same line:

    (1) I received an email from a customer today and they too had their photos bent by the USPS. They suggested that a "Do Not Bend" or "Photos Enclosed" stamp be put on the shipping envelope. I emailed Help@Smugmug.com right away and was assured that a new order would be placed right away and that this issue has been addressed with EZPrints numerous times. I was pleased with the fast response of Smugmug support and hope that EZPrints makes this change soon.

    (2) I wish there was a way of knowing how our customers placed their orders. This would include shipping (overnight, 2 day, etc.) and I would like to know how the photos were cropped. Is either of these something we might see in the near future?

    Thanks in advance. Again, I've only had positive feedback on the most part from my customers and I'm hoping to continue down that same road. The above items will only help us all do a better job of providing services to our clients.

    Regards,
    Fred
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 6, 2005
    Techman1 wrote:
    Two things along this same line:

    (1) I received an email from a customer today and they too had their photos bent by the USPS. They suggested that a "Do Not Bend" or "Photos Enclosed" stamp be put on the shipping envelope. I emailed Help@Smugmug.com right away and was assured that a new order would be placed right away and that this issue has been addressed with EZPrints numerous times. I was pleased with the fast response of Smugmug support and hope that EZPrints makes this change soon.

    (2) I wish there was a way of knowing how our customers placed their orders. This would include shipping (overnight, 2 day, etc.) and I would like to know how the photos were cropped. Is either of these something we might see in the near future?

    Thanks in advance. Again, I've only had positive feedback on the most part from my customers and I'm hoping to continue down that same road. The above items will only help us all do a better job of providing services to our clients.

    Regards,
    Fred

    Hi Fred - thanks for taking the time to tell us this. It's great feedback, and also some great suggestions. I'll make sure that we consider them.

    All the best,
  • Techman1Techman1 Registered Users Posts: 155 Major grins
    edited December 7, 2005
    Thank you Andy! I appreciate all you do for us here on this forum as well as within Smugmug.

    clap.gif

    Have a great one!

    Fred
  • NikolaiNikolai Registered Users Posts: 19,035 Major grins
    edited December 8, 2005
    Feature request: Smugmug Picture Exchange
    I'd like to have a capability to exchange pictures with other smugmug users.

    Business case: on some event I take a picture of a friend and his family. I'm not much interested in this particular picture, but my friend naturally is. Since my friend is also a smugmug user (as most of my photography-involved friends are:-) I would like to give this picture to him. Image is already uploaded, so really all it takes is a "change of ownership", which on a technical level shall not be any more complex than one or two SQL statements. Very much like "move", just across single user boundaries.

    Of course there is always some logistics involved. UI should provide the sender with an option of sending the copy (duplicate + move) vs sending the original (just move for good).
    Also there should be certain action required from recipient, something similar to what happens when somebody want to send you a file over IM: first you receive a notification that somebody wants to send you an image, to which you have to respond within certain amount of time.
    In SM case it can be an email with a link that expires after a day or so. Also, to avoid privacy violation and spamming, this feature can be only enabled between friends and family (both ways) and fans (one way - fans can receive, but cannot send back), and even that should be configurable and optional.

    As an extra bonus, if this feature is implemented, it can be considered as a first phase of "trading/selling originals". Payments can be made via 3d party tools (like paypal) and SM membership is required, but at least it will be possible to sell (or give) the image files to other people.

    Whaddayathink?mwink.gif
    "May the f/stop be with you!"
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited December 8, 2005
    Nikolai wrote:
    I'd like to have a capability to exchange pictures with other smugmug users.

    Business case: on some event I take a picture of a friend and his family. I'm not much interested in this particular picture, but my friend naturally is. Since my friend is also a smugmug user (as most of my photography-involved friends are:-) I would like to give this picture to him. Image is already uploaded, so really all it takes is a "change of ownership", which on a technical level shall not be any more complex than one or two SQL statements. Very much like "move", just across single user boundaries.

    Of course there is always some logistics involved. UI should provide the sender with an option of sending the copy (duplicate + move) vs sending the original (just move for good).
    Also there should be certain action required from recipient, something similar to what happens when somebody want to send you a file over IM: first you receive a notification that somebody wants to send you an image, to which you have to respond within certain amount of time.
    In SM case it can be an email with a link that expires after a day or so. Also, to avoid privacy violation and spamming, this feature can be only enabled between friends and family (both ways) and fans (one way - fans can receive, but cannot send back), and even that should be configurable and optional.

    As an extra bonus, if this feature is implemented, it can be considered as a first phase of "trading/selling originals". Payments can be made via 3d party tools (like paypal) and SM membership is required, but at least it will be possible to sell (or give) the image files to other people.

    Whaddayathink?mwink.gif

    Thanks Nik, for the suggestion. At the moment, we're not so interested in Paypal... and if you ever have the need to move a gallery, we can do that for you easily by just emailing us at help@smugmug.com - we don't want to be doing that as a routine course of business but we'll gladly do it for you when asked.

    We've got other plans in the works for "selling originals" (digital downloads via our shopping cart) - still no promises on when but it's something that we very much want to get done as we know how important it is to many pros.
  • NikolaiNikolai Registered Users Posts: 19,035 Major grins
    edited December 8, 2005
    Andy,
    Andy wrote:
    Thanks Nik, for the suggestion. At the moment, we're not so interested in Paypal... and if you ever have the need to move a gallery, we can do that for you easily by just emailing us at help@smugmug.com - we don't want to be doing that as a routine course of business but we'll gladly do it for you when asked.

    We've got other plans in the works for "selling originals" (digital downloads via our shopping cart) - still no promises on when but it's something that we very much want to get done as we know how important it is to many pros.
    While it's good to hear that you guys are still thinking of selling digital downloads, my primary interest in this feature is not about the money, but the capability to easily exchange photos with other SM users. I have, for instance, a few pictures of DavidTO and his kids, I'm sure he would not mind having them in his possession. I, on the other hand, do not mind give them to him. Be both have SM accounts, so, rather than sending multimegabyte email I'd rather simply "transfer" them to him...

    I take lots of pictures of my friends and colleagues and their families. I don't want to create separate gallery for one-two-three images each time and bug techsupport to move it. I just want to be able give the piccies to the corresponding subjects and let them deal with them..

    Does it make sense to anybodybut me? ne_nau.gif
    "May the f/stop be with you!"
This discussion has been closed.