http://www.ourspecialnet.com http://gean.smugmug.com since 2005

Yeah, I know I'm violating etiquette with a long venting post... frankly this morning IDGAD.

Look guys, I'm not as smart as some of you. I'm 61, and have a slow brain.
I'm not a pro photog... and my sites and styling and philosophies may not suit you, but they're mine.
I've learned just enough coding to get us all in trouble, and that's about all.
But I'm trying, and I'm getting tired... I certainly don't understand 'yui'.

I knew about the button changes,
but Andy wrote also, that if using a Smug theme, etc, would have to "do nothing",
so don't patronize me with "we posted it here" etc.
I expected to have to "do nothing" but tolerate the new styles.
That was acceptable, but not likeable.

That said:

What's this button mess I see at http://www.ourspecialnet.com/gallery...31725467_vMfuk ?
and a few other galleries? (Not all) IE6 XP only
FF, VISTA IE7, are ok, at least the ones I've checked.


Note that, for goodness sake, this is just IE6 XP.

I've found it damned hard to blue screen XP, but these new button additions did it last night
when I clicked "get a link" dropdown.
(Of course, that's working fine this morning).
__________________________________________________ ___________
Now the frustration:

I just about had my ideas and very rough organization outlined after 3 years of learning,
experimental trial and error, and was about to go into a complete restructuring
... but for the last 2 or three weeks, I've dealt with little more than finding work-arounds
for various implementations of stuff that worked fine before you guys started getting fancier,
and I'm a little angry right now.

We've had to uninstall VISTA Updates on 5 different Vista machines, and sacrifice a bit of eye candy
just to accomodate Smugmug, vrs. my custom stuff that worked fine before,
...and this is getting old.
Now, at least sometimes, those 5 Vista machines will actually open galleries
or the slideshow when the appropriate button is clicked.

Over and over I've read about the Smug Favicon showing in IE (when it consents to show one)
instead of a custom that's added... "sorry, that's the way IE works". Yep. True. So?
Hell, take the damn thing off head code for pro accounts, if nothing else!
We're paying for customizing, and the smugicon has absolutely no connection
with much of our content at the pro level.
Because sometimes IE DOES show it, and that's the "shortcut" icon that goes on desktops.
Crap. Coding like "if pro, don't show'.

What I think I've seen develop over the last three years is the Corel syndrome,
(Allen may know what I mean) where they took perfectly good imaging
software from JASC, and proceeded to get it so fancy it would hardly work on some machines.
(Yes, Allen, I've got PSP from ver 7 through X2).

This is getting far beyond the simple 'add a banner' stage, and, by George, my swfs and cursors and layouts used to work, and didn't interfere with anything else except loading times...
I coded XHTML then you changed to HTML,
and it took a while to realize why stuff was messed up.

So I changed that customizing, tried many things before yelling for help,
because the responses in this forum seem to grow more patronizing and complex,
almost to the point of "You dummy, you should know that".

"Sorry you feel that way" is beginning to show more also. Are you really?

Looks like Professional accounts now mean a person also has to be a development professional in order to understand what's going on.

Now, you FireFox purists, Photoshop purists, Mac purists, no quips about IE sucks, Windows sucks, etc.
I know (and agree with) your opinions on those...
but I need this thing to work on Windows, and several versions of IE, because that's what my family and most of my circle have. And my tools say the browsers (including Firefox) are defaulting to Quirks mode because of apparent source code, especially head tags, that's rendered a mix of HTML 4.01 strict, and XHTML. And in Quirks, as I understand it, who knows what you'll see anyway.

Of course, that's probably just me, 6 different machines, our browsers, our systems, my customizing... nothing to do with Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Smugmug, and the other sourced coding that's showing up.

Hell, I tried Lynx, but couldn't see any pictures...

Let's quit playing with this thing, fix all the coding so it works well cross platform, and
start emailing us publishers when necessary changes are going into effect,
"changes hit tonight at midnight" type info would stop the surprises for most of us.
Any screw ups in rendering could then be nailed quicker, I think.

Obviously, most of us do not check Dgrin, or even our messages, on a daily basis.
We didn't have to before... we'd put stuff up, it'd work or not work, we'd fix it...
The active pro photogs among us need more time in the viewfinder and less time online figuring
stuff out, I should think. That's their mealticket time we're messing with.

Me, I'm just a glorified hobbyist with aspirations of one magnificent picture once in my life.
Here lately, I've been antsy about even looking at the site... "what's screwy now?"

Remember some of us aren't as smart or knowledgeable as others,
and maybe custom cursors, and browser full screens scripts, and weather updates SWF's
aren't your cup of tea, but they just might be ours.
And we bought this service to work within limitations you established,
and learned to get it the way we wanted it. Then you change the limitations.
Then us 'slower' folk have to spend downtime figuring out how to change it again?

You guys / gals are really wonderful, but what's going on???? Are we becoming too 'smug?'

And don't tell me "to not let the door hit me in the butt on the way out" ... I'm not leaving Smugmug, not just yet anyway, unless you terminate me.
Although you may ban geanmichaels from Dgrin after this one.


Mad Mike

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This is in your custom code and messing things up; In FF everything looks normal now. I don't have other browser available right now.

/* turn map this button off */
.map_this {display: block;}

You also have a renegade asterisk in there that needs to be removed.

Originally Posted by ivar This is in your custom code and messing things up; In FF everything looks normal now. I don't have other browser available right now. /* turn map this button off */ .map_this {display: block;} You also have a renegade asterisk in there that needs to be removed.

Yay! So now they've sneaked in a renegade asterisk generator without telling us? I can handle that... Got the bugger.
One of them falling stars...*

Thanks Ivar!... we'll see how this goes from here.

Happy Mike

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Originally Posted by geanmichaels I expected to have to "do nothing" -

All set now?

Originally Posted by Andy Originally Posted by geanmichaels I expected to have to "do nothing" All set now?

the quote ends

Originally Posted by geanmichaels but tolerate the new styles. That was acceptable, but not likeable.

Now, back to basics... 4 deep breaths and a cuppa coffee.

Happier Mike


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