NEW: Easy Customizer!

Andy · April 30, 2009

This has us SO excited

Customize a SmugMug site in minutes, change the text, colors, header, footer, boxes, make a navbar and more.... you bet!

Go to your Tools Button on homepage or category, or in your customize tab of your control panel, and click 'Easy Customizer' -- Go ahead, try it :evil

You can preview your site design right there, and get it just the way you want before you commit it. Don't like it? Nuke it and start over

You'll notice that we create a new gallery for you when you use this:
> Other > My SmugMug Site Files (Do Not Delete)

It's unlisted, only you can see it. Don't delete it.

We've given this a whole lot of testing, with new sites, with old sites, with sites that have customizing and that don't. We want you to try it now! Let us know how it works. Got ideas for it? Bring 'em right here, we want to hear them!

Using Easy Customizer won't overwrite any of your existing customizing that you have in your site-wide customizing area (cobrand.mg) but customizations done via the Easy Customizer may trump (overpower) some of your site-wide customizing. Remember, this tool was built for the most part, for folks to start out with fast, and get a header, navbar, colors, fonts, etc.

We expect that homepage slideshow will be made easy to install, too

Hang in there.

If you have Advanced site-wide customizing in place you should make copies of all your code in plain text document form, before making any changes to your site. It's just good practice. Update, May 8, 2009: Use the new Email It! Button in your advanced site-wide customizing page!

UDATE MAY 8th 2009:

Updated Help Pages:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/create-photo-album2 (pro)
http://www.smugmug.com/help/create-photo-album (power)

http://www.smugmug.com/help/custom-colors2 (pro)
http://www.smugmug.com/help/custom-colors (power)

And the basic FAQ got updated, too: http://smugmug.com/help/customize-faq

More updates:

If you make a change to background color, page title, show smugmug header/footer in CoBrand, the change will also show up in EZC. This prevents the EZC from overwriting a change you made in CoBrand.

Added the ability to choose Feeds on/off.

Added Help link to mini footer and make it configurable.

Removed "Powered by SmugMug" From the page title for Pros, when you use a custom page title.

More coming but these were the really important help pags to get fixed. :smo

We really want your comments, and requests, too. Thanks and we hope you love it!

ivar · April 30, 2009

fredjclaus · April 30, 2009

Oh my Gosh!!!!! This is AWSOME!!!! I was playing around a bit and like what I see so far. it seems this will help me to lay out my site to look more like a website instead of just a photo album page.

I don't know if it's already there, but is there a way to set this up so we can put a slide show on the home pages istead of the gallaries?

I love the fact that I can build my nav bar in this. The instructions even though they were clear, are still a bit confusing for me. One thing I need to know is how to make a contact me page and a page that would show the different services I have.

This would be so awsome. I could get rid of my DotEasy.com hosted webpage and use strictly my SmugMug hosted site.

Thanks Andy.

Andy · April 30, 2009

fredjclaus wrote:

I don't know if it's already there, but is there a way to set this up so we can put a slide show on the home pages istead of the gallaries?

We expect that homepage slideshow will be made easy to install, too

Hang in there.

For now, use the easy tutorial to put the slideshow on your homepage: http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/3624147

I love the fact that I can build my nav bar in this. The instructions even though they were clear, are still a bit confusing for me.

What's unclear about them?

One thing I need to know is how to make a contact me page and a page that would show the different services I have.

Follow my easy instructions on http://andydemo.smugmug.com (see the how to and about links).

LCKatMPN · April 30, 2009

Andy wrote:

We expect that homepage slideshow will be made easy to install, too Hang in there.

For now, use the easy tutorial to put the slideshow on your homepage: http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/3624147

What's unclear about them?

Follow my easy instructions on http://andydemo.smugmug.com (see the how to and about links).

Wow. I mean, WOW!
Worth the happy faces and all those pats on the back.
Help me out here, now that I see how so much of this works.
How about doing separate pages?
I know there's been links to information for that in the past, but what's the best way to do that now?
Thanks!

fredjclaus · April 30, 2009

One more question for you Andy. I'm getting the hang of this and it's pretty simple. You are just creating gallaries and then linking them all together. If I create a nav bar and then add some more pages, will I have to create another entire nav bar, or if I go to the Easy Customizer and say create Nav bar, will the old one show up for me to just add to it?

Barb · April 30, 2009

fredjclaus wrote:

One more question for you Andy. I'm getting the hang of this and it's pretty simple. You are just creating gallaries and then linking them all together. If I create a nav bar and then add some more pages, will I have to create another entire nav bar, or if I go to the Easy Customizer and say create Nav bar, will the old one show up for me to just add to it?

Hi

The navbar you have created with the EZ Customizer will be there, and you can easily add to it, remove, etc., from within the EZ Customizer.

mlee · April 30, 2009

Wow.

"No SmugMug Footer"

You guys are really moving towards catering to the pros with more invisibility!

Thanks, again, for such an amazing service!

Andy · April 30, 2009

mlee wrote:

You guys are really moving towards catering to the pros with more invisibility!

MichaelBrown · April 30, 2009

I went in to remove the SM footer, but .....
I hesitate doing anything because of the message that I get after clicking "Publish", the message saying that some of my current settings may be overwritten.

How could one possibly know if their current settings would be overwritten?
Is there "Easy Button" reset if things are changed that you do not want changed?
Just curious.

Michael
http://www.macroartinnature.com/

agallia · April 30, 2009

Awesome tool! Getting ready to give it a try too.

mlee · April 30, 2009

Feedback / Comments!?!?

I've played with it for about an hour now and I really like it - great job! I can't wait to try it some more later on when I have some play time.

Just two nit-picks so far...

-The favicon doesn't allow uploading of .ico files...?
-Custom Footer -> Text doesn't allow HTML. Well, it does but it displays the code. I'd like to put in HTML so I can have more than one link.

Barb · April 30, 2009

mlee wrote:

Feedback / Comments!?!?

I've played with it for about an hour now and I really like it - great job! I can't wait to try it some more later on when I have some play time.

Just two nit-picks so far...

-The favicon doesn't allow uploading of .ico files...?
-Custom Footer -> Text doesn't allow HTML. Well, it does but it displays the code. I'd like to put in HTML so I can have more than one link.

You can upload a .gif file for the favicon. It will work in most browsers. IE doesn't like favicons all the time. If you want to use an .ico file, you can upload it somewhere, like Google Pages or something, and link to it in your advanced customization: No. 41 here: http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq.

You can still add an HTML footer in the custom footer box in your advanced site-wide customization.

J Allen · April 30, 2009

I played with this a bit, just made one change to the footer, and it has over-ridden all the font rules in my css...If I open the web-div in firefox, I can see where it threw these things in there..and every rule it inserted now has an !important tag with it.....But I cant see these rules to remove them in my CSS box...Any way to just go back to my original settings? I tried all the "go-back" buttons, but they didnt work after I already published it.

wellman · April 30, 2009

Two words... Su. Weet.

fredjclaus · April 30, 2009

Is there something wrong with Smugmug? Did I break it? I was updating and trying to put the slide show on my home page and it just logged me out now i can't log back in.

aaronbrown · April 30, 2009

Barb wrote:

You can upload a .gif file for the favicon. It will work in most browsers. IE doesn't like favicons all the time. If you want to use an .ico file, you can upload it somewhere, like Google Pages or something, and link to it in your advanced customization: No. 41 here: http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq.

You can still add an HTML footer in the custom footer box in your advanced site-wide customization.

It seems this new option of No SmugMug Footer has also done away with our feeds link.

Maybe there should be code to insert the feed link into our custom footer?

Maybe there should be an option to keep the mini footer for those who want it, as well.

And it seems with everyone playing with this, a lot of people may seriously mess up their old settings.

Any chance of a backup option for our site css et al. or a revert option?

Any thoughts, Barb or Andy?

Andy · April 30, 2009

aaronbrown wrote:

Maybe there should be an option to keep the mini footer for those who want it, as well.

There is.

LCKatMPN · April 30, 2009

QUESTION: If I set a new banner, it appears in Preview above the old banner. If I publish, does it get rid of the old banner, or do I have to go back into my customization page and remove the old coding? I'm hesitant to "experiment" and then loose things (although I did copy my coding in a backup file)

aaronbrown · April 30, 2009

Andy wrote:

There is.

Ah, I see.

I'm not trying to be such a "Debby Downer" here, but it just seems counter intuitive for this option to be missing from the advanced customization menu. And it just feels like there's a loss of control when the changes made here aren't tweakable from the advanced customization menu or don't even appear there.

I would think these two menus would work in tandem and not so against each other, unless I'm missing something here.

Any plan to implement the feeds again, or should we just hard code them back as we please?

Again, just trying to figure this thing out... not complain about the cool things you're all trying to give us.

MichaelBrown · April 30, 2009

I asked early on if I made a change to the SM footer, would changes occur to my customization.
I'm glad now that I did not touch it, since others are finding out the hard way it seems!

So again, ... how can anyone be sure that their customizations want be overwritten?

Michael

Andy · April 30, 2009

aaronbrown wrote:

but it just seems counter intuitive for this option to be missing from the advanced customization menu.

Give us some time, eh?

Andy · April 30, 2009

MichaelBrown wrote:

I asked early on if I made a change to the SM footer, would changes occur to my customization.
I'm glad now that I did not touch it, since others are finding out the hard way it seems!

So again, ... how can anyone be sure that their customizations want be overwritten?

Michael

Hi Michael, My first post says that some things in your site-wide customizing may be 'overpowered' but you can always nuke your easy customizing if you don't like what you see. Also that this tool is primarily designed to be used before any advanced customizing.

AS ALWAYS FOLKS, it's great to make a backup of your customizing and put it in a notepad, plaintext file and save it.

LCKatMPN · April 30, 2009

aaronbrown wrote:

Ah, I see.

I'm not trying to be such a "Debby Downer" here, but it just seems counter intuitive for this option to be missing from the advanced customization menu. And it just feels like there's a loss of control when the changes made here aren't tweakable from the advanced customization menu or don't even appear there.

I would think these two menus would work in tandem and not so against each other, unless I'm missing something here.

Any plan to implement the feeds again, or should we just hard code them back as we please?

Again, just trying to figure this thing out... not complain about the cool things you're all trying to give us.

Do the two menus work together?
If I use Easy Optimzer, then need to go back to where I was, can I just re-enter my codes (which I saved into a Word document) back into the Advanced Customizer page? Then I can "erase" what I attempted to do with Easy Optimzer?

aaronbrown · April 30, 2009

Andy wrote:

Give us some time, eh?

Will do. Just trying to point out what I've noticed so far.

cmason · April 30, 2009

Looks interesting, but I would rather not futz up my site while trying this out. Does this customize a gallery or the entire site?

aaronbrown · April 30, 2009

Andy wrote:

Using Easy Customizer won't overwrite any of your existing customizing that you have in your site-wide customizing area (cobrand.mg) but customizations done via the Easy Customizer may trump (overpower) some of your site-wide customizing.

It see it actually DOES overwrite the Page Title, but that's a cinch to fix.

fredjclaus · April 30, 2009

Oh my gosh, Andy. This is a great program for us pro users. I'm still playing with the site to get my look just right, but I'm having a blast. I think once my hosting account with my current service is up, I'm going to be using SmugMug as a host. Just need a better logo that will show up on black.

BenA2 · April 30, 2009

Very Nice
Awesome job SmugMug!

colourbox · May 1, 2009

Andy wrote:

We really want your comments...

I just posted the other week how Smugmug should have a visual customizer for common customizations, like Squarespace. So my comment is...

THIS IS AWESOME.

Even if it isn't perfect or all-encompassing, the fact that you were going in this direction at all just reinforces why I stick with Smugmug.

I haven't played with it that long yet, but hopefully we will someday get drag-and-drop resizable layout components, automatic multiple columns, and maybe the built-in ability to use an HTML-only page template that doesn't require hijacking the gallery engine with CSS overrides!

great work!

Andy · May 1, 2009

colourbox wrote:

but hopefully we will someday get drag-and-drop resizable layout components, automatic multiple columns,

Our sorcerers are threatening to do this one day