Hello everyone!

I have been reading for a while and now I'm finally registered. I have had my smugmug account for 2 years this week. I designed my site using your help back then by reading threads in this forum. I fear that my site is becoming dated and I would like to jazz it up at some point.

Anyway, the reason I am posting tonight is that I would like to rework my galleries page. When you click on galleries in the navbar of my homepage, you are taken to a "new" homepage with all of the galleries listed. I'm finding that the more galleries I add to this, the more cluttered and disorganized it becomes.

On my computer, a PC, my filing system consists of a folder system that is not very unique, but one that I find to be effective. When I click on the dirve, I select a folder titled "Photography" then, within that folder, there is "Professional" and "Personal". Withing "Personal", for example, I have a folder titled "D300" (for the camera that I currently use) and within that folder are MORE folders.

So the hierarchy is basically as follows:

Drive__: (Not sure how to indent...sorry if it looks weird)
->Photography
-->Professional
---->(Folders containing the images titled with the name of the event and date)
-->Personal (I continue from here with a single example breakdown)
---->D300
----->Colorado Summer 2009
------>Redstone
------->Horseback riding
----------Pictures

I would love to have a system like this on my smugmug page...

I see that there are categorties and subcategories, but, for some reason, I find it all very confusing. I was looking at this link: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=57994 and was not able to understand how to apply it in my situation.

My biggest fear is that I could mess up the codes I put in 2 years ago. Everything works, I just wish I could make it better and more to my liking. I have a vision for how I want it to be, but I don't know how or where to start.

For now, if I could get this galleries thing figured out, I would be really happy. It may seem a minor improvement to some, however it is huge one to me. Part if the reason I have so few galleries is that I don't want things to get cluttered.

Ideally, I would like to be able to have my navbar on my homepage the same except link that to a page with categories that looks like galleries (perhaps with a photo thumbnail attached, i.e. "Hawaii" with a picture of a sunset) and then within that have another page with categories by year perhaps (i.e. 2006, 2007, 2008 etc). Then within that have another gallery with categories titled by event (i.e. Surf shots) and then finally have a gallery with folders by date with pictures (like what you normally see when you click galleries on my site) which would actually contain folders.

Here would be the breakdown:

Navbar on homepage:
->Galleries
-->Hawaii
--->2008
---->Surf shots
-----> Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08
--------Pictures

Some pages would not have to break down as much as others. For example, I may have a gallery (I realize I should maybe use the word "category page"?) titled Concerts and then have it take you to a page with a list of concerts and then within each the photos.

Example:

Navbar on homepage:
->Galleries
-->Concerts
--->"Paul McCartney Concert - Tel Aviv - 2008"
------Pictures

In my head this seems simple... but every time I set out to do this I get confused and give up.

It would also be conventient to have multiple ways to get to a gallery, for example:

If you wanted to see "Paul McCartney Concert - Tel Aviv - 2008" you could click on "Concerts" and find the gallery there OR you could click on Israel>2008>Fall and then also see the gallery titled "Paul McCartney Concert - Tel Aviv - 2008"

I'm not even sure if this is possible...

Any help on this will be so greatly appreciated.

-Danny

Here's a link to my site: www.theultimateimage.smugmug.com

Smugmug has only three levels in the hierarchy:

category
...sub-category
......gallery

So, you can't do:

Navbar on homepage:
->Galleries
-->Hawaii (level 1)
--->2008 (level 2)
---->Surf shots (level 3)
-----> Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 (level 4)
--------Pictures

because that's 4 levels (pictures doesn't count because Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 is the gallery where the pictures would be)

Some options would be:

Navbar
..Hawaii (category)
....2008 Surf Shots (sub-category)
......Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 (gallery - contains pictures)

or

Navbar
..Hawaii 2008 (category)
....Surf Shots (sub-category)
......Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 (gallery - contains pictures)

or

Navbar
..Hawaii (category)
....Surf Shots (sub-category)
......Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 (gallery - contains pictures)

Originally Posted by jfriend Smugmug has only three levels in the hierarchy: category ...sub-category ......gallery So, you can't do: Navbar on homepage: ->Galleries -->Hawaii (level 1) --->2008 (level 2) ---->Surf shots (level 3) -----> Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 (level 4) --------Pictures because that's 4 levels (pictures doesn't count because Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 is the gallery where the pictures would be) Some options would be: Navbar ..Hawaii (category) ....2008 Surf Shots (sub-category) ......Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 (gallery - contains pictures) or Navbar ..Hawaii 2008 (category) ....Surf Shots (sub-category) ......Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 (gallery - contains pictures) or Navbar ..Hawaii (category) ....Surf Shots (sub-category) ......Waikoloa Surf 1/10/08 (gallery - contains pictures)

Hey! Thanks for the quick response.

I could live with the 3 levels as you stated. I looked at your site and I think it comes very close to how I would do it: Have picture thumbnail categories and, ultimately, the galleries.

I was trying to remember last night, when I made my galleries page, isn't that a "dummy" homepage? Couldn't I, in theory, create a series of those pages and technically "add" to the hierarchy? I don't even remember how that was done in the first place and maybe that can only be done once. So much time has passed that I can't remember what each piece of code does.

In any case, if you could explain how you have your galleries break down on your site to get me going in the right direction, I would really appreciate it.

-Danny

Originally Posted by Dwass Hey! Thanks for the quick response. I could live with the 3 levels as you stated. I looked at your site and I think it comes very close to how I would do it: Have picture thumbnail categories and, ultimately, the galleries. I was trying to remember last night, when I made my galleries page, isn't that a "dummy" homepage? Couldn't I, in theory, create a series of those pages and technically "add" to the hierarchy? I don't even remember how that was done in the first place and maybe that can only be done once. So much time has passed that I can't remember what each piece of code does. In any case, if you could explain how you have your galleries break down on your site to get me going in the right direction, I would really appreciate it. -Danny

My site just uses normal categories and sub-categories. My homepage uses the separate Galleries page trick in this tutorial starting with the step called "The Galleries Page I" and going to the end.

Yes, if you want to do your own custom HTML on your homepage, you can do an extra level at the top that you would have to manually maintain where you added your own thumbnails that pointed to the top level categories to fake an extra level.