Help SmugMug make a key decision

[Baldy]

The whispers for a larger image size have turned to a low rumble and we know what that means: the march of monitor pixels will increase the rumble volume, so we're thinking about an XL image size.

(Yes, we know the rumble volume for this is not as loud as for some other things in the queue, but it turns out to be an opportune time given engineering work we're doing on storage right now.)

The rumbles: "I don't get enough L when I click L."

We think XL should be 1024x768. Below the image where you currently see an L link, XL would appear beside it. Just like L, pros will be able to disable XL.

The good:

Two new gallery styles would be born, smugmug L and smugmug XL, which you can preview:

http://onethumb.smugmug.com/gallery/1377106

The dilemma:

smugmug L style would use the Large image size, which can be up to 800 pixels wide or high. For landscape photos, 800 px wide looks great and fits a 1280 monitor beautifully. But at 800 px high, you wouldn't be able to read the caption without scrolling, or any of the other stuff below the photo. That's because monitors are wider than tall.

The solution with the medium size was to make them up to 600 px wide or 450 px tall.

We can think of 2 practical solutions to this dilemma. I'll also mention a third not-so-practical solution so someone else doesn't have to propose it:

1. Resize all Large images to 800 px wide or 600 px tall.

The downside is all portrait-mode images that are now posted on forums and blogs at 800 px high would become 600 px high. 99% of forum posts would just adjust, but a few would look distorted -- like the ones on ADVrider where I posted a L image and specified in HTML in the post that it was 800px high.

2. Only resize the Larges going forward to 800 px wide or 600 px tall.

The downside is legacy Large images would make you scroll when viewed in the new smugmug L style. The upside: they would look as they did when they were originally posted in forums and blogs.

3. This one's messy... When the image is requested externally, give it up in it's original 800 px-high glory; when it's requested inside for a smugmug L gallery, resize on the fly to 600 px.

Which of these is the least of evils? Can you think up a fourth, more elegant solution?

Thanks!
Baldy


EDIT: Nov 30th, 2007: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=77553

[KMCC]

Maybe I've had a long day, but I'm having trouble understanding the need for this change and I don't find much merit in any of the proposed solutions.

[cmason]

#1 seems the best to me. Oh and I welcome this change...Large is too small!

I go on the assumption that most blog posts don't force the image size, as most probably refer directly to the smugmug file. I also suspect that a great many do not post too many Large photos, but that is just my experience. Finally, those who have forced the sizes likely are doing some customization, so would be skilled at correcting if needed.

[cletus]

#1

[jfriend]

Originally Posted by Baldy

Which of these is the least of evils? Can you think up a fourth, more elegant solution?

Yeah for larger images!

#1 seems out. Like it or not, smugmug is an image hosting site and more than a few people use links to smugmug hosted images in web pages (forums and other types of web pages). You just can't unilaterally assume that your users haven't assumed the image was a certain size. Even if it isn't coded to a certain size in the image tag, the whole layout of their HTML page may have assumptions about it's size.

You could leave the -L image as it is and create a new -L2 that followed the different rules, but if someone links to the existing -L image, I think you can't change what they get.

#2 is probably the best compromise. Existing -L images stay the size they are, but Smugmug isn't burdened with forever supporting the existing size on new galleries. You could even give the user a control on a gallery basis or a site-wide basis to "upgrade" their Large images to the new size. If you think you have a reliable way to communicate with your customers, you could even announce that everyone will get converted in 12 months, so if you have any external links that rely on the current -L size, they should get fixed.

#3 seems overly complicated, fraught with some difficulties (it won't always work perfectly) and forever burdens Smugmug with maintaining this legacy support which I think would be bad for all of us to drag on this complexity forever.

So, I'd vote for 2a which is to automatically make newly created galleries to the new size of Large, give the user the opportunity to "upgrade" their existing galleries to the new size Larges and optionally announce that everyone will be upgraded in 12 or 18 months. This seems like it achieves simplicity in the long run, provides a graceful transition period, gives new galleries the immediate benefit of the new size and gives customers plenty of time to adapt.

In another twist, it seems like user created themes or CSS customizations that assume a particular size of Large image might also have problems with the new size.

[Mike Lane]

My $0.02:

I think Smugmug is in danger of gallery style fatigue. Filmstrip? Sure! Critique, uh... well okay. Super large? Uh guys... I know that it's probably mostly the lazy themer / smugmug site designer in me, but when I already have to worry about styling:

• The homepage (that is a gallery after all)
• Smugmug
• Smugmug Small
• Traditional
• All Thumbs
• Slideshow Small
• Slideshow Medium
• Slideshow Large
• Journal
• Filmstrip Small
• Filmstrip Medium
• Filmstrip Large
• Single Image Small
• Single Image Medium
• Single Image Large
• Single Image Original
• Category pages
• Sub-category pages
• Password required pages
• empty gallery pages
• Make sure all the above styles work in the keyword galleries (which just go easier to do. Thanks!)
• Same for the Date pages (again, just got easier ... thanks!)
• Same for popular pages
• And of course the lightbox

I'd really rather not have to worry about Smugmug XL or Smugmug Gigantor or whatever it'd be called. Actually let's not forget all the other styles that will be affected. This is what I see being added to this list:

• Smugmug Gigantor
• Filmstrip Gigantor
• Slideshow Gigantor
• Single Image Gigantor
• All of the above for Keywords
• Same for Dates
• Same for Popular
• And my money is going on their eventually being a Critique gigantor too.

Obviously I know that the list that poor wittle me would have to update is smaller than your guys' by leaps and bounds. But the way I see it adding the gigantor image size would add 25% more galleries to worry about.

Okay, almost done...

Also I'm thinking that as a user who isn't all that familiar with Smugmug, being inundated with gallery styles wouldn't be a good thing. My limited experience watching people navigate my site who aren't familiar with Smugmug (and may have been a smidge tipsy - not me, them) was that they got frustrated by all the gallery style choices. Plus there seems to be some overlap with the gallery styles. Do we need an all thumbs and a traditional? Why not All Traditional (or captiony thumb goodness)? Single image and critique? Why not critique small, med, large? Filmstrip and non FS slideshow? Why not filmstrip with a FS slideshow button?

Combine, consolidate, and then expand If you did consolidate the gallery styles, I'd be all over the gigantor styles like DavidTO on a Mac But now I'm thinking, ugh, I'm not sure if $500 is enough of an incentive for me to do a theme and maybe it's time to think about increasing my rates.

Of course, I'm just one lazy guy with an agenda.

[pat.kane]

I like the idea of a larger size, but like Mike wonder what the overall impact is. Themes have been slow to roll out in any large quantity. This will make their completion even more difficult.

I've been looking over the images provided and am really at a loss right now for providing any constructive criticism on a better way to do it though. I'm sure if it's implemented, everyone will find a way to adapt.

[dmc]

Journal Large.... All my galleries use it...(I upgraded to Power user just for this customized view) If I could select how many pictures per page, I would like that....I would just up it to 50 pics per page, Large!

I just like to view my pics by dragging the scroll bar down, no clicking, black background, simple.

I am surprised you still haven't offered Journal Medium and Journal Large... It was an easy mod. (I mean, put options on the Journal view, don't make a bunch of new styles).

I know, I didn't respond to the original question, it was too complicated... my eyes glazed over... I just wanna see my pics.

It works so good now, I use smugmug to browse my pics, I don't even bother with my desktop software...

Enjoy the Butterflies Here

[asd]

I can't wait for larger images! I think that was one of the first things I wrote to support about after signing up last year.

I like jfriend's reasoning and vote for his solution. I guess that's #2.

At the same time I also get Mike Lane's complaints. I don't have the time to tinker and get in-depth with customizing my own site (and want to save visitors confusion), so I've instead forced all of my galleries to a specific style. A solution to Mike's problem might be to let us decide which styles are available to visitors of a gallery, just as we can do for product availability.

At any rate, I can't wait for the larger images!!

[joffun]

I don't know how many people post large images externally on forums etc, but as a proportion I would imagine that it is small.

Having different size images in the same gallery (#2) would look very odd & not at all streamlined IMO

As others have said, #3 sounds just sounds a bit messy

So out of the three I would go for #1