Originally Posted by gblotter Has this been implemented yet? I would love the ability to add at least one more organizational level between subcategories and galleries. I seem to remember reading another customization thread with a workaround for this, but cannot find it now. If such a workaround exists, kindly point me to it.

Do you maybe refer to this customization?

There's no news on additional levels from SmugMug's side yet. Sorry.

Originally Posted by Allen I don't understand this, only galleries can contain photos and a gallery could be added to any level, right? What I'd like to see is a "description box" available on every level, cat, sub-cat, sub-sub-cat, sub-sub-sub-cat, just like a gallery has the "album description" box. Maybe allowing the boxTop (text box) for each galleriesBox, categoriesBox, subcategoriesBox, subsubcategoriesBox, etc., be editable as an html text box.

This makes sense to me. And having a description box made available to us by SM makes perfect sense too versus spending hours getting dirty and wading through custom CSS code.


I personally would like to see at some point, six levels of galleries:

• a homepage with Categories sports
  • a main page of Sub-Categories hs
    • Sub-sub-category soccer
      • Sub-sub-sub-category series 2012
        • Sub-sub-sub-sub category game
          • gallery with photos 1st half

Beyond six levels just seems as if someone would throw spaghetti up on the wall and not care how it landed or looked. So, I'm in favor of limiting more levels for pro account users only. We don't need SM appearing amateurish by those too lazy to tighten up their hierarchy and site organization.

We've been waiting a long time for more levels so I'd much rather have one more level asap instead of some fancy new mess that has a VERY uncertain release date.

Originally Posted by Pure Energy This makes sense to me. And having a description box made available to us by SM makes perfect sense too versus spending hours getting dirty and wading through custom CSS code. I personally would like to see at some point, six levels of galleries: a homepage with Categories sports a main page of Sub-Categories hs Sub-sub-category soccer Sub-sub-sub-category series 2012 Sub-sub-sub-sub category game gallery with photos 1st half Beyond six levels just seems as if someone would throw spaghetti up on the wall and not care how it landed or looked. So, I'm in favor of limiting more levels for pro account users only. We don't need SM appearing amateurish by those too lazy to tighten up their hierarchy and site organization. We've been waiting a long time for more levels so I'd much rather have one more level asap instead of some fancy new mess that has a VERY uncertain release date.

That may seem like a nice organized way to display your galleries, but it's way, way, way more clicks for a viewer to find something than is generally necessary and it presents only a couple options at each level and because of that, it's not as easy to navigate as it could be. It often makes much more sense to put more options at each level and have fewer levels. This lets viewers browse easier and quicker to find things and get to their destination faster. Remember, it's no big deal to offer a choice between 10-15 items on any screen. One can scan those with your eyes very quickly to find what you want, must faster than one can explore several different parts of the hierarchy. On mobile, it helps even more because each page view is slower on mobile.

I don't know the exact number of galleries you have at every spot to optimize this for you, but to give you an idea how it could be done better with a lot fewer levels, here's one idea

Sports
    High School Soccer
        2012
            Game vs. Whitman - 1st half
            Game vs. Whitman - 2nd half

This reduces your levels from 6 down to 4 and makes it quicker to navigate and explore. Without lots of custom javascript, you still need more levels than Smugmug has now to do this (so I'm not arguing against the desire for more levels), but did want to point out that 6 levels might not be best for your viewers.

Originally Posted by jfriend That may seem like a nice organized way to display your galleries, but it's way, way, way more clicks for a viewer to find something than is generally necessary and it presents only a couple options at each level and because of that, it's not as easy to navigate as it could be. It often makes much more sense to put more options at each level and have fewer levels. This lets viewers browse easier and quicker to find things and get to their destination faster. Remember, it's no big deal to offer a choice between 10-15 items on any screen. One can scan those with your eyes very quickly to find what you want, must faster than one can explore several different parts of the hierarchy. On mobile, it helps even more because each page view is slower on mobile. I don't know the exact number of galleries you have at every spot to optimize this for you, but to give you an idea how it could be done better with a lot fewer levels, here's one idea Sports High School Soccer 2012 Game vs. Whitman - 1st half Game vs. Whitman - 2nd half This reduces your levels from 6 down to 4 and makes it quicker to navigate and explore. Without lots of custom javascript, you still need more levels than Smugmug has now to do this (so I'm not arguing against the desire for more levels), but did want to point out that 6 levels might not be best for your viewers.

I could go for one more level right now and be very happy for awhile.

Two more levels would be the ideal solution to have right now for many more years to come. But I do not think a total of 6 levels would be too much for a viewer to click through for those few sub-categories that would benefit from it.

Lol, I just realized I left my notes for levels in there for you to see. Sports was just the first thing that came to mind when working out how many levels I'd like, but I have other categories that I would like the potential to take to a total of six levels. Of course with sports, things can be tightened up and until I upload the photos to fill out the levels on other categories, five levels will work just fine versus six.

Even with a total of four levels, I'm discouraged from uploading more photos to turn my site into a kick ass site for certain categories. So, I'm really discouraged when all we have at the moment is three levels for photos. Not to mention by only having the current total of three levels, my homepage is really starting to clutter up with categories that really need to be sub-categories.

Seeing sub-categories as categories on a homepage just makes me think that the photographer hasn't bothered to organize his photos at all. If he's that dis-organized, would I want to hire him? This is what I think others are thinking when they go to my site. Thanks SM.

Originally Posted by Pure Energy I could go for one more level right now and be very happy for awhile. Two more levels would be the ideal solution to have right now for many more years to come. But I do not think a total of 6 levels would be too much for a viewer to click through for those few sub-categories that would benefit from it. Lol, I just realized I left my notes for levels in there for you to see. Sports was just the first thing that came to mind when working out how many levels I'd like, but I have other categories that I would like the potential to take to a total of six levels. Of course with sports, things can be tightened up and until I upload the photos to fill out the levels on other categories, five levels will work just fine versus six. Even with a total of four levels, I'm discouraged from uploading more photos to turn my site into a kick ass site for certain categories. So, I'm really discouraged when all we have at the moment is three levels for photos. Not to mention by only having the current total of three levels, my homepage is really starting to clutter up with categories that really need to be sub-categories. Seeing sub-categories as categories on a homepage just makes me think that the photographer hasn't bothered to organize his photos at all. If he's that dis-organized, would I want to hire him? This is what I think others are thinking when they go to my site. Thanks SM.

My point is that you can make your site work quite well with a lot fewer levels than you may have first thought and it will probably work better/more efficiently for the viewers too. I'm personally not drilling down six levels to try to find something on pretty much any site and I'm certainly not going in and out among lots of sub-sub-sub-sub-sub categories trying to find what I'm looking for. I'd much rather have two galleries icons on a page that I can scan than have to search through multiple sub-categories for the ones I'm looking for.

Also, for an idea what can be done with customization with only two levels, check out this: http://friend.smugmug.com/Sports/Pal...wing-Club-2012.

Well, I appreciate your insight into hierarchy, jfriend, but I have a pretty tight hierarchy at the moment and I think this thread should be focused on SM seeing the immediate need for more levels, not the dragging of feet that we see.

Personally, I design my hierarchy so that I would reasonably expect someone to go back one to two levels for a different gallery. Going further back then two levels is not likely to happen all that much for those ready and willing to spend money today. All those looky-loos can and will click away willingly through however many levels I create.

While I did see a customized page for galleries somewhere, sometime that might help out or be nice to implement... what should I really be focusing on? Shooting, editing and posting photos or learning the ins and outs of all this CSS coding crap?

I guess the question all of us are asking ourselves until SM implements one, two or three more levels is as follows:

Should I have a cluttered up homepage or a gallery with too many photos in it?

Originally Posted by Pure Energy Should I have a cluttered up homepage or a gallery with too many photos in it?

Agreed! Right now, galleries with too many photos

Originally Posted by Pure Energy I guess the question all of us are asking ourselves until SM implements one, two or three more levels is as follows: Should I have a cluttered up homepage or a gallery with too many photos in it?

If you want my opinion on the layout of your homepage, I would need a link to it so I can look at what you have.