Smart galleries broken? No Collecting anymore?

CanvasOfLight · July 30, 2013

Hello Smugmug,

First of all, I have to admit that the new designs are astonishing. I'm glad I renewed my account again with you guys.

Just a few questions. i don't know if it's a bug but Smart Galleries don't seem to work anymore? I try to include keywords and it just doesn't populate my gallery.

Also, isn't it possible to create "collections" anymore? I want some photos to appear in various galleries without having to move them, or making new copies.

Thanks.

WinsomeWorks · July 30, 2013

CanvasOfLight wrote: »

Hello Smugmug,

First of all, I have to admit that the new designs are astonishing. I'm glad I renewed my account again with you guys.

Just a few questions. i don't know if it's a bug but Smart Galleries don't seem to work anymore? I try to include keywords and it just doesn't populate my gallery.

Also, isn't it possible to create "collections" anymore? I want some photos to appear in various galleries without having to move them, or making new copies.

Thanks.

Thank you for asking this. I sure hope they still work... & that was one of my next questions. I haven't heard one thing yet about how / if any kind of irtual galleries are working, or Smart Galleries, or Collected photos or whatever. I also haven't heard an answer to one of my most burning questions: Can galleries now be listed in more than one sub-category (guess they're called folders now) at once?? Without spending time creating a new gallery?

moiraine · July 30, 2013

If you are viewing a photo in the SmugMug/Journal Styles, you can access the "Collect" option under the "Share" menu. In other styles, you can access the same option from the lightbox.

CanvasOfLight · July 30, 2013

Oh I see.
Not a very obvious place to put a "collect" button.

Also, it seems like I have to go through each photo one by one, open them in the lightbox and collect them. Quite a hassle.

WinsomeWorks · July 30, 2013

CanvasOfLight wrote: »

Oh I see.
Not a very obvious place to put a "collect" button.

Also, it seems like I have to go through each photo one by one, open them in the lightbox and collect them. Quite a hassle.

I'm praying this is not true. I still can't figure out.... why no mention of the whole entire virtual thing??! This was a huge big rollout just a couple/few short years ago, and now SmugMug is saying nothing about it, like it's a forgotten stuffed toy. Very weird.

mrneutron · July 30, 2013

There is no way to collect multiple photos using the new SmugMug. You can use smart galleries to display virtual copies. Since everyone is trying out the new features of the site, it's taking longer than usual for keywords to index, that's affecting smart galleries.

WinsomeWorks · July 30, 2013

mrneutron wrote: »

There is no way to collect multiple photos using the new SmugMug. You can use smart galleries to display virtual copies. Since everyone is trying out the new features of the site, it's taking longer than usual for keywords to index, that's affecting smart galleries.

Can you list a virtual gallery (or any kind of gallery, for that matter) in several categories (or "folders" or whatever they are now) without having to go through all the steps of creating a whole 'nother gallery & etc & then filling it virtually & copying & pasting the descriptions, etc.? That's one of my biggest hopes, one that should have been made easy with the Virtual roll-out & never was. In other words, can I make a gallery like "Graduation Day" show up in two equal folders, such as "Family" and "School Events" or whatever? Right now (in "Old" SmugMug), we have to create 2 whole galleries to do that. Yes, we can populate them virtually, but still the set-up is way more work than it should be.

Also, I'm wondering whether a sub-folder can show up within two different top folders. So "School Events" might be available in both "Family" and "Special Occasions" etc.

gluwater · July 30, 2013

Hey gang,

Collected images and Smart Galleries have not changed. That is why there was no mention of it today, it is an existing feature that we love and hope it gets used even more now.

Take a look at Thomas Hawks SmugMug site and you'll see that he breaks up some of his photos by color.

http://thomashawk.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Thomas-Hawk-in-Purple-1

Those are Smart Galleries and you can see that they are working. If you are uploading new photos or adding new keywords to images our index may take a little to update, especially with the enormous load that the site is under today. If you want to manually refresh a gallery go into it's Gallery Settings and click refresh on the Smart Gallery Rules page.

WinsomeWorks you can display galleries anywhere you want through customization now. You can use the Folder, Gallery, Page, Multiple Photos, or "Folder, Galleries and Pages" content blocks to add them to other parts of your site. You cannot Collect Galleries to other Galleries though.

Smart Galleries are just Collected images that are automated. To Collect images in bulk just keyword them and then add a Smart Gallery Rule to populate the gallery with them.

WinsomeWorks · July 30, 2013

gluwater wrote: »

Hey gang,

Collected images and Smart Galleries have not changed. That is why there was no mention of it today, it is an existing feature that we love and hope it gets used even more now.

Take a look at Thomas Hawks SmugMug site and you'll see that he breaks up some of his photos by color.

http://thomashawk.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Thomas-Hawk-in-Purple-1

Those are Smart Galleries and you can see that they are working. If you are uploading new photos or adding new keywords to images our index may take a little to update, especially with the enormous load that the site is under today. If you want to manually refresh a gallery go into it's Gallery Settings and click refresh on the Smart Gallery Rules page.

WinsomeWorks you can display galleries anywhere you want through customization now. You can use the Folder, Gallery, Page, Multiple Photos, or "Folder, Galleries and Pages" content blocks to add them to other parts of your site. You cannot Collect Galleries to other Galleries though.

Smart Galleries are just Collected images that are automated. To Collect images in bulk just keyword them and then add a Smart Gallery Rule to populate the gallery with them.

Ok, it just seems very goofy that this simple thing that people have asked for for years & should've been easy with the Virtual thing is still not possible! So many other sites have had it for years... just the simple thing of listing a gallery in more than one category. Or a whole sub-category in more than one category. Heavens, it would save so much storage space on SmugMug.

WinsomeWorks · July 30, 2013

gluwater wrote: »

Hey gang,

Collected images and Smart Galleries have not changed. That is why there was no mention of it today, it is an existing feature that we love and hope it gets used even more now.

Take a look at Thomas Hawks SmugMug site and you'll see that he breaks up some of his photos by color.

http://thomashawk.smugmug.com/Portfolio/Thomas-Hawk-in-Purple-1

Those are Smart Galleries and you can see that they are working. If you are uploading new photos or adding new keywords to images our index may take a little to update, especially with the enormous load that the site is under today. If you want to manually refresh a gallery go into it's Gallery Settings and click refresh on the Smart Gallery Rules page.

WinsomeWorks you can display galleries anywhere you want through customization now. You can use the Folder, Gallery, Page, Multiple Photos, or "Folder, Galleries and Pages" content blocks to add them to other parts of your site. You cannot Collect Galleries to other Galleries though.

Smart Galleries are just Collected images that are automated. To Collect images in bulk just keyword them and then add a Smart Gallery Rule to populate the gallery with them.

The problem I've had with a keyword smart-population is this: I (and, I imagine, many people) have several copies of the same photo on their site.. due to the inability to do what I just said previously!) So.... that means that actual photo's keywords will make it appear multiple times in a keyword-populated gallery. Because the gallery can't tell that more than one photo is in it. It's a mess, and makes that keyword-smart-gallery-feature almost useless for anyone with the same photo in two galleries.

gluwater · July 30, 2013

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Ok, it just seems very goofy that this simple thing that people have asked for for years & should've been easy with the Virtual thing is still not possible! So many other sites have had it for years... just the simple thing of listing a gallery in more than one category. Or a whole sub-category in more than one category. Heavens, it would save so much storage space on SmugMug.

Categories and Subcataegories no longer exist in the new system, they are now a 5 level Folder system. As I mentioned above you can display a gallery anywhere on your site through various Customization options. So yes, you can display a Gallery or selection of Galleries in a Folder that they do not originate from. This is not part of the Collecting Images feature but the end product is what you are asking for.

BigRed · July 30, 2013

gluwater wrote: »

Collected images and Smart Galleries have not changed...

How has Collecting not changed if it's true that the existing functionality has been removed that allows us to open a gallery and simply click/unclick to select multiple images to be collected to another gallery? What am I misunderstanding?

chn · July 31, 2013

Not just has Collecting changed but there is a HUGE SERIOUS BUG!!!! If you try to remove a collected photo from a gallery the photo doesn't just get removed but the original gets permanently deleted. So don't use collections with the new smugmug website. I found a few other bugs and now think it's probably best not to migrate for a while and before you do test it with a trial account extensively (that's how I discovered the issue).

Oja · July 31, 2013

What I find a really big problem in the new design is that there is no clue on an image that it is a virtual copy. Not in the gallery or in lightbox (where you used to get a link to where the image was originally) and neither in Organize. That is quite crazy. You also really should be able to easily see where an image is being displayed. This wasn't possible before but is actually a quite essential feature that I hope will be added sometime soon.

chn · July 31, 2013

Oja wrote: »

What I find a really big problem in the new design is that there is no clue on an image that it is a virtual copy.

Maybe that's good. Because from what I see you are not working with a virtual copy. Instead the photo is listed in two places. That would explain why the original photo gets deleted instead of just removed.

DMatt · July 31, 2013

I miss collecting photos with just clicking. It's not the same as adding keywords. Sometimes I just browse through and a want to quickly add few photos to some existing gallery.

dbe4876 · July 31, 2013

When I "collect" an image I have to select the collect-to gallery each time. We used to only have to select the collect-to gallery once. This makes every image collect a two-step process rather than one-step (so, twice as much time now for doing lots of collects). Am I missing something?

CanvasOfLight · July 31, 2013

I noticed that when you are in the same gallery, the gallery you first collected to stays selected when you move to the next photo.

dbe4876 · July 31, 2013

Yea, its just not a minimal as it used to be. Once defined, no more bother, just find an image and click "Collect." Now, I am taken to a gallery list and even though after the first time you select a gallery its selected by default, you still are taken to this view and have to click "Done." So, either way its three clicks instead of one.

David Evertsen · July 31, 2013

Smart Galleries
I am an extremely large user of Smart Galleries, I love to use them but setting them up is a pain. This is how I use them..

http://news.smugmug.com/2011/09/26/photog-tip-of-the-week-sell-smarter-with-smart-galleries-by-david-evertsen/

With that said on my preview site when I create the galleries the make it a smart gallery is a nightmare! It opens a new browser window with the old dialog.. I just looked at some that where migrated over and it doesn't even know that it is a smart gallery you can only tell when you click make it a smart gallery.. I regularly create 80 galleries per team for Football and 10-30 depending on the sport later in the year for player number galleries, Smart Galleries need a designation on the gallery in the new organizer and it needs to have the rule fixed in the new settings box.. It is broken as it is now when settings doesn't know it's smart.. I have to touch every gallery to setup the keywords for each player.. Please help

Thanks,

Smart galleries broken? No Collecting anymore?

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