I just don't get it!

W.W. Webster

If a visitor to the smugmug.com home page uses the 'browse' function to select one of my galleries for closer inspection, why does this not display with my customisation?

I go to a lot of trouble to manage the look and feel that visitors will experience when calling at my site. However if they arrive there via the Smugmug 'browse' function, all my efforts are to nought.

This is very frustrating. What is it I don't understand? :scratch

Sheaf

W.W. Webster wrote:

If a visitor to the smugmug.com home page uses the 'browse' function to select one of my galleries for closer inspection, why does this not display with my customisation?

I go to a lot of trouble to manage the look and feel that visitors will experience when calling at my site. However if they arrive there via the Smugmug 'browse' function, all my efforts are to nought.

This is very frustrating. What is it I don't understand?

Can you tell me what steps you are taking? Are you talking about finding some of your photos from http://www.smugmug.com/browse/ ?

And where are you finding your galleries there?

W.W. Webster

Sheaf

If I select the browse function on the Smugmug home page (see below), and then select a category ....



... then locate and click on my gallery of interest ...



... what I get ain't my customisation ...



... which should look like this ...



My question is simply "why not?"

If I'm doing something that prevents my exact customisation appearing, I'd be grateful to know what it is! I think the same anomaly may occur as the result of a gallery or image search, but i haven't checked lately.

Sheaf

Hmm... interesting. So I assume we do that simply because it standardizes the browsing experience and feel for people... well, browsing.

We'll bounce it around here (and if anyone else has feedback on it, I'd love to hear it).

W.W. Webster

Sheaf wrote:

Hmm... interesting.

Pain in the rear end, I'd say!

If I pay for customisation functionaility, isn't it reasonable to get it, without exception? It's not that Smugmug doesn't get a mention, because you guys are always referred to in every footer. Therefore, is faithfully reproducing the user's customisation such a big deal, whether commercially or even technically for that matter?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan. But when you 'bounce it around', can you see it from the user point of view?

BeachBill

Ross,

Your customization doesn't apply when your galleries are viewed via www.smugmug.com (browse and search use www.smugmug.com instead of your smugmug hostname rosscollins.smugmug.com when linking to galleries).

This issue was reported over a year ago and I thought they had fixed it.

The workaround is to force these links to use your hostname rosscollins.smugmug.com with the following code added to the top of your javascript section in customization:

redirectPath();

function redirectPath() {

  re = /(www.smugmug.com)/;
  tmp = window.location.href;
  if (re.test(tmp)) {
    tmp = tmp.replace(re, 'rosscollins.smugmug.com');
    window.location.href = tmp;
  }
}

Then if anyone tries to browse your site via www.smugmug.com, the hostname will be automatically changed to rosscollins.smugmug.com and your customization will appear as expected.

W.W. Webster

Thanks Bill, but it didn't work on the first go.

By "the top of your javascript section in customization" I presume you mean at the top of the section titled "Top JavaScript (optional & advanced)"?

BeachBill

Ouch! I just did some testing and it looks like all customization is now being ignored when galleries are accessed via www.smugmug.com. When I set this up a long time ago (over a year) it was working. It was set up before they created a "top javascript" and "bottom javascript", there used to be just one javascript section.

I've got some similar logic (that still works) that forces any accesses to my site via my smugmug hostname to use my custom domain instead. You can see it in action by accessing the following link. Note that primarycolors.smugmug.com changes to gallery.primarycolors.com automatically
http://primarycolors.smugmug.com/gallery/6238051_hTuQT

Unfortunately the same doesn't work for www.smugmug.com :uhoh

W.W. Webster

Thanks - I appreciate your efforts, Bill.

Hopefully Sheaf or one of his colleagues will get back on this, because I suspect there will be widespread interest in a solution.

hyachts

The other thing that's really frustrating about this "back door" is that along with style customization it ignores analytic packages. I use Statcounter, and the only way I know if somebody is browsing my site using the www page is if they click on one of my navigation links that takes them to one of my "branded" pages.

W.W. Webster

Good point - that hadn't occurred to me.