arrange tool - pet peeve

bkatz · November 23, 2008

Why does the arrange tool only work 25% of the time? When I arrange galleries in a sub-category I sometimes have to repeat the action 3 or 4 times for it to take. I have refreshed to make sure that it is not the browser. This happens all of the time. Sometimes it works the first time and sometimes it takes 4 times.

Is this a bug or something else?

Thando · November 24, 2008

bkatz wrote:

Why does the arrange tool only work 25% of the time? When I arrange galleries in a sub-category I sometimes have to repeat the action 3 or 4 times for it to take. I have refreshed to make sure that it is not the browser. This happens all of the time. Sometimes it works the first time and sometimes it takes 4 times.

Is this a bug or something else?

This definitely appears to be an issue as multiple people have inquired about it. I'm trying to pin it down, but am having issues recreating. I'm sorry that I don't have more info.

dennismullen · November 24, 2008

bkatz wrote:

Why does the arrange tool only work 25% of the time? When I arrange galleries in a sub-category I sometimes have to repeat the action 3 or 4 times for it to take. I have refreshed to make sure that it is not the browser. This happens all of the time. Sometimes it works the first time and sometimes it takes 4 times.

Is this a bug or something else?

Do you have your gallery settings set for "decending" and "autosort off"?
This is a long standing bug that is never fixed and drives me crazy!
Till this is fixed you need to change your gallery settings to "ascending" and "autosort off".

Allen · November 24, 2008

Thando wrote:

This definitely appears to be an issue as multiple people have inquired about it. I'm trying to pin it down, but am having issues recreating. I'm sorry that I don't have more info.

Some info.
The first sort try I selected the last gallery and clicked "start", sort didn't
work. Second time I moved the gallery to the top with the arrows and it
worked. But sometimes this doesn't, haven't found a pattern yet.

Sub-cat galleries almost never sort first try.

bkatz · November 24, 2008

Good news - I am not going crazy!
Bad news - lots of people have the issue.

Thando - Let me know what you want to test and I am happy to help out. Would love to squash this.

blackshadow · November 24, 2008

Another one with issues on the sort here.

I like to be able to sort my images by the time taken - especially important for some events.

Hopefully this can be fixed post haste.

Allen · November 24, 2008

blackshadow wrote:

Another one with issues on the sort here.

I like to be able to sort my images by the time taken - especially important for some events.

Hopefully this can be fixed post haste.

Most of my albums are set to sort by "date taken reverse" and they sort
find. Any new photos added later to the gallery fall into place. You have to
set this under customize gallery.

The sort in the Tools dropdown is only an instant sort and it will have a
warning message if you have sort set under customize. If I want a couple
photos specially placed (out of order), set sort under customize to "none"
"Ascending", use sort in tools drop, then arrange photos to new position.

dennismullen · November 25, 2008

Allen wrote:

Most of my albums are set to sort by "date taken reverse" and they sort
find. Any new photos added later to the gallery fall into place. You have to
set this under customize gallery.

The sort in the Tools dropdown is only an instant sort and it will have a
warning message if you have sort set under customize. If I want a couple
photos specially placed (out of order), set sort under customize to "none"
"Ascending", use sort in tools drop, then arrange photos to new position.

The problem is if you want your gallery with newer pictures at the top, but still want some arranged differently, using sort in tools drop will rearrange all the pictures you have already arranged. Not good if you have hundreds of pictures in your gallery.

The obvious solution is to set "autosort off" and "descending" in the gallery customization. Then pictures already there should stay in their order because autosort is off but new pictures would go to the top where you could then shift their order as needed. But it doesn't work and the pictures get reversed and rearranged the next time you open the gallery. Very frustrating!

Because of this the only option is to set gallery customization to "autosort off" and "ascending". Then the old order isn't changed but the new pictures go to the bottom of the gallery as expected. The problem is that then you have to use the arrange tool every time you upload a picture, which takes a long time to open with hundreds of pictures in the gallery, and drag the new pictures to the top. Did I say this is very frustrating!

I have repeatedly pointed out this problem. Smugmug has admitted it's a problem and said they would fix it. But months and months have gone by and the problem is still there.

Allen · November 25, 2008

dennismullen wrote:

... and drag the new pictures to the top. Did I say this is very frustrating!
...

Use the arrange by number, hit the end key to jump to bottom and input 1, 2,
3 etc. in the new photos and hit save. Don't wait for all the thumbs to load.

dennismullen · November 25, 2008

Allen wrote:

Use the arrange by number, hit the end key to jump to bottom and input 1, 2,
3 etc. in the new photos and hit save. Don't wait for all the thumbs to load.

Or Smugmug could fix the problem.

Thanks Allen, I will give it a try.

dennismullen · December 13, 2008

dennismullen wrote:

The problem is if you want your gallery with newer pictures at the top, but still want some arranged differently, using sort in tools drop will rearrange all the pictures you have already arranged. Not good if you have hundreds of pictures in your gallery.

The obvious solution is to set "autosort off" and "descending" in the gallery customization. Then pictures already there should stay in their order because autosort is off but new pictures would go to the top where you could then shift their order as needed. But it doesn't work and the pictures get reversed and rearranged the next time you open the gallery. Very frustrating!

Because of this the only option is to set gallery customization to "autosort off" and "ascending". Then the old order isn't changed but the new pictures go to the bottom of the gallery as expected. The problem is that then you have to use the arrange tool every time you upload a picture, which takes a long time to open with hundreds of pictures in the gallery, and drag the new pictures to the top. Did I say this is very frustrating!

I have repeatedly pointed out this problem. Smugmug has admitted it's a problem and said they would fix it. But months and months have gone by and the problem is still there.

Still no resolution to this problem. This should not be so difficult to fix.

I tried Allen's work around and found out that using arrange by number and putting "1" in the new picture at the bottom caused my picture to go somewhere in the middle of hundreds of pictures and I thought it was lost and uploaded it again. Now I have to go through all my pictures and find the duplicates. It also rearranged many pictures because for some reason instead of giving each picture a unique number in increments of 10, some picture have duplicate numbers and get inverted during the operation.

I have posted this problem again and again and it just gets ignored. I have reached the point I am about to start looking for a different service.

I went with SmugMug because I could view my 1920x1080 pictures full screen in slide show mode, but for months now it is not working and is in a window. The light box should have been made full screen by now. The all thumbs view should have been made stretchy by now. The gallery page should be wider and have larger thumbnails by now.

I am fed up that I took all the time to move my collection to this service and such basic things aren't fixed. I'm tired of having to constantly keep rearranging my pictures after the arrange tools corrupt my galleries.

dennismullen · December 28, 2008

dennismullen wrote:

Still no resolution to this problem. This should not be so difficult to fix.

I tried Allen's work around and found out that using arrange by number and putting "1" in the new picture at the bottom caused my picture to go somewhere in the middle of hundreds of pictures and I thought it was lost and uploaded it again. Now I have to go through all my pictures and find the duplicates. It also rearranged many pictures because for some reason instead of giving each picture a unique number in increments of 10, some picture have duplicate numbers and get inverted during the operation.

I have posted this problem again and again and it just gets ignored. I have reached the point I am about to start looking for a different service.

I went with SmugMug because I could view my 1920x1080 pictures full screen in slide show mode, but for months now it is not working and is in a window. The light box should have been made full screen by now. The all thumbs view should have been made stretchy by now. The gallery page should be wider and have larger thumbnails by now.

I am fed up that I took all the time to move my collection to this service and such basic things aren't fixed. I'm tired of having to constantly keep rearranging my pictures after the arrange tools corrupt my galleries.

I used the arrange tool again today and had the same results again as discribed above. It takes hours to arrange the pictures to my liking and SmugMug scrambles them for me so I have to start all over again.

Why hasn't this been fixed?

dennismullen · December 30, 2008

dennismullen wrote:

I used the arrange tool again today and had the same results again as described above. It takes hours to arrange the pictures to my liking and SmugMug scrambles them for me so I have to start all over again.

Why hasn't this been fixed?

Don't worry Dennis. We didn't realize this was a problem. It's inexcusable that we let this go for so long.
We will get it fixed pronto.

Your friends at SmugMug!!!

And then I woke up

caroline · March 12, 2009

This is still a problem, I'm sick of wasting time trying to make my arrangement stick, all I want is that my images display in the order I have added them, they have been so jumbled up now with the exception of the last dozen or so I can't remember exactly how the earlier ones were arranged. It would be really nice if long standing problems like this could be addressed. I feel like I'm fighting SmugMug all the time, working around things - Keywords come to mind but that's a whole other topic.

Very grumpy Caroline

caroline · March 12, 2009

OK I finally got it to display as I want and stick, but why do I have to go to different places - tools and customize gallery, I don't get it.

JDub · March 12, 2009

SAME here. I have tried 5-10 times to arrange the photos in my gallery the way I want them, to no avail. Frustrating as hell. Now my clients are taken to my portfolio page with weddings all screwed up and out of order. Cmon!!!

dennismullen · March 17, 2009

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

JDub wrote:

SAME here. I have tried 5-10 times to arrange the photos in my gallery the way I want them, to no avail. Frustrating as hell. Now my clients are taken to my portfolio page with weddings all screwed up and out of order. Cmon!!!

Every once in a while I change the settings to see if it's fixed. Pow, my arrangements get all screwed up. I have posted over and over without results. I usually don't even get a response.

Why is this so hard. It's like your 401K, you have a setting for how current pictures are dealt with and a setting for how future pictures are handled. All I want is for the order of my existing pictures to not be changed, but for new ones to be put at the top so I can arrange them as I see fit. No sort and descending should do this but it doesn't. The only way It works now is to use ascending but new pictures are dropped at the bottom. I have to use the arrange tool to move them to the top. Also sometimes the arrange by number tool screws up an re-arranges my pictures

caroline · March 18, 2009

:deadhorse

dennismullen · March 18, 2009

caroline wrote:

:deadhorse

Well great, I just added a picture to my gallery. Because I have to put it at the bottom to preserve my picture order, I used arrange by number and went to the bottom of the list and set the new file to #15.

Well guess what. The Arrange by number tool completely rearranged all my pictures and put the new picture some where in the middle of the 458 pictures in the gallery. I now get to go through them all and try to recreate my original order. This has happened so many times and Smugmug does nothing about it!

Allen · March 18, 2009

dennismullen wrote:

Well great, I just added a picture to my gallery. Because I have to put it at the bottom to preserve my picture order, I used arrange by number and went to the bottom of the list and set the new file to #15.

Well guess what. The Arrange by number tool completely rearranged all my pictures and put the new picture some where in the middle of the 458 pictures in the gallery. I now get to go through them all and try to recreate my original order. This has happened so many times and Smugmug does nothing about it!

Do you have these set like this under customize gallery?

Auto sort: None
Sort direction: Ascending

dennismullen · March 19, 2009

Allen wrote:

Do you have these set like this under customize gallery?

Auto sort: None
Sort direction: Ascending

Hi Allen,

Yes I do. The pictures are roughly organized with the newest at the top so I'd prefer to have it set to None, Descending so new pictures would drop at the top of the gallery, but this does not work.
I use Arrange by number to move new pictures from the bottom to the top of the gallery, but it's a pain and every once in a while it will totally rearrange the order of the gallery, or put the new picture somewhere in the middle of the gallery.

Cheers,

Allen · March 19, 2009

dennismullen wrote:

Hi Allen,

Yes I do. The pictures are roughly organized with the newest at the top so I'd prefer to have it set to None, Descending so new pictures would drop at the top of the gallery, but this does not work.
I use Arrange by number to move new pictures from the bottom to the top of the gallery, but it's a pain and every once in a while it will totally rearrange the order of the gallery, or put the new picture somewhere in the middle of the gallery.

Cheers,

Setting to Descending I think is what is messing it up. Set to none/Ascending
and use the sort under the tools drop for the initial sort then position the
photos anywhere you want and they will stick. All new photos will fall at
the end and you'll have to position them.

It been mentioned in the past that none and ascending has to be set for
the tools>sort (snapshot) and manual arrangement of photos to stick.

dennismullen · March 19, 2009

Allen wrote:

Setting to Descending I think is what is messing it up. Set to none/Ascending
and use the sort under the tools drop for the initial sort then position the
photos anywhere you want and they will stick. All new photos will fall at
the end and you'll have to position them.

It been mentioned in the past that none and ascending has to be set for
the tools>sort (snapshot) and manual arrangement of photos to stick.

That's a fact and it is a "MAJOR BUG".

When you have hundreds of pictures in a gallery, moving the new pictures from the bottom to the top of the gallery is a "MAJOR HASSLE".
To make things even worse, the arrange by number tool will sometimes mess the whole carefully arranged gallery up!

Thanks anyway, Allen.

bkatz · April 21, 2009

Any update?
Any update on when we might see this bug fixed. I t took me 15 minutes to move galleries around yesterday in one sub-category - funny thing was the results were inconsistent every time.

docwalker · April 21, 2009

I cannot say when it will be fixed. This has been reported to the programmers, they are working on it.

jh4wvu · April 28, 2009

docwalker wrote:

I cannot say when it will be fixed. This has been reported to the programmers, they are working on it.

I am having the same issue...it would be nice if this could be fixed sooner than later.

Thanks,
Chris

http://photos.wvu.edu

Camara Photography, LLC · September 5, 2009

Shooting with two cameras at a wedding
I set a wedding gallery "sort by date taken", since my two cameras aren't time synced exactly, some of my pics are just slightly out of order, and I need to arrange some of them manually.

I click "drag to arrange", and the next screen tells me that the gallery is set to "auto sort". I click "yes". The order of my photo's are all over the place. WHAT THE HELL. As a previous post mentioned, it would take a long time to arrange photos of the end of the reception that are at the top of the arrange window, to the bottom of 600+ pics!

I have tried refreshing my browser... nothing seems to work. Am I doing something wrong?

I wouldn't be so pissed if I hadn't done this same process a week ago (successfully)!

Camara Photography, LLC · September 5, 2009

JDub wrote:

SAME here. I have tried 5-10 times to arrange the photos in my gallery the way I want them, to no avail. Frustrating as hell. Now my clients are taken to my portfolio page with weddings all screwed up and out of order. Cmon!!!

I feel your PAIN! I have promised wedding clients that I would have these done TODAY! As of now I cannot organize their gallery, and I have Reception pics scrambled in with ceremony pics! WTF..

SMUGMUG: FIX THIS!

Allen · September 5, 2009

Camara Photography, LLC wrote:

I set a wedding gallery "sort by date taken", since my two cameras aren't time synced exactly, some of my pics are just slightly out of order, and I need to arrange some of them manually.

I click "drag to arrange", and the next screen tells me that the gallery is set to "auto sort". I click "yes". The order of my photo's are all over the place. WHAT THE HELL. As a previous post mentioned, it would take a long time to arrange photos of the end of the reception that are at the top of the arrange window, to the bottom of 600+ pics!

I have tried refreshing my browser... nothing seems to work. Am I doing something wrong?

I wouldn't be so pissed if I hadn't done this same process a week ago (successfully)!

On your customize gallery page set sort to "none" and "ascending" to turn off auto.

Now under tools > many photos > arrange > sort, chose a sort and apply.
This is a one shot sort so now you can arrange photos any way you like
with drag and drop.

Camara Photography, LLC · September 5, 2009

Allen wrote:

On your customize gallery page set sort to "none" and "ascending" to turn off auto.

Now under tools > many photos > arrange > sort, chose a sort and apply.
This is a one shot sort so now you can arrange photos any way you like
with drag and drop.

I just tried this, and noticed another issue. I had previously saved the Auto Sort to "date taken" (again, because I have two cameras, that produce different file names), but when I went back in to try your suggested fix, the gallery is set back (mysteriously) to "none".

This would be fine if the pics didn't need to be and any order, and there weren't 600+ pics!

Why won't my changes stick / save?

Allen · September 5, 2009

Camara Photography, LLC wrote:

I just tried this, and noticed another issue. I had previously saved the Auto Sort to "date taken" (again, because I have two cameras, that produce different file names), but when I went back in to try your suggested fix, the gallery is set back (mysteriously) to "none".

This would be fine if the pics didn't need to be and any order, and there weren't 600+ pics!

Why won't my changes stick / save?

Leave the sort to none under customize gallery. Use the arrange by "time and
date taken" under the tools > many photos > arrange > sort menu. Then move photos
around. This will not remove the "none" under customize gallery as this is a one time sort.

arrange tool - pet peeve

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