Categories, Sub-categories, & Sharegroups

Mike_P

I have the feeling I'm missing something really basic, but here goes:

I have a fair number of galleries in a plain vanilla (not customized) configuration, all of which are unlisted. I have been really pleased with how I've been able to control access by associating galleries with specific sharegroups -- this, I think, is a real advantage with SmugMug.

Now I've reached the point where some sharegroups have access to a large number of galleries, and it becomes more important for their first view to be one of categories, not galleries. Indeed, this is what I see when I'm logged in and I would like to duplicate that for the site visitors.

Can't seem to do it. Although there is a very convenient "Display: categories - galleries" option to determine what I, the logged in owner, first sees, I don't see an equivalent option to dictate what my visitors see.

I do notice that, if I make everything public, my sharegroup visitor will still first be presented with the long gallery list, but is then able to work his way back to a visibly named sub-category and then category. This is not particularly useful, and I hope this doesn't mean all this is impossible with all galleries as unlisted.

Help anyone?

-- Mike

Mike_P

OK, I'll try to clarify the question:

I put up two "test" categories, put up a "test" subcategory for each, and put up 2 "test" galleries in each subcategory, and made all galleries public.

Putting "xxxxx.smugmug.com" in my browser, I get what I want, i.e., the two test categories, which I can click on and go down the tree, etc.

Now if I make the component galleries unlisted, and generate a sharegroup with rights to all of them with a resulting URL such as:

"xxxxx.smugmug.com/share/eklkmenpqkelkD"

then I simply get a listing with thumbnails of all the galleries and do not get any kind of category or subcategory grouping.

Is that the way it is supposed to work? If so, I'll quit experimenting.

Thanks,
Mike

jfriend

Mike_P wrote:

OK, I'll try to clarify the question:

I put up two "test" categories, put up a "test" subcategory for each, and put up 2 "test" galleries in each subcategory, and made all galleries public.

Putting "xxxxx.smugmug.com" in my browser, I get what I want, i.e., the two test categories, which I can click on and go down the tree, etc.

Now if I make the component galleries unlisted, and generate a sharegroup with rights to all of them with a resulting URL such as:

"xxxxx.smugmug.com/share/eklkmenpqkelkD"

then I simply get a listing with thumbnails of all the galleries and do not get any kind of category or subcategory grouping.

Is that the way it is supposed to work? If so, I'll quit experimenting.

Thanks,
Mike

If this is what you are asking, sharegroups are just a flat list of galleries. They do not have any category structure.

I know of no way to use unlisted galleries and have a hierarchical structure for your viewers other than manually coding HTML into a whole bunch of pages that would simulate such a structure. As soon as you make them unlisted, a viewer who is not logged in as the site owner can only see them individually via a link or in a flat list via a sharegroup, they will never show in a category listing.

Allen

Mike_P wrote:

OK, I'll try to clarify the question:

I put up two "test" categories, put up a "test" subcategory for each, and put up 2 "test" galleries in each subcategory, and made all galleries public.

Putting "xxxxx.smugmug.com" in my browser, I get what I want, i.e., the two test categories, which I can click on and go down the tree, etc.

Now if I make the component galleries unlisted, and generate a sharegroup with rights to all of them with a resulting URL such as:

"xxxxx.smugmug.com/share/eklkmenpqkelkD"

then I simply get a listing with thumbnails of all the galleries and do not get any kind of category or subcategory grouping.

Is that the way it is supposed to work? If so, I'll quit experimenting.

Thanks,
Mike

Unlisted galleries will not show in any category or sub-cat box except for a
sharegroup box. Sharegroup box will only show gallery thumbs. Only the direct
link to the gallery will work.

Allen

Mike_P wrote:

...

The only way I know to get the category/sub-cat pages would be to create
a category for each and hide the category from the regular category box
with some javascript. They could then go straight to the category link. All
these galleries would be not unlisted.

Ref this thread http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=48082&page=2
Put in javascript

      <!-- Hide Categories -->
function delCategory() {
  re = /\/([B]Jones[/B]|[B]Smith[/B]|[B]Barton[/B]|[B]Brown[/B])$/;

  var oList = YD.getElementsByClassName('miniBox', 'div', this);

  for (i = 0; i < oList.length; i++) {
    if (re.test(oList[i].getElementsByTagName('a')[0].href))
      oList[i].parentNode.removeChild(oList[i]);
  }
}
YE.onContentReady('categoriesBox', delCategory);
     <!-- End Hide Categories -->

Mike_P

Thank you all. I pretty much expected that to be the case.

-- Mike

P.S. Just noticed I graduated from "beginner grinner"................... hmmmm......... not likely.