What is Star*Explorer?

gooseattack · June 10, 2005

Hi, this may be a dumb question...I'm pretty new to Smugmug.

What is Star*Explorer and what does it do? Is it an Upload program similar to "Send to Smugmug"?

I went to this page and browsed a little http://www.starexplorer.com/ and noticed there is a Purchase section.

Does Star*Explorer cost anything? -- I ask because it doesn't look like you have to submit payment info to download. But there is a page where you can select Star*Explorer Standard Version, Power Version, and Pro Version. What are the different between these? (Do you download the one with whatever Smugmug account you have?)

One thing that I am interested in is gallery positioning. There's a feature in "Send to Smugmug", that when you upload photos into a new gallery, you can manually enter the Position of the photo (except there's a bug) -- This postioning feature does allow users to skip the step of going to "Organize Galleries by Postion" and move thumbnails around. I reorganize my photos every time I create new galleries, because my galleries are in chronological order...and Smugmug automatically defaults new galleries to the # 1 postion, when I would like to be the last position. This may be especially tedious when you have over 500 galleries.

Lastly, what is the most recent version of Star*Explorer?

Thanks a bunch!
-Lucy

Nikolai · June 10, 2005

Lucy
Hi,
Thank you for your inquiry!

For almost all of your question there are answers on the Star*Explorer site, mostly on Home and How To pages, but I guess I did a pretty poor job presenting this info on the site

I apologize for that and I'm gonna answer them here and now.

gooseattack wrote:

What is Star*Explorer and what does it do? Is it an Upload program similar to "Send to Smugmug"?

Star Explorer is, in its big part, an upload program.
Unlike "Send to Smugmug", however, it can do way more than that even in its current state, and, since I didn't stop the development, it will be able to do much more in the future (even in some near future:-)
Just in case - S*E has multiple ways to initiate the upload, one of them being Shell Extension, which gives you the functionality almost identical to "Send to Smugmug", i.e. you can simply select the files in your windows explorer and then select Send to .. Smugmug from the context menu. It's not the only way, though.

There is an extensive feature matrix on the home page, just scroll it down a bit..:-)

gooseattack wrote:

Does Star*Explorer cost anything? -- I ask because it doesn't look like you have to submit payment info to download.

Star*Explorer is not free, but I truly believe in "try-before-buy" approach. You can download it for free and use it for 30 days without (almost) any limitations (just a couple of most valuable advanced features would be restricted or disabled). Once this trial period is over it will simply stop working.
You can purchase the license anytime during (or even after) this trial period, which would guarantee that there is no expiration date.
Fee is reasonably small and one-time only, you don't have to renew the subscription every year, it's a life-term purchase. And all the new versions are free, too:-), so if you buy version 125 now, you'll be able to download some future version 199 at no additional charge from me.

gooseattack wrote:

But there is a page where you can select Star*Explorer Standard Version, Power Version, and Pro Version. What are the different between these?

At this point the biggest difference is as follows:
* Standard provides all the basic features
* Power includes Enhanced access to statistics
* Pro includes access to Sales

I must say though that most of the new features that are currently under development (like download, or cross-album property editing) would only be availalbe in Power/Pro version, so the Standard will remain pretty much what it is now, while the Power and Pro editions will get more and more pretty nice features:-)

gooseattack wrote:

Do you download the one with whatever Smugmug account you have?

I named S*E editions after smugmug subscription models just to simplify your initial choice. However, you certainly can have them different. For instance, you can have Pro SM account and purchase Standard S*E license, or vice versa. You need to decide for yourself what set of S*E features suite your needs more.

gooseattack wrote:

One thing that I am interested in is gallery positioning. There's a feature in "Send to Smugmug", that when you upload photos into a new gallery, you can manually enter the Position of the photo (except there's a bug) -- This positioning feature does allow users to skip the step of going to "Organize Galleries by Position" and move thumbnails around. I reorganize my photos every time I create new galleries, because my galleries are in chronological order...and Smugmug automatically defaults new galleries to the # 1 position, when I would like to be the last position. This may be especially tedious when you have over 500 galleries.

S*E has a very extensive gallery creation dialog (which will soon be also gallery editor:-), which "remembers" your settings.
It also can create multiple galleries (or categories, or subcategories) at a time, and it can even automatically upload the whole tree and automatically match it to you existing category/subcategory/gallery SM structure. This feature is called Auto Album Creation, check the How-To page (I should confess it's an advanced one, but it's there:-)

gooseattack wrote:

Lastly, what is the most recent version of Star*Explorer?

Current version is 125. But since I add more and more features it may change:-). You can check it for yourself - it is *always* displayed on top of the any site's page.

gooseattack wrote:

Thanks a bunch!
-Lucy

You're welcome!

Hope I answered your questions!

If you have more - bring them on:-)

Thank you for you interest in Star*Explorer!

Cheers!

gooseattack · June 10, 2005

Thank you so much

, and I appreciate the speedy response.

...yeah I apologize for not thoroughly reading the site. I was at work so that to alt-tab back and forth between my work page and your website. Looks like it has some pretty intensive details.

Looks like is exactly something I am looking for. I will look forward to using it!

Nikolai · June 10, 2005

You're very welcome!

gooseattack wrote:

Thank you so much , and I appreciate the speedy response.

...yeah I apologize for not thoroughly reading the site. I was at work so that to alt-tab back and forth between my work page and your website. Looks like it has some pretty intensive details.

Looks like is exactly something I am looking for. I will look forward to using it!

Let me know if you have any other questions.
I'm also availalbe at support@starexplorer.com.
Cheers!

John Mueller · June 10, 2005

Its a great program.
Mine expires in 2 day

Time to send some money:D

Nikolai · June 10, 2005

Thanks, John!

John Mueller wrote:

Its a great program.
Mine expires in 2 day
Time to send some money:D

I appreciate the comment!
No rush, it should work until the fat lady sings:-)
However, as I mentioned earlier, I'll be busy over the weekend, so I may be less responsive than usual..

Cheers!

jwear · June 10, 2005

and it is easy to use !!!! If I can get it to work anyone can

It is easy and does a lot ,try it you will like it

Nikolai · June 11, 2005

Thanks, Jeff!

jwear wrote:

and it is easy to use !!!! If I can get it to work anyone can It is easy and does a lot ,try it you will like it

I appreciate the feedback!
Me and David missed you last night:-)
Cheers!

Malaxos1 · June 14, 2005

Hey Nikolai, I have a question. I am shooting weddings and want my clients to be able to pick out the ammount of photos that they get with the package they pick online. I can do it directly with smugmug, but they will have to pay for the prints. I want to be able to pay for the prints and directly send them to my clients since they have already paid me with their choice of package. They can then order reprints from smugmug and pay my higher reprint price. Can you do this with your program? It would realy help my business. I joined smugmug so that I can focus more on shooting and less on the client after the wedding is over. Thanks...Dean

Nikolai · June 14, 2005

Dean,

Malaxos1 wrote:

Hey Nikolai, I have a question. I am shooting weddings and want my clients to be able to pick out the ammount of photos that they get with the package they pick online. I can do it directly with smugmug, but they will have to pay for the prints. I want to be able to pay for the prints and directly send them to my clients since they have already paid me with their choice of package. They can then order reprints from smugmug and pay my higher reprint price. Can you do this with your program? It would realy help my business. I joined smugmug so that I can focus more on shooting and less on the client after the wedding is over. Thanks...Dean

At this point, no, S*E does not work with custom pricing or shopping card. I'm working with another pro photog on a custom purchase-related system, but it's tailored to his needs and still in a very early stages of design.

In general, per discussion with Don, SM has on intention to provide any custom access to the shopping cart or pricies (due to the security reasons and other rather important i$$ue$), so whatever can be done has be done only via "creative browsing" (aka hacking:-).

If you want to discuss this to a greater detail please shoot an email to custom_api@starexplorer.com.

Otherwise I think the easiest avenue for you in this case would be allow file names and then simply ask the client to pick up the names and let you know, so you can order them, receive them - it's a good opportunity to check how they actually look - and then ship it to the client. You'd lose a few bucks on this extra shipping but at least you'd be sure about the results.

Or - another idea: price this whole folder at the SM price (ie no markup), ask the customer to choose and pay, and then simply reimburse them for this amount (or charge less accodingly).

HTH

Cheers!

What is Star*Explorer?

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