Gallery customization page and community

Andrew Gould

On the customization page for my People in Sydney gallery, I selected StreetPhotography from the drop down list. I see that the choices befow this for appearance are Smugmug or Community. Whatever I save, I end up losing my custom look and banner. Surely it can't be that if you associate a gallery with a community, you must lose your site's distinctive style, if you have one?

jfriend

Andrew Gould wrote:

On the customization page for my People in Sydney gallery, I selected StreetPhotography from the drop down list. I see that the choices befow this for appearance are Smugmug or Community. Whatever I save, I end up losing my custom look and banner. Surely it can't be that if you associate a gallery with a community, you must lose your site's distinctive style, if you have one?

The creator of the community decides whether all galleries in the community take on the look of the community or can have their own look. It sounds like the StreetPhotography community is not letting you have your own look. Your only solution is to not have the gallery in the community or to get the creator of the community to change it.

Here's what the Edit Settings screen for a community looks like:

Andrew Gould

jfriend wrote:

The creator of the community decides whether all galleries in the community take on the look of the community or can have their own look. It sounds like the StreetPhotography community is not letting you have your own look. Your only solution is to not have the gallery in the community or to get the creator of the community to change it.

Here's what the Edit Settings screen for a community looks like:

Thanks for your reply. I really do love everything about Smugmug, but this seems to be a very strange option to allow community creators, as it lets them have control over how a gallery on my site will look for me and all other viewers, including those who have absolutely no connection at all with Smugmug. What are these latter people to think when they visit a customised Smugmug powered site and there are what appear to be unintentional inconsistencies from gallery to gallery?

The upshot of this for me is that I cannot associate a gallery with this community that I'm actually very interested in. I think this needs airing, and that's why I'm writing this here. There may be, however, some very good reason for allowing a community owner to enforce this on members, although I can't imagine what that would be.

jfriend

Andrew Gould wrote:

Thanks for your reply. I really do love everything about Smugmug, but this seems to be a very strange option to allow community creators, as it lets them have control over how a gallery on my site will look for me and all other viewers, including those who have absolutely no connection at all with Smugmug. What are these latter people to think when they visit a customised Smugmug powered site and there are what appear to be unintentional inconsistencies from gallery to gallery?

The upshot of this for me is that I cannot associate a gallery with this community that I'm actually very interested in. I think this needs airing, and that's why I'm writing this here. There may be, however, some very good reason for allowing a community owner to enforce this on members, although I can't imagine what that would be.

Yeah, I agree. This option on communities is frequently misused and is a good reason NOT to join a community with it set. It would make more sense if someone was using a special "community URL" to view it, it would have a special look, but on your own site, it would have your look.

Andrew Gould

jfriend wrote:

Yeah, I agree. This option on communities is frequently misused and is a good reason NOT to join a community with it set. It would make more sense if someone was using a special "community URL" to view it, it would have a special look, but on your own site, it would have your look.

Thanks again for the reply. Your idea sounds good.

My latest thought on this matter is why waste time and energy getting enthusiastic about another community, only to find after joining and associating a gallery that I have to leave it for the same reason as I'm quitting the StreetPhotography community?

I'll still visit other Smugmug pages and make a comment, but I'm going to forget about communities if this is what to sometimes (often?) expect.

gluwater

This sounds like a great Feature Request Andrew. Hint hint I've also received your email to the help desk and I'll pass on your comments there as well.