Easy customizer and Smugmug communities

Andrew Gould

Hi to you all.

I'm delighted with the way my Smugmug site looks now after using the Easy Customizer on it (plus getting invaluable help with extra details in the customization forum).

The problem, though, is that I've just discovered that if I associate a gallery with a Smugmug community, the customization doesn't show up. I guess I can live with that in the case of the new gallery I've set up for the DailyPhotos cummunity, as this has the feeling almost of a stand alone photoblog. However, I'm not inclined to associate other galleries that are an integal part of my website with other communities, as this is going to spoil the look of my site.

By the way, it appears to me that the Easy Customizer is the problem here, as I've been through my gallery customization settings with Sebastian, who maintains the DailyPhotos community, and have checked with another member of the group who has the same gallery settings as I have, but who did her customization with CSS before the introduction of the Easy Customizer. In her case, the customization works for galleries associated with a community.

I don't at all fancy going back to the start to try and customize my site again purely with CSS. I tried that for so long, but even with the help I received from the forum, I couldn't get it right. It even got to the point where I felt like giving up on Smugmug totally, due to the sheer frustration of the exercise. That's become a thing of the past, though, with my new look website.

Does Smugmug have a fix for this, then? Seems a shame with things as they are, because I presume that more and more Smugmug members who have found customizing their sites a daunting task, will want to avail themselves of the Easy Customizer, not to mention brand new users.

In my case, if nothing can be done, I will continue with the DailyPhotos community only, I guess.

Thanks,
Andrew.

jfriend

When someone sets up a community, they decide whether the community has it's own customization that takes over or whether a gallery's own customization is allowed to show. It is a property of the community and has nothing to do with the easy customizer.

There are lots of other folks who decline to join communities because they don't want to lose their customization. It seems to be a fault in the design and/or setup and/or presentation of communities for the way many would like to use them.

Andrew Gould

jfriend wrote:

When someone sets up a community, they decide whether the community has it's own customization that takes over or whether a gallery's own customization is allowed to show. It is a property of the community and has nothing to do with the easy customizer.

There are lots of other folks who decline to join communities because they don't want to lose their customization. It seems to be a fault in the design and/or setup and/or presentation of communities for the way many would like to use them.

Thanks you for attempting to help with this. I had heard about that, but in this case, as I've stated above, there are other members of the community in question who do have customized gallery associated with it, and the customization shows up.

I agree with your second point. and have meant to bring up this issue in the forum. Might as well be now, as you mention it. It seems to me that there is really no justification in requiring community members to give up their custom look to participate in a community. I stress, though, that this is NOT the situation in the case of the DailyPhotos community.

I believe, then, that Smugmug should make changes to not allow group founders to limit the look of members' sites.

jfriend

Andrew Gould wrote:

Thanks you for attempting to help with this. I had heard about that, but in this case, as I've stated above, there are other members of the community in question who do have customized gallery associated with it, and the customization shows up.

I agree with your second point. and have meant to bring up this issue in the forum. Might as well be now, as you mention it. It seems to me that there is really no justification in requiring community members to give up their custom look to participate in a community. I stress, though, that this is NOT the situation in the case of the DailyPhotos community.

I believe, then, that Smugmug should make changes to not allow group founders to limit the look of members' sites.

Can you post a link to the gallery that you put in the daily photos community so I can see if there are any other settings that might be messing it up?

Andrew Gould

jfriend wrote:

Can you post a link to the gallery that you put in the daily photos community so I can see if there are any other settings that might be messing it up?

Thanks, John.

Here's the gallery:
http://www.andrewgouldphotography.com/gallery/8620178_YAJJ9#570641668_fYb4u

jfriend

Andrew Gould wrote:

Thanks, John.

Here's the gallery:
http://www.andrewgouldphotography.com/gallery/8620178_YAJJ9#570641668_fYb4u

I definitely see other galleries in that community with their customization on with their own custom header so you are right that the community is not disabling that.

Are you 100% sure that your gallery is set for Hide Owner = No and Appearance = Custom?

Your custom CSS is active, just not your header/footer.

Andrew Gould

jfriend wrote:

I definitely see other galleries in that community with their customization on with their own custom header so you are right that the community is not disabling that.

Are you 100% sure that your gallery is set for Hide Owner = No and Appearance = Custom?

Your custom CSS is active, just not your header/footer.

Hi again, John.

I've just gone and checked that again very carefully, and the gallery is set as you point out above. So it must be as I've been told that the use of the Easy Customizer is to blame here. I'm still hoping that there is a solution to this, or that changes can be made by Smugmug to avoid this problem.

jfriend

Andrew Gould wrote:

Hi again, John.

I've just gone and checked that again very carefully, and the gallery is set as you point out above. So it must be as I've been told that the use of the Easy Customizer is to blame here. I'm still hoping that there is a solution to this, or that changes can be made by Smugmug to avoid this problem.

OK, nothing more I can do I guess. If it is caused by EZC, I don't know why the EZC would be designed with that limitation. Doesn't seem like it would have to be that way.

Andrew Gould

jfriend wrote:

OK, nothing more I can do I guess. If it is caused by EZC, I don't know why the EZC would be designed with that limitation. Doesn't seem like it would have to be that way.

Well thanks for the input in any case, John. I've emailed Smugmug support about this, so we'll see what they have to say about it.

rainforest1155

Thanks John for trying to help. It looks like an EZ customizer limitation. I've passed it on to our bugman to check into.

Sebastian