Also, if I don't want a photo on that page at all, it gets worse! Seems like this would be a fairly easy one to implement and would be a great feature too.
Thanks! I should have known. There is lots of documentation, tips & tricks, etc. A really good documentation index would be nice! Wait, should I search for that too?
One example is the programming technology called AJAX that enables you to quickly enter a caption by clicking an edit link next to the caption when you're logged in. That's been enormously popular but understandably no one asked for it because AJAX is new.
Just a small comment since you mentioned this new function.
If I click "edit" button and add a comment or rename gallery using not-english characters (russian in my case) they don't show up correctly when encoding in browser is set to Western (that is a setting for most users). However, if I go Customize and add Title and Description on the Customize screen, everything shows up perfectly.
Not a big deal, just my to cents about this new feature.
thumbnail agony, watermark bug
BUG: I uploaded 56 pix into a new gallery. I turned on watermarks on everything in the gallery, decided I didn't like it (because the "proof" was not transparent enough for my tastes) and turned it off again, and now I see that all my custom thumbnails have been blown away. And I also see that all my images have a new margin. Screenshot:
Now I'm going to have to reupload all 56 pix again and redo all the thumbs. This is a drag.
ENHANCE: Please, please, please, improve the thumbnail customization process! I've figured out a process that reduces the total amount of clicking back and forth, but it is still a very unnecessairly awkward process. Gimme a way to do this in bulk, as with keywords and positioning. I shouldn't have to work this hard.
I have found the shopping cart to be confusing with prints spread across three pick boxes.
One way to simplify this would be to only have two choices in the pick box:
1) prints and
2) photo gifts.
AMEN!
(oh, can I say that here? )
I completely agree that most customers wouldn't know the difference between a standard print, a specialty print and a print for small cameras. And besides, they're not printing for small a small camera anyway.
third!
I agree too. It's not a very elegant storefront. Simplify the categories.
I would also suggest getting rid of the dropdowns altogether and replacing with something more attractive, like buttons. Interlinked dropdowns should be avoided where possible.
I agree too. It's not a very elegant storefront. Simplify the categories.
I would also suggest getting rid of the dropdowns altogether and replacing with something more attractive, like buttons. Interlinked dropdowns should be avoided where possible.
I will think about it, but I don't think it will fly with the site. We'd intriduce potentially thousands of steps and customers would not be happy with that.
I don't get the use of buttons for the product choices, could you elaborate?
I was just throwing out alternatives. So now that I've opened my mouth about it, let me answer in more detail. "buttons" may not work, but my real point is that interlinked dropdowns are not a great interface choice in most cases. If I were designing this storefront I'd look for an alternative. Maybe there isn't a better one, but it's worth a hard look. So here's a screen shot to take a talk about:
Comments:
Too many gridlines. The screen looks disorganized. This is partly due to the various controls not being laid out on a few major gridlines. Buttons are scattered hither and yon. It's not obvious at a glance how they relate to each other.
As noted by others, there are two many items in the 1st product dropdown, and it's none too clear to ordinary mortals what they are. -- "Prints for small cameras"? The buyer should know the photographer was using a small camera?
There's a tiny little line between the crop controls & the color controls. It's so tiny it's confusing as to why it's there. If it's meant to separate these two controls logically, then that should be much more obvious.
The "delete" button is directly below the "crop" control. Why's that? Are we deleting the crop? Or deleting the item from the shopping cart? Etc. The controls are actually being laid out all in a line, and just wrapping wherever. Thus the layout of the controls doesn't provide much in the way of visual cues to the user as to how the shopping cart / product selection process is supposed to work.
If it was me, here's what I'd look at doing:
Just as it is now, one row for each item, thumbnail on the left, but on the right show the crop and the selected product type, color type choice, & quantity textbox.
Also have the "delete" and "duplicate" buttons here, but make them links: call "delete", "Remove from shopping cart"; call "duplicate", "Buy this item in additional formats" (or something along those lines).
The product type, color, and crop are just informational on this screen. To modify them click a link that says "Modify this choice" (or something along those lines).
Clicking that link would open a modal dialog where the user can modify the cropping of the image, color choice, and the product type choice. (Can allow quantity changes here as well.) Several reasons why you'd want to do it this way:
The crop/color/product-choice controls clutter the shopping cart. You want it to be clear and simple.
It clearly separates selecting items from customizing the choice.
It makes a logical separation between two different kinds of actions that can be taken on a product: (1) adding / removing / quantifying; (2) detailing specifications (color / crop / format).
In that dialog, list the various formats all together, in a radiolist format, separated into two groups, as suggested by previous poster (Photos/Gift, Photos/Specialty Items, something like that).
Well, that's just a start. But I've rattled along quite a bit now.
I will think about it, but I don't think it will fly with the site. We'd intriduce potentially thousands of steps and customers would not be happy with that.
True, I was just putting it out there for comparison. I do like their checkboxes - well guess I would if I every bought more than one size at a time (which I don't but perhaps you have data showing if many people do)
BUG: I uploaded 56 pix into a new gallery. I turned on watermarks on everything in the gallery, decided I didn't like it (because the "proof" was not transparent enough for my tastes) and turned it off again, and now I see that all my custom thumbnails have been blown away. And I also see that all my images have a new margin.
New margin problem resolved! Turned out to be an issue with how right-click protection interacts with CSS. Thanks to the support team for figuring that one out.
Yeah, I had not checked the cart with IE in a while, the buttons should all be aligned with eachother on the second line. That will be fixed soon. As for your other comments, I will seriously think about them and how they affect the cart. But, just so you know, we get far more praise for our cart being streamlined and efficient as compared to other photo site carts, than it being confusing. It is true we get questions from time to time, but over all it has been a success.
I was just throwing out alternatives. So now that I've opened my mouth about it, let me answer in more detail. "buttons" may not work, but my real point is that interlinked dropdowns are not a great interface choice in most cases. If I were designing this storefront I'd look for an alternative. Maybe there isn't a better one, but it's worth a hard look. So here's a screen shot to take a talk about:
Back to the shopping cart for a moment, if I may. This isn't by any means intended to be complete, but food for thought...
Perhaps you could figure out what the most popular sizes are and show 'em as options right there, no drop-down lists, and provide buttons (perhaps with icons of coffee mugs or something) to get 'em to the less-often-purchased items?
The choices shown below just happen to be the ones that RitzPix shows; SmugMug's would of course be different. This is jut a cut/paste mockup job to give you the idea.
It would mean a longer page, since the section for each image would potentially be larger.
other SmugMug users, Compare the first & second image selection areas; do you think the first one would would make more or less sense to your customers than the drop-downs in the second one?
warning: this post is likely worth less than the $.02 you paid for it
Back to the shopping cart for a moment, if I may. This isn't by any means intended to be complete, but food for thought...
I like it. It's similar to what I was proposing above. I would put that list into a separate dialog box though, rather than replicate it for every item in the shopping cart. What the buyer is doing is:
1. select a photo
2. select a format
3. customize colors, cropping, etc.
4. select a quantity
5. submit
because nos. 2 & 3 are complex and variable, it makes sense to break them out into a side-process, i.e., a separate dialog.
Back to the shopping cart for a moment, if I may. This isn't by any means intended to be complete, but food for thought...
Perhaps you could figure out what the most popular sizes are and show 'em as options right there, no drop-down lists, and provide buttons (perhaps with icons of coffee mugs or something) to get 'em to the less-often-purchased items?
The choices shown below just happen to be the ones that RitzPix shows; SmugMug's would of course be different. This is jut a cut/paste mockup job to give you the idea.
It would mean a longer page, since the section for each image would potentially be larger.
other SmugMug users, Compare the first & second image selection areas; do you think the first one would would make more or less sense to your customers than the drop-downs in the second one?
warning: this post is likely worth less than the $.02 you paid for it
Not only would each section be longer, we'd have to provide a crop preview for each of those choices.
But, see my response:
I would put that list into a separate dialog box though, rather than replicate it for every item in the shopping cart... it makes sense to break them out into a side-process, i.e., a separate dialog.
Please change "feature gallery" process
When I have 4 galleries featured, and have a new one that I want to put in the #1 spot (bumping all the others down a spot and pushing #4 off the featured gallery list), it takes the following number of steps:
1) From the gallery, select "feature gallery".
2) Select spot #1
3) Click "update"
4) Find and open the former #1 gallery
5) Select "feature gallery"
6) Select #2 spot
7) Click "update"
8) Find and open former #2 gallery
9) Select "feature gallery"
10) Select #3 spot
11) Click "update"
12) Find and open former #3 gallery
13) Select "feature gallery"
14) Select #4 spot
15) Click "update"
That's a LOT of steps. It could be reduced to just 3 steps if you added an option to "set as #1 and bump all other featured galleries down 1 spot".
JC Dill - Equine Photographer, San Francisco & San Jose http://portfolio.jcdill.com "Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams "Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
I don't think that bumping down would work for all. I only change number 1 and 2 and keep 3+4 always the same. I guess other do it another way.
You could optimise your system by beginning at the end:
1. click on the 3rd one - feature gallery and select #4
2. click on 2nd - feature gallery and select #3
3. click on 1st - feat. gal and select #2
4. search for new 1st - feat. gal and select #1
You could optimise your system by beginning at the end:
1. click on the 3rd one - feature gallery and select #4
2. click on 2nd - feature gallery and select #3
3. click on 1st - feat. gal and select #2
4. search for new 1st - feat. gal and select #1
It's still 3 clicks for each gallery to change to the gallery, change to select a different position, and select, so it's just as many clicks to move them all down one. A computer can do this automagically. That's what computers do best.
jc
JC Dill - Equine Photographer, San Francisco & San Jose http://portfolio.jcdill.com "Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams "Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
When I have 4 galleries featured, and have a new one that I want to put in the #1 spot (bumping all the others down a spot and pushing #4 off the featured gallery list), it takes the following number of steps:
1) From the gallery, select "feature gallery".
2) Select spot #1
3) Click "update"
4) Find and open the former #1 gallery
5) Select "feature gallery"
6) Select #2 spot
7) Click "update"
8) Find and open former #2 gallery
9) Select "feature gallery"
10) Select #3 spot
11) Click "update"
12) Find and open former #3 gallery
13) Select "feature gallery"
14) Select #4 spot
15) Click "update"
That's a LOT of steps. It could be reduced to just 3 steps if you added an option to "set as #1 and bump all other featured galleries down 1 spot".
I realized after posting that an even better solution would be to add a radio button for "bump" or "replace" after you select which spot you want to feature this gallery. It would allow you to set the new gallery to spot 2 and bump 2 to 3, 3 to 4, etc.
JC Dill - Equine Photographer, San Francisco & San Jose http://portfolio.jcdill.com "Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams "Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
I hope my suggestion doesn't get lost in this HUGE forum topic, but here it is...
Suggestion:
let me choose the size of pics displayed, and how many pics per page, in the Journal view.
The Journal view is good, but the pics are too small.
hiya dmc and welcome to the forum thanks so much for your suggestion - i can assure you that even though this thread is long, that every single suggestion, request, and bug report gets the full attention of the smugmug team.
Bug report on gallery templates - bulk settings
There appears to be some sort of coding error when you try to apply a template to more than one gallery. Here's how to reproduce.
1) Create a gallery template
2) Go to "Customize Gallery"
3) Click on "Bulk Settings"
4) Select a few galleries
5) Click on a few galleries
6) Select the template you created
7) Click on the apply button
8) You get an alert that says:
"jfriend.smugmug.comhttp could not be found. Please check the name and try again."
If you believe this error message, it looks like some URL building code is getting the "http" on the end of the URL instead of the front of the URL.
Comments
gary, the dgrin search tool is your friend
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
ShutterGlass.com
OnlyBegotten.com
If I click "edit" button and add a comment or rename gallery using not-english characters (russian in my case) they don't show up correctly when encoding in browser is set to Western (that is a setting for most users). However, if I go Customize and add Title and Description on the Customize screen, everything shows up perfectly.
Not a big deal, just my to cents about this new feature.
BUG: I uploaded 56 pix into a new gallery. I turned on watermarks on everything in the gallery, decided I didn't like it (because the "proof" was not transparent enough for my tastes) and turned it off again, and now I see that all my custom thumbnails have been blown away. And I also see that all my images have a new margin. Screenshot:
Now I'm going to have to reupload all 56 pix again and redo all the thumbs. This is a drag.
ENHANCE: Please, please, please, improve the thumbnail customization process! I've figured out a process that reduces the total amount of clicking back and forth, but it is still a very unnecessairly awkward process. Gimme a way to do this in bulk, as with keywords and positioning. I shouldn't have to work this hard.
ShutterGlass.com
OnlyBegotten.com
AMEN!
(oh, can I say that here?
I completely agree that most customers wouldn't know the difference between a standard print, a specialty print and a print for small cameras. And besides, they're not printing for small a small camera anyway.
my words, my "pro"pictures, my "fun" pictures, my videos.
I agree too. It's not a very elegant storefront. Simplify the categories.
I would also suggest getting rid of the dropdowns altogether and replacing with something more attractive, like buttons. Interlinked dropdowns should be avoided where possible.
ShutterGlass.com
OnlyBegotten.com
It's not perfect, but here's what another printing service does.
This is an upload-and-print service, so once you've uploaded your images then you get the option of types of thins to produce
then if you chose prints, you get these options for size
my words, my "pro"pictures, my "fun" pictures, my videos.
I was just throwing out alternatives. So now that I've opened my mouth about it, let me answer in more detail. "buttons" may not work, but my real point is that interlinked dropdowns are not a great interface choice in most cases. If I were designing this storefront I'd look for an alternative. Maybe there isn't a better one, but it's worth a hard look. So here's a screen shot to take a talk about:
Comments:
- Too many gridlines. The screen looks disorganized. This is partly due to the various controls not being laid out on a few major gridlines. Buttons are scattered hither and yon. It's not obvious at a glance how they relate to each other.
- As noted by others, there are two many items in the 1st product dropdown, and it's none too clear to ordinary mortals what they are. -- "Prints for small cameras"? The buyer should know the photographer was using a small camera?
- There's a tiny little line between the crop controls & the color controls. It's so tiny it's confusing as to why it's there. If it's meant to separate these two controls logically, then that should be much more obvious.
- The "delete" button is directly below the "crop" control. Why's that? Are we deleting the crop? Or deleting the item from the shopping cart? Etc. The controls are actually being laid out all in a line, and just wrapping wherever. Thus the layout of the controls doesn't provide much in the way of visual cues to the user as to how the shopping cart / product selection process is supposed to work.
- If it was me, here's what I'd look at doing:
- Just as it is now, one row for each item, thumbnail on the left, but on the right show the crop and the selected product type, color type choice, & quantity textbox.
- Also have the "delete" and "duplicate" buttons here, but make them links: call "delete", "Remove from shopping cart"; call "duplicate", "Buy this item in additional formats" (or something along those lines).
- The product type, color, and crop are just informational on this screen. To modify them click a link that says "Modify this choice" (or something along those lines).
- Clicking that link would open a modal dialog where the user can modify the cropping of the image, color choice, and the product type choice. (Can allow quantity changes here as well.) Several reasons why you'd want to do it this way:
- The crop/color/product-choice controls clutter the shopping cart. You want it to be clear and simple.
- It clearly separates selecting items from customizing the choice.
- It makes a logical separation between two different kinds of actions that can be taken on a product: (1) adding / removing / quantifying; (2) detailing specifications (color / crop / format).
- In that dialog, list the various formats all together, in a radiolist format, separated into two groups, as suggested by previous poster (Photos/Gift, Photos/Specialty Items, something like that).
Well, that's just a start. But I've rattled along quite a bit now.ShutterGlass.com
OnlyBegotten.com
my words, my "pro"pictures, my "fun" pictures, my videos.
As for the thumbs being blown away? Do over!
ShutterGlass.com
OnlyBegotten.com
ShutterGlass.com
OnlyBegotten.com
Perhaps you could figure out what the most popular sizes are and show 'em as options right there, no drop-down lists, and provide buttons (perhaps with icons of coffee mugs or something) to get 'em to the less-often-purchased items?
The choices shown below just happen to be the ones that RitzPix shows; SmugMug's would of course be different. This is jut a cut/paste mockup job to give you the idea.
It would mean a longer page, since the section for each image would potentially be larger.
other SmugMug users, Compare the first & second image selection areas; do you think the first one would would make more or less sense to your customers than the drop-downs in the second one?
my words, my "pro"pictures, my "fun" pictures, my videos.
1. select a photo
2. select a format
3. customize colors, cropping, etc.
4. select a quantity
5. submit
because nos. 2 & 3 are complex and variable, it makes sense to break them out into a side-process, i.e., a separate dialog.
ShutterGlass.com
OnlyBegotten.com
ShutterGlass.com
OnlyBegotten.com
opaqueness, transparancy, style, our own logo, placement of watermark...
http://www.photolink.net
http://www.linkedin.com/in/photolink
AIM:AdamatPHOTOlink
When I have 4 galleries featured, and have a new one that I want to put in the #1 spot (bumping all the others down a spot and pushing #4 off the featured gallery list), it takes the following number of steps:
1) From the gallery, select "feature gallery".
2) Select spot #1
3) Click "update"
4) Find and open the former #1 gallery
5) Select "feature gallery"
6) Select #2 spot
7) Click "update"
8) Find and open former #2 gallery
9) Select "feature gallery"
10) Select #3 spot
11) Click "update"
12) Find and open former #3 gallery
13) Select "feature gallery"
14) Select #4 spot
15) Click "update"
That's a LOT of steps. It could be reduced to just 3 steps if you added an option to "set as #1 and bump all other featured galleries down 1 spot".
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
You could optimise your system by beginning at the end:
1. click on the 3rd one - feature gallery and select #4
2. click on 2nd - feature gallery and select #3
3. click on 1st - feat. gal and select #2
4. search for new 1st - feat. gal and select #1
Maybe this works for you.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
It's still 3 clicks for each gallery to change to the gallery, change to select a different position, and select, so it's just as many clicks to move them all down one. A computer can do this automagically. That's what computers do best.
jc
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
something that has bugged me for a long time.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
I hope my suggestion doesn't get lost in this HUGE forum topic, but here it is...
Suggestion:
let me choose the size of pics displayed, and how many pics per page, in the Journal view.
The Journal view is good, but the pics are too small.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Any chance of adding the ability to search/browse images by camera and/or lens type?
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
There appears to be some sort of coding error when you try to apply a template to more than one gallery. Here's how to reproduce.
1) Create a gallery template
2) Go to "Customize Gallery"
3) Click on "Bulk Settings"
4) Select a few galleries
5) Click on a few galleries
6) Select the template you created
7) Click on the apply button
8) You get an alert that says:
"jfriend.smugmug.comhttp could not be found. Please check the name and try again."
If you believe this error message, it looks like some URL building code is getting the "http" on the end of the URL instead of the front of the URL.
--John
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