NiceNames

PBolchover

Quite a nice feature for pros, I suppose, but I doubt that I'll be making much use of it...

As I understand it, we can quote the gallery name without the galleryID, and (as long as we don't change the NiceNames), then everything works OK, for example
http://www.moonriverphotography.com/landscapes/glacier-national-park
is now an automatic redirect to
http://www.moonriverphotography.com/Landscapes/Glacier-National-Park/3571799_T29nu

If so, then I can see that this will lead to a future "Virtual Gallery" feature, once Smugmug changes
http://www.moonriverphotography.com/keyword1/keyword2/
to be a customisable gallery with all of the photos with both keyword1 and keyword2.

The second advantage I see is that you can still links consistent, even if you change the NiceName, so
http://www.moonriverphotography.com/AnyWord/AnyOtherWord/3571799_T29nu
also points to the same gallery, as does
http://www.moonriverphotography.com/AnyWordYouLike/3571799_T29nu

It looks as if 3 levels works, but no more, so
http://www.moonriverphotography.com/a/b/c/3571799_T29nu
is a redirect, but not
http://www.moonriverphotography.com/a/b/c/d/3571799_T29nu


Does "category names are now less restrictive in terms of characters they can contain" mean that we can have Unicode characters in categories? If so, then does this mean that this is the first step towards Unicode support in keywords?

TexasFamily

i think this is a pretty cool new feature...

i was hoping it would be more like http://www.snipurl.com
where you can control the entire url and put in the long url it redirects to.

with snipurl you can change the long url that goes with the short url
you can even delete the short url if you want to.

so you would be able to change a long url to something short like
http://mysite.smugmug.com/summer_pics and have it point to a specific gallery
then if you want to point it to a new gallery the next year...just edit the long url that it redirects to.

i can only imagine the complexity of this though...
and not knowing all the intricate details...it may not even be possible with smugmug...???

good job guys...
keep up the good work.

Edward

Richard

Nice idea. I'm a little puzzled that my galleries titled Madrid, Artsy, Chicago and Private all got nice names of Madrid-1, Artsy-1, etc. Other titles that were similar, like Venice, did not. I was able to rename them to delete the -1, but I am a little uneasy that they may have been there for a good reason.

One question: I could not delete the nice name on a private, but not-password protected gallery. Doesn't that make the gallery easier to find by snoopers? I guess I could just add some gibberish as a nice name. Hmmm....

PBolchover

Richard: Perhaps you have two galleries called Madrid?

My understanding from the release notes is that for a private gallery, the gallery ID plus key is still compulsory; it is only optional on public galleries. (I'm not sure about public, passworded galleries...)

Andy

Richard wrote:

Nice idea. I'm a little puzzled

B/c we had dupes in the database
you can change them now to any nicename you want!

Richard

Andy wrote:

B/c we had dupes in the database
you can change them now to any nicename you want!

K. It's possible that I had different galleries in the past with the same names and reorganized them out of existence, dunno. But there weren't dupes in my current set, at least that I could see.

BigAl

Really nice addition

I was ready to publish a post on this when I fortunately saw I got beaten to it!

[Now for virtual galleries ]

Nimai

Yay! I just noticed this feature, too. I copied a link, pasted it, and thought, "Ooh- that's new!".

Love you, SmugMug!

sunxsweet

is nicenames working properly? when i setup a nicename... i still need to reference the gallery with the numerical identifier at the end. without it, it won't work.

http://richmarphotography.com/Events/2009-08-Summer-Break-Potluck/9360374_w8wtn

Andy

TexasFamily wrote:

i think this is a pretty cool new feature...

i was hoping it would be more like http://www.snipurl.com

oh we'll do this, too but I can't say when. It's in the plans.

EDIT: I was informed I'm wrong, I was thinking of something else. Sorry!

Please post your request on our features request forum, http://smugmug.uservoice.com thanks so much.

Sorry for my mistake!

Andy

sunxsweet wrote:

is nicenames working properly? when i setup a nicename... i still need to reference the gallery with the numerical identifier at the end. without it, it won't work.

http://richmarphotography.com/Events/2009-08-Summer-Break-Potluck/9360374_w8wtn

because it's an unlisted gallery. To leave it open to only the nicename, leaves your gallery potentially guessable


So you need the albumID and albumKey.

SamirD

Andy wrote:

oh we'll do this, too but I can't say when. It's in the plans.

bowbow You guys are unbelivable. I don't understand how you can have such great services for how much you charge--but I'll never complain about that.

I look forward to the new releases. Now my family can quit nagging me 'can you send me that link again?'

afarber

Andy wrote:

oh we'll do this, too but I can't say when. It's in the plans.

EDIT: I was informed I'm wrong, I was thinking of something else. Sorry!

Please post your request on our features request forum, http://smugmug.uservoice.com thanks so much.

Sorry for my mistake!

Yay!!!! barb:ivar:ivar


oh. darn. :cry :cry


You had me all excited...that's a real bummer that it's not already in the plans. I am thrilled about nice names, but having to include the category and subcategory in the url defeats much of the purpose. The links look MUCH better and make much more sense, but they aren't memorizable for others.

I really do appreciate the step!

jfriend

afarber wrote:

Yay!!!! barb:ivar:ivar


oh. darn. :cry :cry


You had me all excited...that's a real bummer that it's not already in the plans. I am thrilled about nice names, but having to include the category and subcategory in the url defeats much of the purpose. The links look MUCH better and make much more sense, but they aren't memorizable for others.

I really do appreciate the step!

You can still use vanity URLs for single word shortcuts.

fototourist

Problem since nice-names :-(
Hello everybody!

My whole website no longer works since the nicename feature is "active" ... but I haven't made any changes.

For example:
http://fototourist.smugmug.com/Portraits

If you want to visit one of the subgalleries >>> the link doesn't work!

What can I do???

Its very bad for me, because no one can see any picture on my webpage.... :-(

Greetings
Stefan

AdamNP

All of the galleries on that page work fine for me (other than the passworded ones, of course)

Andy

fototourist wrote:

Hello everybody!

My whole website no longer works since the nicename feature is "active" ... but I haven't made any changes.

For example:
http://fototourist.smugmug.com/Portraits

If you want to visit one of the subgalleries >>> the link doesn't work!

What can I do???

Its very bad for me, because no one can see any picture on my webpage.... :-(

Greetings
Stefan

Stefan, all working fine here.

Richard

Just noticed an additional benefit. If you are using StatCounter, the detail reports on navigation are much easier to understand, since they show the gallery nice name. Nice.

Malte

TexasFamily wrote:

...so you would be able to change a long url to something short like
http://mysite.smugmug.com/summer_pics and have it point to a specific gallery
...

This is how the corresponding feaure behaves on Zenfolio. You can create a "Friendly URL" for any gallery, group or collection. (Groups are folders and collections are virtual galleries) There it seems to be uncoupled from any category or group system, however you can add forwardslash to indicate belonging to one.

I have a gallery on this frienly URL:
http://malte.zenfolio.com/rainbow_lorikeets

But I could have named it "nature/birds/rainbow_lorikeets"


Malte

jandrewnelson

I like the new nice name feature, but...
...I'm on a learning curve here so please bear with me.

Is it possible to change category names without messing up galleryies, pictuers, etc?

I want to change my "arts and crafts" catgegory to something like "arts" so my clients will have even a shorter web address to pass out.

Doable?

Thanks
Jerry
www.meesoon.smugmug.com

Andy

jandrewnelson wrote:

...I'm on a learning curve here so please bear with me.

Is it possible to change category names without messing up galleryies, pictuers, etc?

I want to change my "arts and crafts" catgegory to something like "arts" so my clients will have even a shorter web address to pass out.

Doable?

Thanks
Jerry
www.meesoon.smugmug.com

It won't mess up your galleries.

IvanhoeButch

NiceNames
What is its purpose? I dislike the restrictions placed on Title naming. Did I somehow ask for this feature? It just suddenly showed up this week!

ghealy

IvanhoeButch wrote:

What is its purpose? I dislike the restrictions placed on Title naming. Did I somehow ask for this feature? It just suddenly showed up this week!

In my opinion it is to placate the Pros who have been complaining that their images don't show up on Google searches.

That fact that it might screw up how a standard user does things carries little weight as standard users are not Smugmug moneymakers.

Your choices are: If you would like to have your images found by search engines, you must now use NiceNames. If you don't care if your images appear in search engine results and NiceNames are really annoying, you can disable their use in your Control Panel --> settings tab --> by setting Hello World to "No"

mbrady

ghealy wrote:

In my opinion it is to placate the Pros who have been complaining that their images don't show up on Google searches.

That fact that it might screw up how a standard user does things carries little weight as standard users are not Smugmug moneymakers.

How does it screw up how anyone does anything? Pro or otherwise?

sellis

ghealy wrote:

In my opinion it is to placate the Pros who have been complaining that their images don't show up on Google searches.

That fact that it might screw up how a standard user does things carries little weight as standard users are not Smugmug moneymakers.

Your choices are: If you would like to have your images found by search engines, you must now use NiceNames. If you don't care if your images appear in search engine results and NiceNames are really annoying, you can disable their use in your Control Panel --> settings tab --> by setting Hello World to "No"

I'm curious how it's annoying? I find it extremely helpful to have a simplified web address that I can give people rather than a long string of random characters. Not trying to start an argument or anything, I'm just wondering if I'm missing something.

jfriend

ghealy wrote:

In my opinion it is to placate the Pros who have been complaining that their images don't show up on Google searches.

That fact that it might screw up how a standard user does things carries little weight as standard users are not Smugmug moneymakers.

Your choices are: If you would like to have your images found by search engines, you must now use NiceNames. If you don't care if your images appear in search engine results and NiceNames are really annoying, you can disable their use in your Control Panel --> settings tab --> by setting Hello World to "No"

How does this new nicename feature screw up anything? All pre-existing URLs still work. And, now the new form of the URL looks nicer and is easier to remember. Why are nicenames annoying in any way? If you don't care about them, then don't do anything with them. You can safely ignore them. They will get a default nicename based on the category/gallery name just like categories always got a default nicename. Now nicenames extend to sub-categories and galleries.

Yes, if you care about search optimization, nicenames will improve that. If you don't care about search, you haven't lost anything.

Allen

The extra long links with long cat, sub-cat and gallery names will mess up in some
email programs when pasted in and wrap to two lines. They will have to copy
and paste the two lines together to use. Plus it's not clickable in the email.

jfriend

Allen wrote:

The extra long links with long cat, sub-cat and gallery names will mess up in some
email programs when pasted in and wrap to two lines. They will have to copy
and paste the two lines together to use. Plus it's not clickable in the email.

What email program does that happen in and with what link? I would think you'd have to be using plain text email and be using URLs longer than 80 chars (or sometimes 72 chars) for that to happen.

Andy

Allen wrote:

The extra long links with long cat, sub-cat and gallery names will mess up in some
email programs when pasted in and wrap to two lines. They will have to copy
and paste the two lines together to use. Plus it's not clickable in the email.

How about sending this?

http://www.photosbyat.com/FloraandFungi/Flowers

eddief

Sir Andy, you are the best... I just wanted to let you know when I'm scanning the posts, sometimes I'll just scroll down until I see your pic on the left side of my screen, and then I stop to read your every word!

Keep up the good work! I hoist a Heineken on a fine Friday afternoon, to you and all of your sorcerers!

Eddie F.

ghealy

jfriend wrote:

What email program does that happen in and with what link? I would think you'd have to be using plain text email and be using URLs longer than 80 chars (or sometimes 72 chars) for that to happen.

I only use Plain text e-mail, and will not send nor receive HTML content via e-mail. Additionally, I participate in newsgroups that restrict html coding.

So should I wish to share this picture so that it will also open to my web page, I now am presented with a link that looks like:
http://ghealy.smugmug.com/Vacation/Ireland/Day-6-4-June-2009-Connemara/8652557_XCTdF#571105727_ADrUr

instead of:
http://ghealy.smugmug.com/Vacation/Ireland/gallery/8652557_XCTdF#571105727_ADrUr

Of course you don't see any difference with the way the links are presented here.

I think it is annoying and screws up the way I've named and structured my gallery.

But what I think doesn't matter anyways.