Case Sensitivity on "Cat NiceName"

Rob Greer PhotographyRob Greer Photography Registered Users Posts: 28 Big grins
edited March 24, 2010 in SmugMug Support
Is there any way to disable sentence case capitalization on data entered in the "Cat NiceName" fields? It drives me crazy that I can't have my URLs appear in all lowercase.

For any Smug tech folks reading this post, I'm baffled as to why you'd want to force capitalization on users.

Comments

  • mbradymbrady Registered Users Posts: 321 Major grins
    edited March 23, 2010
    URL's themselves aren't case sensitive. Even though the NiceName path is mixed case, you can type it in either way in your browser's address bar and you'll end up in the same place.
  • Rob Greer PhotographyRob Greer Photography Registered Users Posts: 28 Big grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    mbrady wrote:
    URL's themselves aren't case sensitive. Even though the NiceName path is mixed case, you can type it in either way in your browser's address bar and you'll end up in the same place.

    That's not the point. When I copy and paste and send that URL to my clients they don't know that and they struggle with the case sensitivity. There is absolutely no reason to enforce upper case characters.
  • mbradymbrady Registered Users Posts: 321 Major grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    That's not the point. When I copy and paste and send that URL to my clients they don't know that and they struggle with the case sensitivity. There is absolutely no reason to enforce upper case characters.

    If they type it in with the wrong casing, it will still work.

    And you don't have to go with the NiceName that the system automatically creates for you. When editing gallery settings, you can just type over that with something entirely different, or change it to all lower case.
  • Rob Greer PhotographyRob Greer Photography Registered Users Posts: 28 Big grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    mbrady wrote:
    When editing gallery settings, you can just type over that with something entirely different, or change it to all lower case.

    No you can't. When you rename or create a new category (not gallery) it forces you to have initial caps.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    No you can't. When you rename or create a new category (not gallery) it forces you to have initial caps.
    Yes, initial caps are required to fit in with the rest of our folder structure on SmugMug. Sorry :(
  • Rob Greer PhotographyRob Greer Photography Registered Users Posts: 28 Big grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    Andy wrote:
    Yes, initial caps are required to fit in with the rest of our folder structure on SmugMug. Sorry :(

    Huh? What does that mean? To be frank (and not meaning to be antagonistic), but that sounds like double talk to me.
  • MalteMalte Registered Users Posts: 1,181 Major grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    If people are given links with caps they will take care to enter it as written, I've seen it firsthand, wasting time and effort.

    Malte
  • Rob Greer PhotographyRob Greer Photography Registered Users Posts: 28 Big grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    Malte wrote:
    If people are given links with caps they will take care to enter it as written, I've seen it firsthand, wasting time and effort.

    Awesome! Thanks for the back-up here!
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    Huh? What does that mean? To be frank (and not meaning to be antagonistic), but that sounds like double talk to me.
    Sorry, don't mean to give anything but a straight answer. It's technically not possible given other limitations with how things are built within SmugMug. We discussed this at the time of development, internally. Initial cap is a requirement, I'm really sorry :(
  • Rob Greer PhotographyRob Greer Photography Registered Users Posts: 28 Big grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    Andy wrote:
    Sorry, don't mean to give anything but a straight answer. It's technically not possible given other limitations with how things are built within SmugMug. We discussed this at the time of development, internally. Initial cap is a requirement, I'm really sorry :(

    I don't mean to keep putting you on the spot but my day job is as Vice President of Product Management for a software company that develops web-based applications. As such, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that case sensitivity has anything to do with the application functionality within SmugMug.

    If you guys don't want to do it because you simply don't want to do it, then it would be nice if you'd simply said it that way that rather than patronize me.

    Rob Greer
    http://www.robgreer.com
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    I don't mean to keep putting you on the spot but my day job is as Vice President of Product Management for a software company that develops web-based applications. As such, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that case sensitivity has anything to do with the application functionality within SmugMug.

    If you guys don't want to do it because you simply don't want to do it, then it would be nice if you'd simply said it that way that rather than patronize me.

    Rob Greer
    http://www.robgreer.com
    Hi Rob.

    50,000 + posts later, and in my 7th year @ SmugMug, I promise - I don't patronize. I'm sorry you feel this way. The reasons are purely technical, and I've given them - I wish I had a better, different answer for you, but I don't.
  • Rob Greer PhotographyRob Greer Photography Registered Users Posts: 28 Big grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    Andy wrote:
    The reasons are purely technical, and I've given them - I wish I had a better, different answer for you, but I don't.

    So what is the technical reason why it can't be done? In your replies to this thread you've mentioned general reasons and not technical reasons. I know from working with my programming team that nothing is impossible. It might be inconvenient but nothing is impossible. To be frank, your explanation sounds like the ones I sometimes receive from programmers when they don't want to do something.

    Let's address this technically. There is no computer platform that depends on case sensitivity for delivery of file-related information (although an improperly configured Windows Server running IIS can mishandle case issues in URLs -- but that's not the situation here). Now, if I take a guess at your architecture, you're probably storing custom category names in your database and associating them with a particular user ID and through that dynamically building a URL path. To back up my assumptions, I just did a quick what-if check with my senior programmers (who collectively have over 70 years of programming experience) and none of them could think of any reason why case sensitivity should logically be an issue programatically.

    I believe that you believe that it has to be that way. However, I think you either misinterpreted what you were told or someone somewhere was spinning the issue to get the results they wanted.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    I believe that you believe that it has to be that way. However, I think you either misinterpreted what you were told or someone somewhere was spinning the issue to get the results they wanted.
    Hi Rob, I'm very sorry - I understand your issue completely, and I stand by our answer. I wish I had a different one for you, I really do. I realize this is very important to you.
  • mbradymbrady Registered Users Posts: 321 Major grins
    edited March 24, 2010
    No you can't. When you rename or create a new category (not gallery) it forces you to have initial caps.

    Ah ok, I was only looking at the gallery settings.
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