Subfolders, er ah, categories, why can't they make this easier!!!????

GadgetRick

Ok, the whole concept of the way subcategories are handled is about the most confusing thing I've ever seen with SM. I have been able to (with some help from the heros and a lot of messing around) create a subcategory or two. But, EVERY TIME I try and create a new one, I have nothing but problems trying to get the new subcategory to show up. Why oh why can't they fix this and make it easier, or at least work better????

I am trying to create a subcategory within the general Family Gallery folder (Or whatever the hell they call it, can they make it any more confusing??? How about Folders/subfolders like everything else?). I have gone to my Control Panel and created it. Shows up there if I want to go back and edit it. However, it doesn't show up in the Family area. Ugh!

It's this little stupid stuff which drives me nuts with SM...

denisegoldberg

GadgetRick wrote: »

I am trying to create a subcategory within the general Family Gallery folder (Or whatever the hell they call it, can they make it any more confusing??? How about Folders/subfolders like everything else?). I have gone to my Control Panel and created it. Shows up there if I want to go back and edit it. However, it doesn't show up in the Family area.

The new subcategory won't show up in the category until you have assigned a gallery to that subcategory.

--- Denise

GadgetRick

denisegoldberg wrote: »

The new subcategory won't show up in the category until you have assigned a gallery to that subcategory.

--- Denise

I already did that. I just wound up creating another gallery and putting the photos in there.

Sorry, this is one area where SM really needs improvement. It's a crazy confusing system. How about just Galleries and sub galleries? Would make much more sense. More importantly, how about just making it work better. I always have issues with subcategories when I try and use them. I find myself deleting and re-creating them. Eventually they seem to show up magically....

brecklundin

I don't mind the current structure it's the kludge of a UI that causes user confusion. You should be able to create EVERY part of the structure within the gallery creation page. Why one needs to exit from there to another screen just to create a sub-category is an example of a very twitchy kludge of a UI.

Sorry for being so blunt but the spate of downtime this year has cost me potentially $1000s in sales because if people don't see pictures within seconds they are gone and won't be back. Today is the anniversary of a very bad day for me personally...I am tired of being passive with companies and people so do not deliver or clam up behind their lawyers when their platitudes run thin and they know they can outspend the small guy.

Allen

brecklundin wrote: »

I don't mind the current structure it's the kludge of a UI that causes user confusion. You should be able to create EVERY part of the structure within the gallery creation page. Why one needs to exit from there to another screen just to create a sub-category is an example of a very twitchy kludge of a UI.

Sorry for being so blunt but the spate of downtime this year has cost me potentially $1000s in sales because if people don't see pictures within seconds they are gone and won't be back. Today is the anniversary of a very bad day for me personally...I am tired of being passive with companies and people so do not deliver or clam up behind their lawyers when their platitudes run thin and they know they can outspend the small guy.

Any time you create a new gallery pick a category then scroll to the top of
the sub-cat box and pick "create a new sub-category."

brecklundin

Allen wrote: »

Any time you create a new gallery pick a category then scroll to the top of
the sub-cat box and pick "create a new sub-category."

Are you claiming that from within the CREATE GALLERY screen you can DIRECTLY create a new sub-category? Anyone knows you can go to the screen via the menus but if you have setup everything in a new gallery screen then have to move to a whole new screen to add a sub-category that is asinine...and a waste of my time. You have to understand I do not use my SM site as a place to sell pictures or demo my work, I use it for a different purpose and am the only person in the workflow...kludges like this even if it costs me 30-seconds can decrease my productivity by 60% in a given day. And that cost me money...it's a weakenss in the design of the UI I would not have expected and the more I use SM the more frustrating it becomes.

And it's not always possible to create sub-categories in advance because my needs are fluid and quite often need creation on the fly.

EDIT: Cool...I just saw it...I never noticed it was there...thanks!! Now if they can get the same option within the SETUP screen for the galleries where it opens a new window or just folds out a setup screen for the new category/sub-category I would be happy. But nice we can make them on the gallery creation screen...thanks a lot for the answer.

autocat12

I am having the same issue. I am moving my photos to a different gallery rather than moving the gallery into a sub-category (gallery)... I actually want to move my gallery into a sub gallery. Basically I want a folder called Anniversary.... and then be able to post photos by year under that category. Main folder called Anniversary and then sub folders for 71st...72nd... 73rd....

jfriend

autocat12 wrote: »

I am having the same issue. I am moving my photos to a different gallery rather than moving the gallery into a sub-category (gallery)... I actually want to move my gallery into a sub gallery. Basically I want a folder called Anniversary.... and then be able to post photos by year under that category. Main folder called Anniversary and then sub folders for 71st...72nd... 73rd....

Go to your control panel and create a category called Anniversary and then create galleries in that category called 71st, 72nd, 73rd, etc.... I agree that Smugmug's UI for categories and sub-categories is a bit obtuse, but once you know how to use it, it does work.

autocat12

Thanks for the very quick reply I will give it a try.

unionchapel.smugmug.com

autocat12

jfriend wrote: »

Go to your control panel and create a category called Anniversary and then create galleries in that category called 71st, 72nd, 73rd, etc.... I agree that Smugmug's UI for categories and sub-categories is a bit obtuse, but once you know how to use it, it does work.

I guess I am looking for more levels... I have a Photo main file. I want to have a sub folder called Anniversary ... and then additional folders called 71st ... 72nd .. 73rd...

unionchapel.smugmug.com

jfriend

autocat12 wrote: »

I guess I am looking for more levels... I have a Photo main file. I want to have a sub folder called Anniversary ... and then additional folders called 71st ... 72nd .. 73rd...

unionchapel.smugmug.com

You get three levels:

Photo (category)
...Anniversary (sub-category)
......71st (gallery)
......72nd (gallery)
......73rd (gallery)

If you're putting everything under the Photo category, then you're wasting one of the levels because there's no reason to put everything in one category.

brecklundin

jfriend wrote: »

You get three levels:

Photo (category)
...Anniversary (sub-category)
......71st (gallery)
......72nd (gallery)
......73rd (gallery)

If you're putting everything under the Photo category, then you're wasting one of the levels because there's no reason to put everything in one category.

John is right there...it's the best way to use the options.

Plus you can also use the new "Smart Galleries" as well if you plan your key wording right. I recall reading of some issues with Smart Galleries, but I can say for the few tests I have run, and I don't have many photos to deal with, the Smart Galleries are a nice way to highlight special images from different and often disparate galleries. I don't like the UI in adding categories and the category setup page at all but the gallery & category with the added Smart Galleries is a nice combo and pretty flexible.

I just want things to work...I can adapt to any UI and system but it has to work 100% or for me it's a failure. There are why I am not too happy with SM these days...and might not be happy again.

autocat12

Ok I am making some headway now.... How do i move an entire gallery from one location to another gallery that I created when it does not show up in the drop down
my site is unionchapel.smugmug.com

autocat12

Ok I think I figured out how to resolve my second question. I opened the setting from the gallery i wanted to move and then wen to the extras section and then selected the sub-gallery i wanted to move the gallery to ... it worked.

jfriend

brecklundin wrote: »

I just want things to work...I can adapt to any UI and system but it has to work 100% or for me it's a failure. There are why I am not too happy with SM these days...and might not be happy again.

What doesn't work for you 100% of the time. I find the category and sub-category UI to not be very intuitive (and lots of people are regularly confused by it), but once you know how it works, I've never had it fail on me. What doesn't work for you?

brecklundin

jfriend wrote: »

What doesn't work for you 100% of the time. I find the category and sub-category UI to not be very intuitive (and lots of people are regularly confused by it), but once you know how it works, I've never had it fail on me. What doesn't work for you?

Sorry if it was confusing but I was referring to SmugMug in general...it's not the category/subcategory/gallery thing, that is fugly but workable situation even it if costs me 8-15 listings daily if I have to backtrack to create a sub category. I used the LR SM plugin which works nicely to create galleries but I still need to visit SM to fine tune any new categories/sub-categories. See I use a link to help potential customers see images if they don't use flash. But if there is a general issue on SM then might see a totally broke site and blow me off image wise.

See I had plans to remotely create the details in my own app I wrote to generate the listing code itself, nothing fancy just a quick and dirty template front end is all mine does. But my place was to generate the "Show-Off" gallery on the fly adding and assigning the gallery to new categories if needed...I always edit and upload images first then complete the listing details after the images are done. Honestly I am not even sure I would be able to get the data I need from the API as I haven't dug into it beyond a cursory overview so that could well be a dead end anyway.

But the general problem I have is just too many outages happen at times which are crucial to me and my business. And I am fully aware of the fact SM is not doing these things on purpose or due to carelessness, they are an honest bunch of folks, but to me at this point it no longer matters, they are losing me money, especially when a potential customers might be referred to my listings by another person in the collector groups out there where if one person has a bad experience the old 10-2 rule kicks in...good experience=they tell 2-people, bad experience=they tell 10 people. Then *poof* I lose potential buyers at a geometric rate. I never had this worry using my own server, and it's a shared server at that but with only about a dozen sites on it.

FYI, I am not selling $3 items...two sales can make my week and I am used to many more than that when I am listing on a regular basis.

For example, today's issues have disrupted a sale I was running for many of my listings. The disruption was the "Show Off" gallery which I embed in my eBay listing, I sell antiques and collectibles, was either taking in excess of 20-seconds to load or eventually failing to load at all. Problem is when there is a slowness or, worse and total outage and the gallery does not actually load any images withing the first 5-seconds odds are I have lost that customer or at least a legit shot at the customer. Because of emails received from customers, I have already been questioning my using a Flash based gallery anyway. Still I really am not in the mood or physically and mentally up to the effort, having health probs sicne April, to code my own or use the pretty dismal options offered in LR3/LR2.x I know there are a ton of scripted galleries out there but they are geared toward running within a given domain and might not run without modification on my part. I also do not like using eBay's image hosting as they really don't do nice things to your images. Right now if I try and make a change I don't really have the time or energy to make. Plus I have to create a new work-flow to incorporate a new gallery into my auction management apps one of which I wrote and the other is a purchased program which is very bullet-proof and I have been using it since 1999. Working with three systems is less than ideal but it's not that bad...when SM holds up their end.

For a decade I have been with CrystalTech (now part of Newtek) as my server host and they give me pretty much 100% up-time. When things do go awry there is an instant email notification wrt the issue and an ETA on the fix...never have they let me down, save one time when there was an honest to gawds "back-hoe" dug up the line thing that happened at their server farm facility, but that was around 1991 and we were down for a few days...if I am down 10-mins in the course of the year that might be an over estimation. Some weeks SmugMug feels like it's down 10-mins a day even if they won't admit it. But I doubt they are up near to where a modern day host should be, especially when you consider the unexplained slow downs. Right now, in my mind SM is worst that inkfrog was in it's early days or even the other image hosts that cropped up at the same time. Though they are better than the original eBay hosted images...not that was AWFUL.

So that, in a nut shell is why I am not thrilled with SM right now...I honestly would not have renewed this year had I been aware of the renewal date and that was a few months ago now. The service has potential which I like and can see, but if the infrastructure is on tooth-pick stilts it's not worth the risk to me financially. I feel the $200 it cost me for the year, cost me $2000-$3000 in sales. But no way to say one way or the other, I only know if it's not working I can't sell items. That is not hard to grasp.

Sorry for unloading there but it's how it is for me right now...

brecklundin

autocat12 wrote: »

Ok I think I figured out how to resolve my second question. I opened the setting from the gallery i wanted to move and then wen to the extras section and then selected the sub-gallery i wanted to move the gallery to ... it worked.

BINGO...that is how to do it. I found just cruising the menu systems and learning the UI (screens/pages) takes a bit of work but once you do so, as long as you know it's there somewhere you'll find it...

GadgetRick

I agree with brecklundin. The downtime/slowness issues are really becoming more than just annoying. It had gotten REALLY bad a few months ago then seemed to get better. Yesterday I had all kinds of problems with the site being slow.

As he said, I don't think there are bad people working behind the scenes, on the contrary, I think SM staff is all quite good. However, just being nice people isn't enough when you're talking about potentially losing money. They need to get their act worked out and get this thing working properly.

The klunkiness of how categories work is just an example of this. The downtime is more than just annoying.

GadgetRick

Ugh! Just tried to go to my site. Not down but not bringing everything up. This is one of the things which was happening yesterday. Why can't they get this working properly!!!!???

EDIT: After refreshing about 10 times everything finally shows up. Ugh....