Linking to specific photos from external sites

hontzd

Hi, I'd like to highlight a frustration I have with linking to specific photos on SM. I searched the Dgrin forums and didn't easily find a similar thread, but forgive me if I'm being redundant.

- First, it seems like a pretty bad thing that that the URL of a specific photo (displayed as a member of gallery) changes when you change the gallery's style. That breaks existing links (from Facebook, Twitter, email, other sites, etc). A user arriving from the old URL lands in the gallery without the photo being displayed.

- Facebook sharing still isn't great. I paste the URL into my status box on my biz page (I don't use the Like buttons on SM because I don't want it to go to my personal wall). While the top link (next to the user icon) is correct, the link next to the photo thumbnail links to a completely different photo. Also, not a big deal, but the photo's thumbnail doesn't automatically display (you need to click through FB's thumbnail browser to call it up). I realize a lot of this is how FB handles stuff, but this sort of sharing seems to work pretty OK with other sites. I've noticed that FB seems to have issues with URLs that have hashes in them, so maybe that has something to do with it? Here's a URL that I try to share on FB and see this behavior: http://photos.danhontz.com/Art/Favorites/11500306_oEHrP#809133151_75q5T-A-LB

Finally, I know it's on the roadmap, but not being able to link directly to "buy" for a specific photo is killing me. I'd love to be able to advertise a specific shot or shots and get a user in a shopping cart without asking them to navigate a whole new site first.

Thanks for listening!

-Dan
dahontz.com | photos.danhontz.com

Andy

hontzd wrote: »

Hi, I'd like to highlight a frustration I have with linking to specific photos on SM. I searched the Dgrin forums and didn't easily find a similar thread, but forgive me if I'm being redundant.

- First, it seems like a pretty bad thing that that the URL of a specific photo (displayed as a member of gallery) changes when you change the gallery's style. That breaks existing links (from Facebook, Twitter, email, other sites, etc). A user arriving from the old URL lands in the gallery without the photo being displayed.

can you give an example? Links shouldn't break, I'd like to know exactly how you are sharing links, thanks! Please be very specific.

Andy

hontzd wrote: »

- Facebook sharing still isn't great. I paste the URL into my status box on my biz page (I don't use the Like buttons on SM because I don't want it to go to my personal wall). While the top link (next to the user icon) is correct, the link next to the photo thumbnail links to a completely different photo. Also, not a big deal, but the photo's thumbnail doesn't automatically display (you need to click through FB's thumbnail browser to call it up). I realize a lot of this is how FB handles stuff, but this sort of sharing seems to work pretty OK with other sites. I've noticed that FB seems to have issues with URLs that have hashes in them, so maybe that has something to do with it? Here's a URL that I try to share on FB and see this behavior: http://photos.danhontz.com/Art/Favorites/11500306_oEHrP#809133151_75q5T-A-LB

Changes in the works for this, we're taking advantage of some new stuff Facebook offers in this regard.

Andy

hontzd wrote: »

Finally, I know it's on the roadmap, but not being able to link directly to "buy" for a specific photo is killing me. I'd love to be able to advertise a specific shot or shots and get a user in a shopping cart without asking them to navigate a whole new site first.

Thanks for listening!

-Dan
dahontz.com | photos.danhontz.com

Yup, stay tuned, we want to add this.

hontzd

links to photos change when you change gallery style

Andy wrote: »

can you give an example? Links shouldn't break, I'd like to know exactly how you are sharing links, thanks! Please be very specific.

Sure - I changed the gallery style from "Smugmug" to "Thumbnails." When a specific image is displayed in the Smugmug style, the URL looks like:

http://photos.danhontz.com/Art/Abstract/11434757_A5eks#915433222_QPMiH

Switching to the Thumbnails style, the URL for a specific image in the gallery context gets append with "-A-LB" - so in the above example the URL changes to:

http://photos.danhontz.com/Art/Abstract/11434757_A5eks#915433222_QPMiH-A-LB

Because only the hash part of the URL changes, the URL still display the gallery, but without the linked image called up.

How I'm using these URLs: I have a slideshow (not created using Smugmug tools) that links to images in the Smugmug galleries from my home page, http://danhontz.com. It's easy to change those links, but this issue is a real problem when it comes to Facebook or other "historical" links that aren't easy to change. My Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dan-Hontz-Photography-Multimedia/307095664866 . (Note, you'll see an odd "sharetool" redirect on those links - that was a way of working around an earlier issue with FB not liking hashtag links to photos. But that's not related to the issue of the URL changing.)

Thanks for you quick response, Andy!

rainforest1155

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the details. I see what you mean and have passed both your issues on to our bugman to take a closer look at.

Sebastian

hontzd

Thanks Sebastian! Let me know if you have any further questions.