Dear SmugMug: We NEED a way to choose galleries with " Move " tool !

WinsomeWorks

Please, please please, SmugMug. I'm completely going out of my mind when I want to move a photo to a single gallery. ("Move to Gallery" tool) It is seriously impossible when you have hundreds of galleries, which I do. I mean it's truly, truly nuts. Like finding a needle in a haystack. I do this a lot, and there are gazillions of reasons why it's smarter than re-uploading for me... if only the selector box would be simple. If only... but as we all know, the dialog box that pops up with the humongous list of galleries has some kind of weird organization all its own. It seems to be basically organized by categories, and yet what that order is is anyone's guess. And then if I've just added galleries, they appear way at the bottom. Archives are all mixed in, sometimes randomly, meaning hundreds more to wade through. I have literally spent 5 minutes just finding a gallery. And recently I've had several occasions where I simply couldn't find it, gave up & re-uploaded. That is absolutely ridiculous.

This isn't a feature request... this is a completely missing UI that was promised years-- yes, years ago, and it is frustrating your users to the nth degree. It's to the point of being a necessity, not a feature, when I can't even find a gallery at all. For some reason, gallery selection was made simple & logical (with cats & dropdowns) in every other tool but this one very important "move" tool, a tool used constantly. Couldn't you just grab the picker that pops up in the smart gallery gallery-picker or collect photos picker & put that same one into the "move to gallery" function? Please, I beg you guys... just fix this already. I know you're busy with new designs & all, but this is an old, old, old problem & the new design won't fix it either. :deal

Erick L

I agree. I have galleries with the same name but in different categories and it's impossible to know which is which with the move tool.

denisegoldberg

I gave up on the move tool a long time ago - I usually upload a new copy instead.

The lists of galleries on these tools are totally unacceptable. I've never understood why all lists aren't by category / subcategory / gallery as opposed to a flat totally unsorted list. Unusable is an understatement.

--- Denise

J Allen

I agree on this one too....Way to difficult if your trying to organize some photos into different galleries....It's on the user-voice as a feature request if you want to vote on it...but it looks more like a bug to me:

http://smu.gs/lsW7B0

WinsomeWorks

Please identify smart galleries and collected photo galleries in gallery lists also!

Erick L wrote: »

I agree. I have galleries with the same name but in different categories and it's impossible to know which is which with the move tool.

Erick, I forgot to mention that part of the problem.... yes, that's a real mess too. I have virtual galleries with the same name in different cats or sub-cats. What I ended up doing is adding [v] for virtual (smart gallery) or [c] for a gallery of collected photos, because this often makes a big difference when moving something, and there's absolutely no way to tell with this non-sensical list which one is which. I actually have a feature request for at least identifying smart galleries somehow in the title, in all these "select gallery" user interfaces. I'll find it & post back. But, like J Allen observes, none of this stuff should really be a feature request. It's more a bug than anything else, and furthermore has had fixes promised for years. Ok, found it: here's my request for identifying smart galleries, etc: http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/716054-make-it-clear-that-it-s-a-smart-gallery-at-the-top It sure needs votes, haha! The only votes are mine! Boohoo. But if you're low on votes, vote on this one first: (the one that J Allen posted a bit ago) http://smu.gs/lsW7B0

Malte

I'll pile on!

+1

Malte

fotophun

here here
I have been having this frustrations for years
I too have hundreds of images in hundreds of galleries
what would be the problem in alphabetizing the galleries in this window??
surely that can be done can't it??

W.W. Webster

I strongly agree this is a serious problem!

If I could work out the sequence in which the galleries are listed then I would be able to find the destination gallery of interest - but I can't! What is that sequence, or are the galleries listed totally randomly (surely not!)? As a minimum the gallery names should be prefaced (or at least grouped) by the relevant category and subcategory names.

WinsomeWorks

W.W. Webster wrote: »

I strongly agree this is a serious problem!

If I could work out the sequence in which the galleries are listed then I would be able to find the destination gallery of interest - but I can't! What is that sequence, or are the galleries listed totally randomly (surely not!)? As a minimum the gallery names should be prefaced (or at least grouped) by the relevant category and subcategory names.

They do seem to basically be bunched together in category and/or subcategories, but within those, I can't figure out the order, & I have some cats with 25 galleries. And then the other monkey-wrench thrown into the works is that my newly-created galleries will show up at the very bottom of the list. They typically stay there for at least 24 hrs., so if I have to do a lot of moving initially, I try to catch them then, when I don't have to spend 5 min. just looking for them. Of course, that rarely works out....

What gets horrendous with me is that i've got bazillions of Archives galleries, & sometimes the rest get mixed in with them. At that point, if I'm trying to find one, I'm feeling very enraged that SmugMug can't just fix this. How long would it really take to just pop in that same easy-picker that shows up with other tools? I dunno. It really seriously smacks that we have to beg & beg for something so simple & so obvious.

SamirD

Try using any of the gallery picker tools when you have thousands of galleries--you simply can't. Bad, bad, bad UI.

Andy

We do hear you on this one, and we do hope to vastly improve this function. Thanks for the passionate input, guys!

HaraldE

Selecting an Album

denisegoldberg wrote: »

I gave up on the move tool a long time ago - I usually upload a new copy instead.

--- Denise

Morning, I very much side with Denise. Can't really say what is the best way of doing this but the current is the worst. And I also have a feeling it is inconsistent throughout SmugMug.

Regards, Harald

SamirD

Manipulating photos within SM is inefficient to say the least, with uploading actually being the faster workflow. I think there are third party tools that can do this with more efficiency, but I don't know what any of them are. It would be nice to have a application that is basically a local, compiled version of the SM interface that corrects all the UI issues like this one.

WinsomeWorks

Please. Please. Please, SmugMug. I've lost too much hair on this. What took me 5 minutes (just to find one gallery in the list) a few months ago now takes me 10 minutes. Twice this week, I never did find a gallery I needed. Wouldn't this be a pretty simple fix? Just, please, have your designers spend a couple days on it & let the new design work have a day of rest. Fixing this one tool so that it's at least usable is so much more important to us than getting a new design out a couple days earlier than it would have gotten out. Usability of the site has just gotta be paramount. I beg you!! My uploading has slowed to a trickle because I just can't deal with this anymore. Fixes have been promised for years. Years. :bash It's getting ridiculous now.

SamirD

I'm lucky in that I don't have to use the gallery picker for anything I really need to do, but at almost 3000 galleries, I've lost the ability to use a lot of functions.

As far as a fix, what would be the best solution? They know we want it fixed, but they need to know how to fix it too.

WinsomeWorks

SamirD wrote: »

I'm lucky in that I don't have to use the gallery picker for anything I really need to do, but at almost 3000 galleries, I've lost the ability to use a lot of functions.

As far as a fix, what would be the best solution? They know we want it fixed, but they need to know how to fix it too.

Well, I think we & Smug have already recognized that the best way would be to simply use the same gallery-picker tool that's now available in all the other tools where it actually works... you get an immediate fly-out of cats, then sub-cats, then galleries. Alphabetical order of galleries would help once you're in the fly-outs... which i think is already the case in all the other tools. No need to re-invent the wheel at this point... keep it consistent w/ the rest of the site. To my knowledge, the "Move" tool is the only one still using the horrifically-awful picker.

SamirD

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Well, I think we & Smug have already recognized that the best way would be to simply use the same gallery-picker tool that's now available in all the other tools where it actually works... you get an immediate fly-out of cats, then sub-cats, then galleries. Alphabetical order of galleries would help once you're in the fly-outs... which i think is already the case in all the other tools. No need to re-invent the wheel at this point... keep it consistent w/ the rest of the site. To my knowledge, the "Move" tool is the only one still using the horrifically-awful picker.

Yes, great solution! Should be fairly easy to implement since the code already exists.

I hate to say it, but even the category-based gallery picker doesn't work too well for me. But I don't know of a solution to propose at this point since I don't need to regularly use any feature that has this picker.

colinpurrington

In Flickr, one can just drag to a visual display of galleries. And galleries can be dragged into different and multiple categories. Takes seconds, and the ease makes it a process that is just normal. In smugmug it appears to be so difficult that people don't even try, and their organization enthusiasm stops. I can feel this inertia gripping me, and feel sad. So I agree that this has more priority than any of the features people might be +1ing.

Andy

colinpurrington wrote: »

In Flickr, one can just drag to a visual display of galleries. And galleries can be dragged into different and multiple categories. Takes seconds, and the ease makes it a process that is just normal. In smugmug it appears to be so difficult that people don't even try, and their organization enthusiasm stops. I can feel this inertia gripping me, and feel sad. So I agree that this has more priority than any of the features people might be +1ing.

we've got some very cool stuff we're working on in development and hope to get it out so that nobody will feel sad! I'm very sorry that some things take longer than we all would like...

David Evertsen

Andy wrote: »

we've got some very cool stuff we're working on in development and hope to get it out so that nobody will feel sad! I'm very sorry that some things take longer than we all would like...

In the mean time could you explain the logic in how the current version works so we don't waste to much time while we wait for very cool stuff?? There seems to be no logic in how the galleries show up, listed, unlisted, date created, date uploaded, alphabetical. No logic that I can find..

Thanks

sara505

David Evertsen wrote: »

In the mean time could you explain the logic in how the current version works so we don't waste to much time while we wait for very cool stuff?? There seems to be no logic in how the galleries show up, listed, unlisted, date created, date uploaded, alphabetical. No logic that I can find..

Thanks

Something I discovered a while back is, if you open the list of galleries and start typing the name of the gallery you're looking for, it will appear, like magic.

But of course that's no help when you have several galleries with the same name.

I do know that my most recently created gallery (where I'm usually trying to move stuff) is always at the bottom of the list.

But yeah, this needs to be a lot better.

WinsomeWorks

sara505 wrote: »

Something I discovered a while back is, if you open the list of galleries and start typing the name of the gallery you're looking for, it will appear, like magic.

But of course that's no help when you have several galleries with the same name.

I do know that my most recently created gallery (where I'm usually trying to move stuff) is always at the bottom of the list.

But yeah, this needs to be a lot better.

Oh my lucky stars!!! :giggle SARA-- I love you so much right now!!! I just got home from a trip, & this is the best-est news here on Smug for awhile! I absolutely cannot believe this method has been right there in front of me & I just never thought to try typing! I just tried it-- Oh my heavens, I tell you honestly that you've just saved me hours of time in what will be a very busy month! Thank you, oh THANK you for sharing this very wise tip. And Andy, why oh why oh why could this info not be placed prominently right there in the "choose gallery" spot??? Just think of the hours this will save people!! One simple instruction: "Start typing the name of your gallery...." So awesome. Yes, I am also thrilled to hear there's great stuff in the works, & I really do believe there is. But until then, please get someone there to hear you ( & us)... just get them to insert Sara's tip & tell them how many migraines they'll save. Honest! Thank you. Call it Sara's Tip! Best tip ever. I have galleries w the same name, but they're always virtual ones if they're named the same, so I put a [V] after the name to identify which one is virtual, since there's no other way. So... no problem! Oh man, I'm so happy. I wanna go on a moving binge right now.

Andy

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Oh my lucky stars!!! :giggle SARA-- I love you so much right now!!! I just got home from a trip, & this is the best-est news here on Smug for awhile! I absolutely cannot believe this method has been right there in front of me & I just never thought to try typing! I just tried it-- Oh my heavens, I tell you honestly that you've just saved me hours of time in what will be a very busy month! Thank you, oh THANK you for sharing this very wise tip. And Andy, why oh why oh why could this info not be placed prominently right there in the "choose gallery" spot??? Just think of the hours this will save people!! One simple instruction: "Start typing the name of your gallery...." So awesome. Yes, I am also thrilled to hear there's great stuff in the works, & I really do believe there is. But until then, please get someone there to hear you ( & us)... just get them to insert Sara's tip & tell them how many migraines they'll save. Honest! Thank you. Call it Sara's Tip! Best tip ever. I have galleries w the same name, but they're always virtual ones if they're named the same, so I put a [V] after the name to identify which one is virtual, since there's no other way. So... no problem! Oh man, I'm so happy. I wanna go on a moving binge right now.

I tried to find it, can't - but I know I've explained this to you in the past - maybe you just forgot about it

sara505

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Oh my lucky stars!!! :giggle SARA-- I love you so much right now!!! I just got home from a trip, & this is the best-est news here on Smug for awhile! I absolutely cannot believe this method has been right there in front of me & I just never thought to try typing! I just tried it-- Oh my heavens, I tell you honestly that you've just saved me hours of time in what will be a very busy month! Thank you, oh THANK you for sharing this very wise tip. And Andy, why oh why oh why could this info not be placed prominently right there in the "choose gallery" spot??? Just think of the hours this will save people!! One simple instruction: "Start typing the name of your gallery...." So awesome. Yes, I am also thrilled to hear there's great stuff in the works, & I really do believe there is. But until then, please get someone there to hear you ( & us)... just get them to insert Sara's tip & tell them how many migraines they'll save. Honest! Thank you. Call it Sara's Tip! Best tip ever. I have galleries w the same name, but they're always virtual ones if they're named the same, so I put a [V] after the name to identify which one is virtual, since there's no other way. So... no problem! Oh man, I'm so happy. I wanna go on a moving binge right now.

Anna Lisa - thanks, you made my day It's nice to be on the helping side of things for a change.

I honestly don't know how I discovered this trick, I think it was accidentally, and yes, it must be a standard logarithim because it works elsewhere as well.

I think, Andy, even if you told people how to do this, what Anna Lisa is saying is, for people who haven't heard this, it might be helpful to post it prominently nearby (but for God's sake, don't name it after me ).

WinsomeWorks

sara505 wrote: »

....
I think, Andy, even if you told people how to do this, what Anna Lisa is saying is, for people who haven't heard this, it might be helpful to post it prominently nearby (but for God's sake, don't name it after me )....

Hahaha, point well-taken! But glad I made your day too, haha! Gee, rather bizarre twist how a Smuggy dysfunction could "make [our] day" eventually anyway! And to Andy... precisely what Sara said: ..."post it prominently nearby..." i.e. how 'bout right there within the tool where the gallery-picker is? Ya know, where people would actually see it & remember it? Right now, it's not at all evident that one can even type in that box w/ the dropdown. I'd have never thought to even try it. I'm sorry, but I don't recall ever hearing a helpful tip like this, & I'm sorry if I did & forgot, but if that's the case, it's clear I'm in good company. You can't really believe that everyone who's struggling to find one blasted gallery amidst hundreds is going to then stop, take the time to wade through a bazillion forum posts & find this (Sara's) tip or any others through some sheer stroke of luck, right? So go ahead, really make our day and just see if Smuggy can put the tip right there in the tool & save every mover & shaker a bunch of Excedrin! We're right with you, ya know, we just wanna make the place better & better. And thank you for telling us about the good stuff in the works, too. It's exciting (new site design stuff as well, of course), & I know you're all taking the time to really get it right & make everyone very thrilled.