collect photos : RH sidebar should float

philiptdotcom

In "Collect photos" (http://hear.smugmug.com/photos/picker.mg?tool=collect), the text in the right-hand sidebar--entitled "Display in the following gallery:"--should FLOAT; i.e., the aforementioned text should stay at the top of the RH sidebar area regardless of how far down in the "Scrolled photos" section you are; it should be unnecessary to scroll back up to the top of the page in order to choose an option in "Pick a destination gallery."

I'll be the first to point out that the flicker caused by refreshing floating items is annoying as hell--but that's just aesthetic (and might be solved by a refresh delay), vs. the practical inconvenience of unnecessary scrolling.

See this video: http://screencast.com/t/yKkmkjiwO

The having to scroll back up to the top is unnecessary and should be eliminated.

Aloha,
-pt

gluwater

Hi pt. You can select the destination gallery before you start scrolling through your photos. That eliminates the need to scroll back to the top of the page to choose the destination gallery. If you are Collecting the photos I would imaging that you know where you want to Collect them to before you select the individual photos, especially since you need to have a destination gallery already created. Your needs in this feature are very specialized and for the majority of our users this is not an issue.

philiptdotcom

Thanks for the idea, but this does not solve the problem. You're incorrect when you assume that I know where I want to "collect photos to" before I select the individual photos. This kind of assumption--about particular workflows--should not be made by designers, especially when solutions are so relatively easy, and since such a solution would not negatively affect users with the "other" workflow.

So, although I do appreciate your feedback, the problem is NOT solved. Many smugmug features seem to be designed for folks who only have small numbers of images/galleries/categories to deal with, and are not scalable to "professional" (high-volume) levels. This, unfortunately, is one of them.

As I should have included before, the answers to these specific questions would be nice to know:

Questions:
1) Does my problem description make sense?
2) Can you replicate it?
3) Do you agree that it's a problem?
4) Approximately when can we expect a solution?

gluwater

philiptdotcom wrote: »

Thanks for the idea, but this does not solve the problem. You're incorrect when you assume that I know where I want to "collect photos to" before I select the individual photos. This kind of assumption--about particular workflows--should not be made by designers, especially when solutions are so relatively easy, and since such a solution would not negatively affect users with the "other" workflow.

So, although I do appreciate your feedback, the problem is NOT solved. Many smugmug features seem to be designed for folks who only have small numbers of images/galleries/categories to deal with, and are not scalable to "professional" (high-volume) levels. This, unfortunately, is one of them.

As I should have included before, the answers to these specific questions would be nice to know:

Questions:
1) Does my problem description make sense?
2) Can you replicate it?
3) Do you agree that it's a problem?
4) Approximately when can we expect a solution?

Hi PT. Thanks for your input. Can you please give me an overview of what your workflow is?

I assumed that because you must already have Galleries created in order to Collect images to them. You cannot create galleries with the Collect Photos tool so you must create the galleries first. That would lead me to believe that you know what images you want to Collect if you have already created a gallery for them to be collected to.

We make the tools as usable as we can for the majority of users. Unfortunately we cannot please everyone and add every suggestion that we receive. No company has that many resources.

I must disagree with you that we are "not scalable to "professional" (high-volume) levels.". We have users with over 1 million photos on their sites and they get along just well with the tools we have. I am not saying that every tool is perfect because they are not. You are faulting us for not being scalable because some of our tools do not fit your specific needs in the exact way you want to use them.

If you do not like scrolling back to the top of the page then you can use the keyboard shortcut Cmd + up arrow, or Ctrl + up arrow. That will take you to the top of the page without having to scroll.

To answer your questions,

1) Yes your description makes sense.
2) I can relicate the use case.
3) No I do not agree that it is a problem.
4) It may be changed in the future but this is not a bug, it is a feature request. You can file any feature requests that you have here: http://feedback.smugmug.com

philiptdotcom

Nick,

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

My workflow, in the case where I'm having these issues, is that I am selecting images from a set of hundreds and basing the gallery into which I collect images on information in the filenames that I choose to collect. I don't know which set of filename(s) is "next" until I locate the files.

(Which brings to mind another point: in ANY case where there are multiple images to sort/sift through, there should be a standardized FILTER [e.g., similar to search] feature to allow the user to specify [e.g., *Euglandina* or Euglandina*] the subset of images to display. Additionally, in all such cases, typing the first letter (or letters) of the displayed text [e.g., caption] should immediately take the user to the appropriate picture--not only in lists of pictures on pages, but ALSO(!!!) in drop-down menus [which are a special case: with hundreds of entries in a drop-down menu, people should be able to directly access a certain spot in the list, AND they should visually know where they are in the list [vertical scrollbars!!!].)

And yes, it's true that the galleries have to already exist--which is, in itself, problematic, and causes a lot of time-wasting workaround. (See other separate feature request.)

I don't mean to imply that none of smugmug's features are scalable to a "professional" level: obviously, many of them are. But--because you do serve a large professional audience--it is surprising to me how many issues I run into that are not scalable and/or have not taken into consideration fairly obvious needs (e.g., the ability to create new galleries on the fly when collecting--or MOVING--images into multiple galleries [oops! not even possible to collect to multiple galleries! another case in point....]; and, e.g., the things in the parenthetical paragraph above, which just came to mind as I was talking about something else....).

I really don't mean to "complain" (although I fear that it seems like this is what it seems like); I'm really just expressing my frustration in hopes that the smugmug team will pay attention to these issues (...and not only these specific issues, but in general, to try to anticipate similar issues when designing new features/etc.). In general, I think smugmug does a reasonable job of this (or I'd look elsewhere for a product to use)--and I'm always amazed at the immediate responses (if not fixes) I get when I submit support requests. But hopefully, someone will listen (as has been done before) and get some of these issues--some longstanding--addressed.

Thanks also for the idea about using "keyboard shortcut Cmd + up arrow, or Ctrl + up arrow"--but it doesn't seem to work. (Maybe it's specifically an MSIE thing; apparently, "Home" generally performs this function in FF, but it does NOT work on smugmug pages [Does SM disable/override FF keystrokes via JavaScript?].) So--nice idea for a workaround, but unfortunately, even the workaround doesn't work.

So, instead of "do you think it's a problem?" I might ask: "Do you think it would improve the user interface?" if the floating controls were in place (in general--so the appropriate controls--selecting gallery, "Save," etc.) and always available on the user's screen without them having to navigate elsewhere to find the control? (Is this a rigged question? Well, yes; I don't see how anyone can reasonably say "no"!) (Refer to Steve Krug, Jakob Nielsen....)

Thanks again for (e-)listening!

Aloha,
-pt

philiptdotcom

Note also that " get[ting] along just well" may be "muddling through" or "just getting by," because--as you are certainly aware--for various reasons, most people don't bother to report problems (because they don't know how; because they've reported them before but the problem has not been fixed; because they just don't feel like it's worth their time; etc.). My hope is that when the SM team realizes particular issues that people are struggling through & just living with because they have to (e.g., all the issues I bring up--and I guarantee I am not the only one who feels as I do about ANY of them) that they'll want to reduce the "struggle" factor. I'm sure you do--but, even though some things may not be showstoppers, it would sure be nice to have some assurance that they're acknowledged as problem areas and will eventually be dealt with.

Aloha,
-pt

gluwater

Hi pt, We do look at all the input we receive from users like yourself and we try to incorporate as much of the feedback into new features and on improving existing features as we can. This is not an error in the existing feature. You're asking for an improvement on the current feature and that is a feature request that belongs here: http://feedback.smugmug.com. I see that you have already added some input there and thank you for that.

We do love hearing what we're doing right and wrong with the site and http://feedback.smugmug.com is the best place to add your input on new features and also on improving existing features. You've been with SmugMug long enough to hopefully see that we do try to update the site to fit our users needs. We are not always able to do this, or at least do this in the way that fits your specific needs, but we do listen. Just about every single feature and improvement on the site has been initiated by the suggestions of our users.

I was looking at your site and I think I understand more clearly about your workflow.

You are uploading into a master gallery such as this one:

http://hear.smugmug.com/Photographers/HLO/HLO-invertebrates/18082342_q3dKTH#1387075859_GSw744Z

Then you are breaking that gallery down into smaller, more specific galleries such as this one:

http://hear.smugmug.com/Species/Talitridae/18098497_FQPbX3#1386902414_fcPNgKw

Are you familiar with Smart Galleries? I think they would work much better for you and also create less site administration time on your part. The way a Smart Gallery works is that you create a rule and we automatically populate the gallery with photos based on that rule. In the case above you can create a rule so that all images keyworded with "Amphipoda" populate the gallery. I created a Smart Gallery on your site as an example so you can actually see what I mean and how it works.

http://hear.smugmug.com/Other/Amphipoda/18131340_tdshkr#1387075859_GSw744Z

Once you setup that rule anytime you add an image with that keyword to your site we will automatically add it to that gallery. So it works similar to Collected photos but it is automatic once you setup the rules.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/smart-galleries

Does that seem like it would be easier and also automated for you? I think it could save you a lot of time once you have it setup. Once the galleries have the rules you would no longer need to manually collect images. You would simply upload them to their master galleries and then they would populate the rest of your site. You could also still manually collect images to Smart Galleries if you needed to.

You also asked for a filter to create a subset of images. You can already do what you're asking. If the above Smart Gallery does not work for you then you can try this instead. Create a Keyword Gallery and then collect your images from there. Here is a keyword gallery:

http://hear.smugmug.com/keyword/Euglandina

Notice it is just your URL with keyword/Euglandina added to it. So you can easily create them. Once you have your keyword gallery you can use the Collect Feature in the gallery and it will only show the images from that keyword gallery in the Collect tool so you will not need to worry about scrolling unless you have a lot of images that you are collecting.

I think the Smart Galleries are your best option, especially on a large scale and for long term use. Please let me know what you think.