Direct URL links no longer working!!??

rich56k

OK so I'm baffled by this latest turn of events . :dunno

I use the (Old) Journal gallery style for my "About" pages - which is really more of a collection of my published tearsheets. As the collection of tearsheets grew I realized I needed a way to send someone a link to a specific image (tearsheet) within my "About" section (it has grown to approx. 7 pages worth now).

One of the best parts of smugmug galleries (in my opinion) is the 'lightbox' feature - click on an image and it will open up and fill most of the screen. The downside is when you do this from within the 'old journal' gallery the actual URL doesn't change - hence the inability to send a link to a specific image. At the time my first thought was to send a query here to Dgrin, then I thought about could there be a workaround? Yes, it turns out!

I tried a few things and found that if I changed my gallery style to SmugMug style then clicked on a specific image it would go to 'lightbox' mode with one major difference it now had a unique URL - problem solved!!

These unique URL's (when sent as direct links via email) have been working with the old journal version for at least the last year or so, up until this week (well that's when I noticed they didn't work).


Now all of the link/URL's would go to the "loading..." (in progress) and continue 'loading...' without ever opening the image in lightbox! dunno:cry

I've tried multiple variations - like recreating URL links using the other available smugmug gallery styles (thumbnails, traditional, smugmug small, etc) all to no avail.

Could something have changed at the SmugMug end that has killed the links ?? :scratch


Can anyone help me establish workable URL links for the individual pics in my old journal "About" page that open directly in lightbox mode???

***Here's the actual links:

CB750 D'cafe BSH 1
http://www.hooliganunderground.com/Portfolio/LACALENDARSHOW-THELOSTFILES/1271860_J65SL2#!i=1671097913&k=VCC8CRd&lb=1&s=A

JAYBUILT SF 1
http://www.hooliganunderground.com/Portfolio/LACALENDARSHOW-THELOSTFILES/1271860_J65SL2#!i=1614152511&k=swRHpR2&lb=1&s=A


x9 SM 1
http://www.hooliganunderground.com/Portfolio/LACALENDARSHOW-THELOSTFILES/1271860_58FD2#1243024485_Vf9k3-A-LB

Flattrack
http://www.hooliganunderground.com/Portfolio/EXCLUSIVE-GREGGS-CUSTOMS-R1/1271860_58FD2#1158108123_gFQz2-A-LB

skunkworx
http://www.hooliganunderground.com/Portfolio/EXCLUSIVE-GREGGS-CUSTOMS-R1/1271860_58FD2#965967904_FGiyc-A-LB


killer b1
http://www.hooliganunderground.com/Portfolio/EXCLUSIVE-GREGGS-CUSTOMS-R1/1271860_58FD2#807556642_rQVLh-A-LB

rzr350 1
http://www.hooliganunderground.com/Portfolio/LACALENDARSHOW-THELOSTFILES/1271860_58FD2#415430553_L2Rg8-A-LB

One last note - if I use any other gallery style (for the 'About' pages) these links work fine - as they always used to in old journal...:scratch:scratch:scratch Problem is old journal is the perfect format/style for my needs.


-rich56k

Lindy

Hi Rich,

As you can see from your links, we did make some changes.

We have seen some intermittent issues, with some browsers, and our sorcerers are looking into them. Some, not all have trouble with the lightbox links not opening. That is what you're struggling with, right?

Hang in there. Hopefully they'll figure out why that is happening, and get it fixed, soon.

Thanks!
Lindy

rich56k

Lindy wrote: »

Hi Rich,

As you can see from your links, we did make some changes.

We have seen some intermittent issues, with some browsers, and our sorcerers are looking into them. Some, not all have trouble with the lightbox links not opening. That is what you're struggling with, right?

Hang in there. Hopefully they'll figure out why that is happening, and get it fixed, soon.

Thanks!
Lindy

Hi Lindy,

Thanks for both the fast reply and the info!!

Glad you mentioned browsers...I didn't think about that - the described behavior is when I'm using FireFox 9.0.1

So I tried Safari 5.0.6 and the links all load - with one problem, there's no image just the caption in lightbox mode !! (see attached)

I'm on an iMac and don't mess with IE - so not sure what happens with that...

Glad to hear they're 'on it' and look forward to being linkable again.


-rich56k

rainforest1155

Hi Rich,

At this point journal (old) style doesn't have any direct Lightbox links as you already pointed out. From what I understand, the links you seem to have manually created as a workaround weren't supported and while they may have worked in the past, it wasn't something we did support to my knowledge and that means they could have stopped working at any time.
I can understand that this is an inconvenience to you, but since what you were using doesn't seem to have been supported by us, you could only change to another style (like SmugMug or journal style) and put in a feature suggestion at our feedback pages:
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug

I'll also go ahead and pass your use case on to our product management team, but I don't think it's something we see very often if at all (it's a first for me to see that anyone having done something like this) and I wouldn't hold my breath on this feature getting added to journal old style any time soon if ever. I'm sorry.
If I hear back anything else from our product team, I'll let you know.

rich56k

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Hi Rich,

At this point journal (old) style doesn't have any direct Lightbox links as you already pointed out. From what I understand, the links you seem to have manually created as a workaround weren't supported and while they may have worked in the past, it wasn't something we did support to my knowledge and that means they could have stopped working at any time.
I can understand that this is an inconvenience to you, but since what you were using doesn't seem to have been supported by us, you could only change to another style (like SmugMug or journal style) and put in a feature suggestion at our feedback pages:
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug

I'll also go ahead and pass your use case on to our product management team, but I don't think it's something we see very often if at all (it's a first for me to see that anyone having done something like this) and I wouldn't hold my breath on this feature getting added to journal old style any time soon if ever. I'm sorry.
If I hear back anything else from our product team, I'll let you know.

http://news.smugmug.com/2012/01/10/hash-bang-how-we-beef-up-your-google-juice/#comments

So I just found the above notice in smugmug news regarding exactly what my original query was asking about...I tried to post this comment there to no avail. Why I wasn't pointed there in the first place is troubling.

Anyhow, an update at my end: I tried the same links in Chrome and got the same results as in Safari (the caption appears just fine but instead of the image a small white box shows).

Does this require a "new feature" to return it's ability to work as rainforest mentioned - when it's something recently broken by the 'team'??

Geez it's a direct link to an image in a gallery!! In this day and age should it be so hard??!!


Lets remember all I'm really asking is a way to link to a specific image with in a gallery (even without 'lightbox') would serve my purpose - any suggestions?

Currently all I can do is link to a page then instruct my customers and potential publishers to scroll down to image 'so and so' down the page !! Not good situation - especially in 2012!

-rich

PS: Please pardon my attitude -it's more from writing a much longer post and 'losing it' when I tried to post in the smugmug news section.

Andy

Not sure why you are unable to post on our news blog As you can see, many have posted there.
We're looking at this, Rich. But old Journal is not a style we're supporting with updates. So this may be a reason. We'll keep looking.

Allen

Andy wrote: »

... But old Journal is not a style we're supporting with updates. ...

What kind of updates are you not supporting? Will any of these effect the thousands of html/text
galleries using that style?

SamirD

Question for the OP: What happens if you change the gallery style to something else? Does it work then?

Andy

SamirD wrote: »

Question for the OP: What happens if you change the gallery style to something else? Does it work then?

Yes. Old Journal, if you just try it in one of your galleries, the photos go to Lightbox but the URLs don't change in the browser address bar. Old Journal is one of the styles that we aren't and haven't been updating for some time. And with the introduction of hashbang urls for better Google juice, it looks like the OP's method of link creation in this use case won't work any more... but we Sebastian will keep looking.

Andy

Allen wrote: »

What kind of updates are you not supporting? Will any of these effect the thousands of html/text
galleries using that style?

Shouldn't. And as we've discussed over in the New Gallery style thread and its customizing thread, there'll be new options to accomplish the same sort of thing in the future. Stay tuned.

rich56k

Andy wrote: »

Not sure why you are unable to post on our news blog As you can see, many have posted there.
We're looking at this, Rich. But old Journal is not a style we're supporting with updates. So this may be a reason. We'll keep looking.

Thanks for your replies Andy,

For what it's worth I even tried the 'Share' feature in the gallery in question and both the 'Gallery' and 'Slideshow' links provided work for me but not the 'Lightbox' links...even though SmugMug produces said links from within the gallery...

I'm sure as Allen mentioned that many people use Old Journal for a variety of reasons. It's the in-ability to link to ANY images within that makes it so frustrating (note the 'photo links' option in 'share' DOES work however it takes you out of the gallery). Can't blame a guy for trying!!

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed...

-Rich

SamirD

Andy wrote: »

Yes. Old Journal, if you just try it in one of your galleries, the photos go to Lightbox but the URLs don't change in the browser address bar. Old Journal is one of the styles that we aren't and haven't been updating for some time. And with the introduction of hashbang urls for better Google juice, it looks like the OP's method of link creation in this use case won't work any more... but we Sebastian will keep looking.

Ahhh...I think I understand the issue much better now. Yeah, there's not going to be much of a way around that right now.