New Android App: Upload, Browse and Share on SmugMug

mbonocore

For last few years, SmugFolio was the best Android app on the market for SmugMug users to upload, manage and browse SmugMug on the go. People loved it. And so did we.

In fact, that app was so great we just had to buy it. So we did.

Wait, What? Can You Do That?

After talking with the app’s developer, we knew that we’d hit a gold mine of Androidical genius – Brian did such a great job designing, building and maintaining this app we knew he bleeds green just like us. And he’s been a long-time SmugMug customer, to boot. So we asked if he’d come join the cadre as one of our official Android engineers. We couldn’t be happier to have him on our team!

The New (Free!) SmugMug for Android App

Today the SmugFolio App gets a new name (SmugMug for Android) and a snazzy new icon that you’ll know and recognize in the Google Play store. It’s also free. But more than just a simple rebrand, we (and Brian) have made a few improvements to make your experience even better than before.

Grab it now from the Google Play store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snapwood.smugfolio

What’s New?
*You can now browse other SmugMug user accounts without needing to log into the app. This is a great way to give friends and family a way to browse your public galleries on their phones and tablets.

*The app has been made more secure by switching to OAuth for the login. You’ll need to login once you’ve updated to the new app. After you log in, your photos will still be available in the app. No need to re-download them all.

*To make the app more secure and to prepare for some exciting future enhancements, the updated app now requires you to be on Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) or above. If you’re using Android 2.x or earlier, you can can still use SmugFolio, but you won’t be updated to the new app. This wasn’t an easy decision, but it is necessary to move the app forward.

And in case you’re new to the app, here’s a complete list of features:

*Upload unlimited photos and videos into unlimited gorgeous galleries.
*Quick and easy access to your photos – even when you’re offline.
*Upload photos and videos on-the-go, or automatically upload as you shoot.
*Browse and search through galleries on SmugMug (ideal for friends, fans and family)
*Full screen slideshows across all galleries or within a single gallery
*Browse photos from favorite users without needing a SmugMug account
*Multi select to move, collect, delete, and share multiple photos at a time
*Auto download galleries when you’re on wifi
*Auto upload photos and videos from any location to any album
*Bulk upload multiple photos and videos at a time
*Upload with GPS location
*Display photo geolocation on Google map
*View detailed photo information
*View comments on photos and albums
*Delete photos and galleries
*Filter photos by keywords
*Assign photo ratings and filter by photo rating
*Create new galleries, edit gallery title and public setting
*Set photos as wallpaper
*Play videos
*Share URLs or photos with other Android applications
*Automatic short URL generation using SmugMug
*View photo or gallery on SmugMug
*Export photos and galleries to local device gallery
*Choice of browsing by category or by gallery
*Change download location to external SD card (or any folder you choose)
*Read only mode can prevent destructive actions like delete

Got questions? Our amazing Support Heroes have put together a quick FAQ on using the original SmugFolio app, and we’ll keep it updated.

You can find it here: http://smu.gs/17ThK5X

Since the original creator is a driving force on our team, we’ll continue to improve SmugMug for Android even more in the coming months. So let us know what you think and what features you’d like the most.

Enjoy!

Andy

Installed - thanks!

mbonocore

Andy wrote: »

Installed - thanks!

Let us know what you think Andy!

Michael

AperturePlus

Installed here as well. Well done - it seems to work well

mbonocore

AperturePlus wrote: »

Installed here as well. Well done - it seems to work well

Sweet! Glad it is working out for you!

Michael

Ferguson

It's not working for me. Or more precisely, the downloads are not.

I'd like to keep the last few galleries buffered in the phone, so I went in and manually unchecked all, and checked just a handful of galleries. I then did everything I can think of to make it download -- I've turned off and on requiring wifi, I've turned on and off the various "when powered" and "connect power". I've run "force download" repeatedly. Each time I seem to get a tiny bit. Of the roughly 500 images that should be downloaded, 123 photos are downloaded per the status page (48MB, for a total of 58MB of 12GB free).

At this moment I'm on wifi (a nice fast 120mbs internet circuit by the way), I did a "force download", it thought about 5 seconds and said "download complete". No errors, just "complete". But wait, I went off the page, came back, and it says 160 photos. Did it 3 more times -- still 160. So I went in and selected another gallery (82 photos). Same thing -- 3-4 seconds and "download complete". Still 160 photos. Did it twice more -- no change.

So I set "select all" to select what downloads and still 160 photos after a force. And just in case you think it may be only running when idle/charging, I installed it virtually the day it came out, so it's had MANY quiet, night time charging intervals, and is still not downloading.

Running on Android 4.1.2 on a Sony Experia ZL. The photos do display and download as you page through them (it would be nice if there was an obvious indication of which were, and were not downloaded, maybe a slight border or something). So it's got an authenticated connection and is generally working, it just gives up

I've rebooted, changed selections, forced download a huge number of times, and it just won't download much.

Is it just me? Or is the download management pretty broken?

Ferguson

Interesting lack of any response...

For unrelated reasons I wiped and reinstalled Android on my phone, and so re-installed Smugmug. On the first sync it got 69 galleries and 5752 thumbnails and 5674 images for 2.4GB.

Now that good news is that is a lot more than the 160 it got before.

The bad news is they don't match (why wouldn't they?) and the other bad news is that Smugmug thinks I have more like 11,000 images (maybe -- the only stat I can find is "uploaded" -- not sure how to tell how many are there).

So it's better, but it still doesn't seem to want to do "all". I'm also a bit surprised how small the result is, clearly it's pulling down pretty low res images.

mbonocore

Ferguson wrote: »

Interesting lack of any response...

For unrelated reasons I wiped and reinstalled Android on my phone, and so re-installed Smugmug. On the first sync it got 69 galleries and 5752 thumbnails and 5674 images for 2.4GB.

Now that good news is that is a lot more than the 160 it got before.

The bad news is they don't match (why wouldn't they?) and the other bad news is that Smugmug thinks I have more like 11,000 images (maybe -- the only stat I can find is "uploaded" -- not sure how to tell how many are there).

So it's better, but it still doesn't seem to want to do "all". I'm also a bit surprised how small the result is, clearly it's pulling down pretty low res images.

Hi Ferguson,

I have pinged Brian, the app developer to see if he has any ideas. He may need to trouble shoot with you further. I will keep you posted when I hear back from him.

I apologize for the issues you are experiencing. Hope we can get it figured out for you.

Michael

snapwood

Hey Ferguson,

If the thumbnails and images don't match, it would typically indicate your device has less than 1GB of space free at your download location. You can change the download location via the app's settings -> Downloads -> Download Location. That panel will also indicate how much space is free at the location.

By default, the app will only download your most recent galleries when it gets into a low space situation (where you have 1GB or less free on your device). This may have been your issue on your first attempt. The Status panel in the app's download settings should indicate this is the case and why the auto download stopped prematurely.

Also be aware that deselecting a category will prevent all galleries within the category from being downloaded, so deselecting either the gallery or the category will cause it to skip the download. The status panel should indicate when it is skipping galleries.

If the above doesn't help, please contact help@smugmug.com so we can dig into the settings and get you going. We can enable logs and determine what is happening if it isn't clear via the app. Collecting the logs would really best be done via the support heroes rather than the forum.

Thanks,

Brian

Ferguson wrote: »

Interesting lack of any response...

For unrelated reasons I wiped and reinstalled Android on my phone, and so re-installed Smugmug. On the first sync it got 69 galleries and 5752 thumbnails and 5674 images for 2.4GB.

Now that good news is that is a lot more than the 160 it got before.

The bad news is they don't match (why wouldn't they?) and the other bad news is that Smugmug thinks I have more like 11,000 images (maybe -- the only stat I can find is "uploaded" -- not sure how to tell how many are there).

So it's better, but it still doesn't seem to want to do "all". I'm also a bit surprised how small the result is, clearly it's pulling down pretty low res images.

athos

very happy about this. i have been using smugfolio for years now and in fact if you check my post history i stated over a year ago how bad the smugmug android app was and their excuse that android was harder to develop for was not a good excuse, since smugfolio did it much better and on android.

i suggested they buy smugfolio and make it the official app.

good stuff!

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=202368&page=3

mbonocore

athos wrote: »

very happy about this. i have been using smugfolio for years now and in fact if you check my post history i stated over a year ago how bad the smugmug android app was and their excuse that android was harder to develop for was not a good excuse, since smugfolio did it much better and on android.

i suggested they buy smugfolio and make it the official app.

good stuff!

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=202368&page=3

Thanks for the feedback! We are very happy to have Brian (and this awesome app) as part of the SmugMug family.

Michael

AeroGeek

I love the new app. I am also still getting used to an Android phone after having an iPhone for years. I post lots of my photos on forums, and am trying to find out if it is possible to get the full URL of a photo from within the app. The "share URL" option doesn't do what I am looking for.

snapwood

Thanks for the feedback. As you've problem found, the Share URL shares a link to the photo's page on your SmugMug site. There is not currently an action in the app to share the direct URL to the original JPG.

Brian

AeroGeek wrote: »

I love the new app. I am also still getting used to an Android phone after having an iPhone for years. I post lots of my photos on forums, and am trying to find out if it is possible to get the full URL of a photo from within the app. The "share URL" option doesn't do what I am looking for.

mbonocore

Moving this thread to the new "SmugMug Product News" Forum at http://www.dgrin.com/forumdisplay.php?f=62

juanheredia

I love this application. It's really useful, but I would like to have three important options:

1. Have the popular photo of the day stream on smugmug.
2. Explore and comment photos in a community.
3. Option for getting embeddable links (BBCODE) of my photos.

Thanks for all the efforts you do.

aschendel

Seems great on my Galaxy Note 2. It is quite a bit more refined than the app I was using (which I thought was the official one).

Thanks!

a.s.

tayl0124

Is thebapp currently broken due to the update? My photos wont update.

juanheredia

tayl0124 wrote: »

Is thebapp currently broken due to the update? My photos wont update.

I'm having the same problem. I force to download/upload, its going well until it reaches the 50% or something else, then it stops.

tayl0124

I ended up uninstalling the app and reinstalling and it solved the problem.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

WinsomeWorks

Bulk Uploading with Android App has Many Problems
[ETA: In the 1st post here, this app is called "SmugMug for Android". Please fix that, so people don't waste time searching for it under that name. It's simply called "SmugMug" in the store. I finally figured out it must be the same app.] Anyway, the overall look and usage of this app for browsing is decent, and in most cases works better than the other Android app I have for SmugMug (SmugMug Mobile). However, uploading is incredibly painful with both apps. There are so many issues with uploading (whether one photo or a bunch) that I hardly know where to start listing them, & I don't have the time right now anyway. Just want it to work. Are these the only options we've got for uploading from Android? Or is there another I can look for? Just wanted to get a job done quick... Btw, my phone is the Samsung S4, which I've had almost zero issues with. I don't think it's the phone; seems that there are just tons of design flaws in the Uploading portion of the app. A few of the biggest problems off the top of my head:

-- Incredibly difficult to find gallery you wanna upload to if you've got hundreds! Needs cats, sub-cats, gallery titles (& they need alphabetized ignoring "the" and "a" as that makes it even more impossible!!)

-- Making a new gallery (to which you want to upload) has no options. Square thumbs is the default & shouldn't be, but I can live w/ it. The only other option is public or unlisted. No space to add description or anything else but the gallery title.

-- Once you've made a new gallery & have indicated that you want to upload to it, you go to select photos (also ridiculously cumbersome; couldn't even figure it out) but then it evidently starts uploading instantly (without any real indication that it's uploading or if & when it's finished)... to the wrong gallery! It chooses some crazy random gallery, not the one you just made.

-- You don't want to change this random gallery, because you can see that photos are uploaded to it. But you don't know when/if they're finished because the words at the top say "Prepare" and "Uploading" and the blue indicator line (guess that's what it is) only shows up under "Prepare". Nothing shows up under "Uploading.

Whole thing is just a bizarre experience. And now, to see what's going on, I can't use my phone.. I've gotta open my site on my computer.

Anyway, if there's an app that actually has easily working Uploading facilities, please let me know. [ETA: Just checked & all those photos that appeared to be uploading were not. Their thumbs are shown in a list with the gallery title as if they've already uploaded. BUt they're not actually there. I imagine you need to hit another button (which I saw, but didn't hit it because it appeared it had already started.) Ok, back to try again. This could be made so simple.] [2nd ETA: I found another App called "Instant SmugMug", gave it all the permissions, set up the few settings that were needed, but can't find a way to actually use it! In other words, it doesn't show up under the "share" function in my gallery, & no place in the app says "Upload". Very strange. Any tips on that?]

Chicago6061

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

I found another App called "Instant SmugMug", gave it all the permissions, set up the few settings that were needed, but can't find a way to actually use it! In other words, it doesn't show up under the "share" function in my gallery, & no place in the app says "Upload". Very strange. Any tips on that?]

The 'Instant SmugMug' automatically detects new photos taken by the camera. It uploads those photos in the background without you having to do anything. No need to 'share' or 'upload'. Instant upload...