No captions on slideshow; bad captions on lightbox

pbandj

I make extensive use of captions to create a travelogue or other narrative from my photos, but those captions are completely missing from the slideshow, and I can't find a way to customize it to show captions.

The implementation of captions throughout the new design is pretty sucky...in smugmug gallery style they show "below the fold" and get lost under the buttons and photo numbers; in the lightbox viewer they partially cover the photo and then the user has to expand them to see the full caption...

But in slideshow there just aren't any captions. This whole thing breaks the way I use smugmug.

billw

Yes, please fix this. I, too, often use captions to tell a story. There must at least be an option for captions to be "permanent" (not fade away or jump around like they do now), and be shown with the slideshow. They should also be allowed to be the full width of the photo (fewer line wraps) even if that means reducing the photo size slightly (effectively moving the "button bar" [share, comment, info, download,etc.] down). And why does the button bar have to fade out too?

Do we have to find the smugmug "feature request" page for someone to pay attention to this?

GaryBakker

There was another thread on this topic, but I'm not going to search for it right now. I wish there was a central spot where all this stuff was located. Like the "feature request" mechanism, only for "new SM bugs, issues, complaints, etc." Then we could all vote to determine the priority in which things should be addressed.

Simply chiming in here to say I need this fixed too. Please. Quickly.

HamsterHuey

I'd posted along the same lines sometime yesterday : http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=237100

There might have been another thread too. Agreed that the implentation of captions leaves a lot to be desired. They tried to make it all slick and Web "Insert large digit here".0, but I don't think any thought was actually given to it from a usability standpoint. Fading away the caption after a few seconds makes absolutely no sense, nor does coupling it with the toolbar overlay with icons.

lerone

+1
yes! - putting photos in the center *also* means displaying it´s captions permanently (at least optional)

pbandj

GaryBakker wrote: »

There was another thread on this topic, but I'm not going to search for it right now. I wish there was a central spot where all this stuff was located. Like the "feature request" mechanism, only for "new SM bugs, issues, complaints, etc." Then we could all vote to determine the priority in which things should be addressed.

Simply chiming in here to say I need this fixed too. Please. Quickly.

Yes...sorry for the duplication. I had actually seen those other threads, but they seemed to address the problems of 1) captions not showing optimally in the "lightbox" format (where you have to hover to see long captions, and they disappear, or 2) having to scroll down to see captions in the smugmug gallery style (in addition to captions not being under the photo and not particularly noticable.

I hadn't seen anyone commenting on captions having gone missing when you click the "slideshow" button in the smugmug gallery, which worked wonderfully in legacy smugmug, so I wanted to log this as a slighly different issue.

AlexWild

+1000 to this. There's no point having captions if people have to work to see them.

GaryBakker

AlexWild wrote: »

+1000 to this. There's no point having captions if people have to work to see them.

I see that vote, and raise it to +10,000. My original +1 seems so insufficient.

koedel

Not having the captions show on the slide show of the "new" Smugmug is a huge disappointment for me, also. We used to periodically have family slide shows, but what's the use if my captions don't display? I wish I had never converted from legacy. Any word on whether this will be fixed anytime soon?

pbandj

koedel wrote: »

Not having the captions show on the slide show of the "new" Smugmug is a huge disappointment for me, also. We used to periodically have family slide shows, but what's the use if my captions don't display? I wish I had never converted from legacy. Any word on whether this will be fixed anytime soon?

Just as an FYI, if you use the Share...Get a Link...Gallery Links...Slideshow feature, the link you get is actually to the legacy-style slideshow. I think this is probably a bug...it seems like they should have made that link match the overall style of the site and link to the new gallery slideshow, but until they fix the bug, you can still use the legacy slideshow that way if you want to send that link out to your family or have a group slide show.

koedel

Thanks for the tip. I guess I can e-mail myself a slideshow link and then click on it. I e-mailed Smugmug support and will append the reply below. I haven't had a chance to try their suggestion of adding slideshow content blocks yet. I guess I would need to add a slideshow content block to all the galleries we might want to watch as a slideshow? I think I could also just bring up the light box and then click through the photos manually.

It is something that's being looked into. We don't have a release date for when it will be possible, but it's certainly something that has been brought up a lot. Sorry, I wish I had another answer for you.

What you can do is use the slideshow content blocks instead. Those have the caption options available. But the basic gallery slideshows do not. Here is help with using the content blocks: help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/1210628