Show Us Your New SmugMug Customized Sites!

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  • vogtovogto Registered Users Posts: 6 Big grins
    edited May 5, 2016
    Hi guys, any thoughts on what else I can fix on my site www.artentic.net? Please be harsh, I take criticism well :) Thanks.
    Get inspired! Visit www.artentic.net to see my photos.
  • photoclickphotoclick Registered Users Posts: 278 Major grins
    edited May 5, 2016
    Very personal opinion - small gray text on black background is hard to read. But, please, it's probably just me and my eyes:) It clearly shows you put a LOT!!!! of design effort and thought into your website.
  • Hikin' MikeHikin' Mike Registered Users Posts: 5,467 Major grins
    edited May 5, 2016
    photoclick wrote: »
    Very personal opinion - small gray text on black background is hard to read. But, please, it's probably just me and my eyes:) It clearly shows you put a LOT!!!! of design effort and thought into your website.

    Not just your eyes.
  • Lille UlvenLille Ulven Registered Users Posts: 567 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2016
    vogto while I don't quite agree with the two above me - I actually think that the contrast between the black background and the grey writing is pretty much ok - I do have one other point...
    If you scroll down your page entirely the fairly new "Back to Top" button that hovers in will cover over your rightmost social icon making it impossible to spot where this is going to point to.
    If you want to keep the button - and with the length of your page, I think I would recommend keeping it - you might want to add this css
    .sm-button.sm-page-scroll-to-top{
    margin-bottom:50px !important;
    }
    

    to your site. This way the button would be placed just above your social icons.

    And by the way: I love your photo of Vang stave church - that is something different from what I have seen (and taken) so far in stave church photography.

    Good luck

    Lille Ulven
    https://www.lilleulven.smugmug.com - The Photos of my travels
  • LiquidtravelLiquidtravel Registered Users Posts: 21 Big grins
    edited May 31, 2016
    Would love to get ideas to make my site even better...
    Hello all,

    my site - http://www.liquidtravel.org has been up for a while using smugmug. I would love to get some thoughts on how to make it even better.

    Please take a look and if you have any great ideas, please pass them along.

    thanks so much.

    Layne
  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,373 moderator
    edited June 1, 2016
    The placement of your social icons draws my eye away from the content on your site. I would prefer to see a header made up of only your site name and menu.

    I was quite confused by the breadcrumb folders. If I click into one of your galleries then want to see other galleries in the same folder, it appears that isn't possible. For example, I clicked to the gallery Wild Animals. Then I clicked Animals in the breadcrumb expecting to see only galleries in that folder. Instead I was returned to the full galleries page.

    --- Denise
  • LiquidtravelLiquidtravel Registered Users Posts: 21 Big grins
    edited June 1, 2016
    The placement of your social icons draws my eye away from the content on your site. I would prefer to see a header made up of only your site name and menu.

    I was quite confused by the breadcrumb folders. If I click into one of your galleries then want to see other galleries in the same folder, it appears that isn't possible. For example, I clicked to the gallery Wild Animals. Then I clicked Animals in the breadcrumb expecting to see only galleries in that folder. Instead I was returned to the full galleries page.

    --- Denise

    Yes, I see what you mean. I cannot figure that out. If you click on the breadcrumb to animals, you should see only 2 galleries, domestic and wild but for some reason it takes you back to all galleries. That is something I will have to investigate because at present, I can't seem to understand how to make it only show the galleries in a specific folder. Seems odd.

    thanks so much for your comments. More are always welcome...

    Layne
  • Lille UlvenLille Ulven Registered Users Posts: 567 Major grins
    edited June 1, 2016
    Hi Layne

    There would be two possibilities of how you managed to get this done
    1. A hard redirect from that Animals folder to the browse website, which should not be possible as smug mug is not allowing these things.
    2. In your settings for your folder's (Animals, Travel ...) pages you choose to not customize the one folder you were in but made it a general rule to show all galleries.

    Since 2 is the more likely solution try this to fix this (I'll write it down for Animals, but basically you do it for all Folders :)) while being logged in:
    1) Go to that Animal folder http://www.liquidtravel.org/Animals
    2) Choose "Customize"
    2a) Choose "Content and Design" from the drop down list
    3) From the left side menu choose "Just this Folder" (it might work with "All folders" as well, but I am certain it works when you use "Just this Folder" :))
    4) Go down in the right side menu below the title "Just this Folder" you should find an entry called "Galleries"
    5) Click on the "Pen"-Icon of that "Galleries" entry (4)
    6) In the first tab use the following setting: "Select From: Current Location" (it is probably set to "All Galleries" just now)
    7) Click Done in that Gallery-window
    8) Click Done in the top right (green button)
    9) Click Publish
    10) Repeat for all other Folders

    (In theory you should be able to do this as an All Folder setting, in case this is your "standard choice" and then use specific "Just this Folder" settings for folders that are different from the standard.
    If you wanted to choose a bunch of Galleries from different Folders you would have to choose "Galleries I Choose" instead of "Current Location" and then another line would come up letting you choose the Galleries via a view that looks a little like your Organizer. There you can just click on one Gallery, move with the breadcrumps in the top back a folder or more and choose the next gallery (or enter the next folder to choose more galleries) until you have located all that you want.

    Hope this helps a little bit.

    Good luck

    Lille Ulven
    https://www.lilleulven.smugmug.com - The Photos of my travels
  • LiquidtravelLiquidtravel Registered Users Posts: 21 Big grins
    edited June 3, 2016
    What you are saying makes total sense. Unfortunately that doesn't work for me. First, I can choose "Customize" from the top menu. From there I am presented with a drop down that lists, Folder Settings, Folder Theme, Content and Design and Choose a new site design. I would assume I would go into folder settings. If I select that option, I get a pop-up that gives me few options. None of which give me the control you mentioned. I get Title "Animals," Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Feature Image and Custom URLs "Animals." The only other tab for this folder is Security & Sharing which is not relevant. Another option from the Top drop down that is available is "Content and Design." This opens up a config panel on the right. At the top of that right hand panel is listed, Entire Site, All folders, Make this folder a custom folder and all galleries. So, I cannot select just this folder. Below that is listed Galleries, this is an element where I add which galleries. But since I only have All Folders as an option, if I click on galleries, a pop-up displays where I can select which galleries but again, since this is all folders, if I make any changes here, only those galleries will show up which is not what I want when you click on my galleries link on the main navigation.

    If I go to a specific gallery like "Domestic Animals" inside of "Animals" I use the same top drop down but have more options including "Gallery Settings." Still, this is at the gallery level and I want to be one level up in Animals so I can select only the 2 galleries I want to show if I went to http://www.liquidtravel.org/Animals. Right now I am getting all galleries instead of just the 2 that should be inside this folder.

    If I go to organize my photos, everything is listed out correctly. Domestic Animals and Wildlife are both under "Animals." So I am not sure what is going on here.

    Sounds like your configuration menus is slightly different than mine or I have something setup incorrectly.

    thanks so much for trying to help me out. Any further info is truly appreciated.

    Layne

    Hi Layne

    There would be two possibilities of how you managed to get this done
    1. A hard redirect from that Animals folder to the browse website, which should not be possible as smug mug is not allowing these things.
    2. In your settings for your folder's (Animals, Travel ...) pages you choose to not customize the one folder you were in but made it a general rule to show all galleries.

    Since 2 is the more likely solution try this to fix this (I'll write it down for Animals, but basically you do it for all Folders :)) while being logged in:
    1) Go to that Animal folder http://www.liquidtravel.org/Animals
    2) Choose "Customize"
    3) From the left side menu choose "Just this Folder" (it might work with "All folders" as well, but I am certain it works when you use "Just this Folder" :))
    4) Go down in the right side menu below the title "Just this Folder" you should find an entry called "Galleries"
    5) Click on the "Pen"-Icon of that "Galleries" entry (4)
    6) In the first tab use the following setting: "Select From: Current Location" (it is probably set to "All Galleries" just now)
    7) Click Done in that Gallery-window
    8) Click Done in the top right (green button)
    9) Click Publish
    10) Repeat for all other Folders

    (In theory you should be able to do this as an All Folder setting, in case this is your "standard choice" and then use specific "Just this Folder" settings for folders that are different from the standard.
    If you wanted to choose a bunch of Galleries from different Folders you would have to choose "Galleries I Choose" instead of "Current Location" and then another line would come up letting you choose the Galleries via a view that looks a little like your Organizer. There you can just click on one Gallery, move with the breadcrumps in the top back a folder or more and choose the next gallery (or enter the next folder to choose more galleries) until you have located all that you want.

    Hope this helps a little bit.

    Good luck

    Lille Ulven
  • pilotdavepilotdave Registered Users Posts: 785 Major grins
    edited June 3, 2016
    What you are saying makes total sense. Unfortunately that doesn't work for me. First, I can choose "Customize" from the top menu. From there I am presented with a drop down that lists, Folder Settings, Folder Theme, Content and Design and Choose a new site design. I would assume I would go into folder settings. If I select that option, I get a pop-up that gives me few options. None of which give me the control you mentioned. I get Title "Animals," Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Feature Image and Custom URLs "Animals." The only other tab for this folder is Security & Sharing which is not relevant. Another option from the Top drop down that is available is "Content and Design." This opens up a config panel on the right. At the top of that right hand panel is listed, Entire Site, All folders, Make this folder a custom folder and all galleries. So, I cannot select just this folder. Below that is listed Galleries, this is an element where I add which galleries. But since I only have All Folders as an option, if I click on galleries, a pop-up displays where I can select which galleries but again, since this is all folders, if I make any changes here, only those galleries will show up which is not what I want when you click on my galleries link on the main navigation.

    If I go to a specific gallery like "Domestic Animals" inside of "Animals" I use the same top drop down but have more options including "Gallery Settings." Still, this is at the gallery level and I want to be one level up in Animals so I can select only the 2 galleries I want to show if I went to http://www.liquidtravel.org/Animals. Right now I am getting all galleries instead of just the 2 that should be inside this folder.

    If I go to organize my photos, everything is listed out correctly. Domestic Animals and Wildlife are both under "Animals." So I am not sure what is going on here.

    Sounds like your configuration menus is slightly different than mine or I have something setup incorrectly.

    thanks so much for trying to help me out. Any further info is truly appreciated.

    Layne

    The key will be step 6 in the instructions above. This is done under content and design. Setting the galleries content block for "all galleries" to "current location" will set each folder to show the galleries inside that folder. No need for each folder to be customized.

    Dave
  • Lille UlvenLille Ulven Registered Users Posts: 567 Major grins
    edited June 3, 2016
    Sorry I missed on telling you step 2a... under Customize choose "content and design" (I just use the other ones so rarely that it's natural to open this one :D)

    Lille Ulven
    (Will edit my post above too)
    https://www.lilleulven.smugmug.com - The Photos of my travels
  • LiquidtravelLiquidtravel Registered Users Posts: 21 Big grins
    edited June 3, 2016
    Thanks you all very much. It is now working the way it should BUT I have one final question. So, the breadcrumb works fine now and it will allow you to navigate back to the parent directory.

    When I clicked on Galleries in the top navigation bar however, there was nothing there. The reason for this is because I had globally selected to select from current location and there was nothing there for this page so it didn't display anything. I then created a custom page and selected all the galleries and they now show.

    See for yourself - http://www.liquidtravel.org/browse. My last question is, my Gallery link, which is accessed via my top navigation bar, I only want to show my top categories. Not all the galleries. So, instead of showing domestic animal gallery and wildlife, I only want it to show Animals and then when you click on Animals, it would show you the 2 galleries. Make sense?

    When I choose which galleries to display, my top level folders are not selectable. Why is that? It makes me open these folders and then select the galleries inside.

    any ideas?

    thanks again everyone.

    Layne
  • LiquidtravelLiquidtravel Registered Users Posts: 21 Big grins
    edited June 3, 2016
    Never mind, I answered my own question. It is all working the way it should . Thanks so much to everyone who helped.

    Layne

    Thanks you all very much. It is now working the way it should BUT I have one final question. So, the breadcrumb works fine now and it will allow you to navigate back to the parent directory.

    When I clicked on Galleries in the top navigation bar however, there was nothing there. The reason for this is because I had globally selected to select from current location and there was nothing there for this page so it didn't display anything. I then created a custom page and selected all the galleries and they now show.

    See for yourself - http://www.liquidtravel.org/browse. My last question is, my Gallery link, which is accessed via my top navigation bar, I only want to show my top categories. Not all the galleries. So, instead of showing domestic animal gallery and wildlife, I only want it to show Animals and then when you click on Animals, it would show you the 2 galleries. Make sense?

    When I choose which galleries to display, my top level folders are not selectable. Why is that? It makes me open these folders and then select the galleries inside.

    any ideas?

    thanks again everyone.

    Layne
  • yale1971yale1971 Registered Users Posts: 15 Big grins
    edited June 6, 2016
    Hello ;-)
    i'm Yannick, a french Landscape Photographer living in Cannes ( French Riviera ).
    i create my website end of march and i'm glad/proud of it
    here you are : http://www.yannicklefevre.com
  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,373 moderator
    edited June 7, 2016
    yale1971 wrote: »
    I like the clean look of your site.

    The one thing that jumps out at me is that you have not included either the breadcrumb or a title when displaying your galleries. If a viewer has a question, how will they tell you which gallery they were viewing? Yes, I know, you can see it in the URL, but I prefer to see it on the web page itself.

    --- Denise
  • yale1971yale1971 Registered Users Posts: 15 Big grins
    edited June 7, 2016
    I like the clean look of your site.

    The one thing that jumps out at me is that you have not included either the breadcrumb or a title when displaying your galleries. If a viewer has a question, how will they tell you which gallery they were viewing? Yes, I know, you can see it in the URL, but I prefer to see it on the web page itself.

    --- Denise

    Hi Denise,
    thank U for your feedback
    first when i was created the site, i keep the breadcrumb but since the changement, i did' t like the large size about the title ...
    so for the moment i "remove" it with a CSS custom :

    .sm-gallery-cover-title {
    display: none !important;
    }

    maybe an another solution ?
  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,373 moderator
    edited June 7, 2016
    yale1971 wrote: »
    Hi Denise,
    thank U for your feedback
    first when i was created the site, i keep the breadcrumb but since the changement, i did' t like the large size about the title ...
    so for the moment i "remove" it with a CSS custom :

    .sm-gallery-cover-title {
    display: none !important;
    }

    maybe an another solution ?
    You can change the size of the title. Instead of using display: none !important, try this:
    /* Change the font size of the Gallery Title */
    .sm-gallery-cover-title {
        font-size: 20px !important;
    }
    
    Change the font-size to a size that you like.

    --- Denise
  • yale1971yale1971 Registered Users Posts: 15 Big grins
    edited June 7, 2016
    You can change the size of the title. Instead of using display: none !important, try this:
    /* Change the font size of the Gallery Title */
    .sm-gallery-cover-title {
        font-size: 20px !important;
    }
    
    Change the font-size to a size that you like.

    --- Denise

    works well now, better like this
    have a look : http://www.yannicklefevre.com/Photo/Italy/Cinque-Terre-National-Park/

    Thank U for your help
    Yan
  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,373 moderator
    edited June 7, 2016
    yale1971 wrote: »
    works well now, better like this
    have a look : http://www.yannicklefevre.com/Photo/Italy/Cinque-Terre-National-Park/
    I agree, that looks much better!

    --- Denise
  • JWatsonJWatson Registered Users Posts: 55 Big grins
    edited June 9, 2016
    Great looking site! One of my favorites so far. thumb.gif
  • yale1971yale1971 Registered Users Posts: 15 Big grins
    edited June 10, 2016
    JWatson wrote: »
    Great looking site! One of my favorites so far. thumb.gif

    Thank U for your support ;-)
  • JWatsonJWatson Registered Users Posts: 55 Big grins
    edited June 10, 2016
    Hi All,

    I'm looking for some feedback from the community. I've been working on my site and making an effort to keep it as simple and streamlined as possible. I know that I need to add a bit more text around the galleries and content, but I will get to that eventually.

    Keep in mind that this site is not geared towards business. I have a day job and photography is just my hobby. I mainly share my photos with friends and family and whoever stumbles upon my site by accident. As such, I'm not too concerned with branding.

    I would love to hear some options on the site layout and navigation. While adding your comments, I would like to get feedback on some custom css I've added:
    - I have made the font size increase on hover for clickable navigation links. let me know if this looks good or if you think it looks bad/cheesy.
    - I have added wallpaper background to the folder pages. I'm not sure if this is an improvement or not. Let me know your thoughts.
    - I have added a text shadow to gallery description block (for those that have a description). While I generally don't care for this look, especially on low res monitors, I found that the text washes out depending on the cover photo. The shadow helps the text stand out regardless of cover photo. Should it stay or go? You can find an example under Portfolio > Nature > Butterflies.

    I look forward to some constructive criticism!

    Thanks,
    Jason

    www.jasonwatsonphotography.com
  • yale1971yale1971 Registered Users Posts: 15 Big grins
    edited June 10, 2016
    JWatson wrote: »

    I would love to hear some options on the site layout and navigation. While adding your comments, I would like to get feedback on some custom css I've added:
    - I have made the font size increase on hover for clickable navigation links. let me know if this looks good or if you think it looks bad/cheesy.
    - I have added wallpaper background to the folder pages. I'm not sure if this is an improvement or not. Let me know your thoughts.
    - I have added a text shadow to gallery description block (for those that have a description). While I generally don't care for this look, especially on low res monitors, I found that the text washes out depending on the cover photo. The shadow helps the text stand out regardless of cover photo. Should it stay or go? You can find an example under Portfolio > Nature > Butterflies.

    I look forward to some constructive criticism!

    Hi Jason,
    - first, i like the "effect" given by your menu with the clickable links, a good job.
    - about the lightbox, for me it's important to see your photos on dark, grey or white background ... why i say it, certainly because i work with Photoshop with a dark grey or dark background as usually ;-)
    - about the wallpaper presentation, i'm not sure if it gives for you a "plus" for the gallery page presentation but, it's not a bad idea too ;-) ( perhaps try a dark blue one to give a change with your navbar on the left side ? )
    - i don't have any problem with the shadows effect, i do the same with all my galleries, i like the soft white border presentation too
    - a fine clean home page presentation with full size slideshow.

    A fine website for me
    take care
    regards
    Yan
  • JWatsonJWatson Registered Users Posts: 55 Big grins
    edited June 10, 2016
    Hi Yan,

    Thank you very much for the feedback. I can see what you're talking about regarding the lightbox. I tried a few different shades of grey, as well as white, and the grey looks much better than what I had. That is probably why grey is the default color for smugmug and Lightroom. I also framed the photo in the lightbox with a 1px white line. I used to have a black line, but that doesn't work well with a dark background.

    I also agree that the wallpaper I was using wasn't quite right. I've downloaded a few darkblue ones and it does make the page look better, so that's for that suggestion as well. I'm trying one out now, but I think it might be a little too bright in the middle. I have a few more to try out, but I want to let this one sit for a few hours to see how I feel about it after looking at it for a while.

    Thanks for the feedback!

    Jason
  • denisegoldbergdenisegoldberg Administrators Posts: 14,373 moderator
    edited June 10, 2016
    JWatson wrote: »
    I'm not a big fan of enlarging text on hover. That is my personal preference though; I'd recommend you ask your target audience for their reaction.

    Overall your site looks good but one thing jumped out at me immediately. Why do you have a menu entry for your hidden files? A guest to your site can't see anything that you have specified as hidden - for your reference you should be able to find any hidden galleries from the \browse page when you are logged in.

    --- Denise
  • JWatsonJWatson Registered Users Posts: 55 Big grins
    edited June 10, 2016
    Thanks Denise,

    You must have caught my site in the 5 minutes that I had the hidden gallery menu item showing. For some reason I thought it was set up as 'private' and not 'hidden'. When it's private it won't show unless I'm logged in. I set up that way a few minuets ago when I was swapping out backgrounds so I could look at my other options more quickly. Once I logged out I saw the menu item was still showing so I promptly removed it.

    As for the enlarge text on hover, so far everyone else seems to like it. By everyone else, I'm referring to my wife, coworkers and Yan from the forum. I'm not 100% sold on it, that's why I asked. I don't care for the font-color, font-weight, or font-style change on hover, so I thought I'd try size to identify a clickable link. So far that has the least objectionable to me. My preference is for the entire background behind the lable to subtlety change to a lighter shade of the navbar color, but I couldn't figure that one out using CSS. I could get the background to change, but it wouldn't match the divider lines between menu segments.

    I appricate the feedback.

    Thanks!
    Jason
  • luluBLEUluluBLEU Registered Users Posts: 1 Beginner grinner
    edited June 10, 2016
    mbonocore wrote: »
    Allright Customization gurus, we want to see what you have been doing to the New SmugMug. Reply to this thread with your new SmugMug site. If you can also give a brief overview of the additional customization you did, that would be awesome.

    We are going to start showing off awesome sites via our social media channels soon, so show us what you got! clap.gif

    Michael

    Because the site has photography, art and an online store it was a bit tricky to figure out how to customize the site. Through trial, error and thankfully smugmug's help I was able to figure out what I think works best for now.

    http://www.lulubleu.com/

    Thank you for taking the time to look at my site.
    Appreciated.
  • yale1971yale1971 Registered Users Posts: 15 Big grins
    edited June 11, 2016
    Hello
    After few hesitation, i decide to put a "Home" link inside my menu ... I use the "Browse" page to do it.

    http://www.yannicklefevre.com/browse

    My goal is to show you inside with ONE page all interesting things that i share with you inside my website
    it looks like a "Welcome to my Home and take a moment to Browse my website" if i can say like this :-)
    Thanks for your feedback

    regards
    Yan
  • LiquidtravelLiquidtravel Registered Users Posts: 21 Big grins
    edited June 15, 2016
    Hello all,

    I have made a lot of updates to my site in the last few days so I would love feedback on the changes.

    http://www.liquidtravel.org/

    thanks so much.

    Layne
  • pilotdavepilotdave Registered Users Posts: 785 Major grins
    edited June 15, 2016
    yale1971 wrote: »
    Hello
    After few hesitation, i decide to put a "Home" link inside my menu ... I use the "Browse" page to do it.

    http://www.yannicklefevre.com/browse

    My goal is to show you inside with ONE page all interesting things that i share with you inside my website
    it looks like a "Welcome to my Home and take a moment to Browse my website" if i can say like this :-)
    Thanks for your feedback

    regards
    Yan

    I personally would find it confusing. Hitting the house icon in the breadcrumb leads to one homepage, and home links in the menu and elsewhere lead to a different (browse) page. Why not just customize your homepage with everything that's on your browse page?

    Dave
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