Feature Image behaviour

JezS

What's the correct behaviour for a gallery's feature images when nothing is selected?

When I first migrated to the new Smugmug, my 365 gallery would have its featured image updated to the newest photo it contained. There is NO image selected in the gallery settings.

Now it just doesn't work that way. It seems to have chosen an image at random and stuck with it.

I have a new gallery for 2014 and it's stuck on using the first image I uploaded.

Shouldn't it pick up the latest one instead?

Jez

Allen

Try adding a feature photo then delete that featured photo and see how it resets the (random) featured photo.

JezS

Well I tried - when I delete the feature image it reverts back to the first image I loaded...

Teach

Hi Jez,

The first uploaded image will show if no feature image is selected in the New SmugMug.

JezS

Teach wrote: »

Hi Jez,

The first uploaded image will show if no feature image is selected in the New SmugMug.

Has that changed then? When I first migrated to the new Smugmug my 365 gallery feature image would automatically change to the newest photo, which is actually a really great way of doing it!

JezS

Just checked another gallery and the feature image isn't set, Smugmug has chosen the second photo to use instead of the first!

JezS

OK, so that's one gallery that's using the second to last photo as it's feature image and another that's using the last photo in the gallery. Smugmug Help says it should be the "first image" in the gallery. Help!

Les Doerfler

Jez, I just messed around with the images in my galleries and what is happening, at least in my case, is that if a feature image is not selected, then the default is the first image that was uploaded to the gallery, not the first image in the display order. I could not find any way to change that behavior. The image order in the gallery did not make any difference at all.

Les

www.lesdoerfler.com

denisegoldberg

JezS wrote: »

OK, so that's one gallery that's using the second to last photo as it's feature image and another that's using the last photo in the gallery. Smugmug Help says it should be the "first image" in the gallery.

For now you either need to accept the thumb that is chosen for you or select a featured thumbnail yourself. I would think selecting a featured thumbnail would be better suited to giving your site the look you are after. Without the ability to get a random thumb I'm not sure why you would allow smug to select the first (or any random) image.

You might want to add your comments to the thread Random Thumbnails in the SmugMug Feature Requests forum.

--- Denise

JezS

denisegoldberg wrote: »

For now you either need to accept the thumb that is chosen for you or select a featured thumbnail yourself. I would think selecting a featured thumbnail would be better suited to giving your site the look you are after. Without the ability to get a random thumb I'm not sure why you would allow smug to select the first (or any random) image.

You might want to add your comments to the thread Random Thumbnails in the SmugMug Feature Requests forum.

--- Denise

When I first migrated to the new Smugmug my gallery had its thumbnail changed to the photo in the first position, so with the sort order set to Date Taken/Descending it changed to the latest photo. I liked that behaviour, it was dynamic without any user intervention.

Now it's static. I could achieve the same result by actively selecting the first image taken. I think using the photo in the first position is a far more useful default option.

On top of that I have a gallery that's using the second photo uploaded, which it isn't supposed to do. Which in turn leads me to believe that something isn't working properly.

I have one gallery that's not behaving as it used to and one that's no behaving as it should to, but nobody from Smugmug seems willing to help figure out why.

Jez