My 2 cents, why don't you do ALL you keywording before you upload to SM, I use Aperture/lightroom and do all that before uploading.
I have to admit, I'm a little surprised folks don't seem to be doing this. I thought it was a given to embed keywords, captions, as well as a variety of other information directly into an image's exif data. I find myself using the "file info" command (old school Adobe Bridge user here) as part of my image processing workflow. I include other relevant information as well, such a location, person pictured, etc.
The upside of doing it this way is my images are all ready to use. If SM closed its doors tomorrow, I could be up and running on a different service without looking at hours, and hours of work redoing all those keywords. Really, the File Info tool has a ton of potential for information sharing, especially if you think about the possibility of someone else inheriting your archive. When my grandparents passed, I ended up with boxes of old photos, and if I'm lucky, some have names written on them in ballpoint pen, or pencil. Perhaps someday my own grand-kids will be going through my digital collections, but they'll be able to read the who, what, where and when of the images (and hopefully not be too shocked by some of the more "personal" stuff!).
Anyway, there's no "right" way of doing it. But that said, I'm not effected by a software change out of my control.
I have to admit, I'm a little surprised folks don't seem to be doing this. I thought it was a given to embed keywords, captions, as well as a variety of other information directly into an image's exif data. I find myself using the "file info" command (old school Adobe Bridge user here) as part of my image processing workflow. I include other relevant information as well, such a location, person pictured, etc.
The upside of doing it this way is my images are all ready to use. If SM closed its doors tomorrow, I could be up and running on a different service without looking at hours, and hours of work redoing all those keywords.
As I mentioned in one of my posts in one of these threads, this change may cause me to re-think my approach. Your logic is sound. In my case it is captions, but the logic still applies. Perhaps even more so.
Thanks for sharing.
SmugMug site => The Bakker Chautauqua
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
W.W., what's changed is we came under a lot of fire for not considering all of our customers, but being driven by subsets.
To correct that, we do outbound calls of random selections of customers. 3 months ago we surveyed 1,700 of our customers extensively with a long, quantitative survey. And over the last few weeks we did a lot of focus groups and one-on-ones of customers who came in here. I sat through many of them and watched tapes of the others. There isn't a day when I don't talk to customers.
But maybe most important, we instrumented the site to watch patterns of behavior to understand people who won't post on dgrin, don't contact the support desk, have no interest in participating in a focus group, etc. That numbers in the millions of people, the vast majority.
Do I still care about the dozens who are in this thread? Absolutely, or I wouldn't be spending so much time reading through the comments.
That is interesting. You did all the right things. I really appreciate you explaining your methodology.
I did not realize I was such an outlier with how people use the site. I wish I'd have been one of the random survey participants.
SmugMug site => The Bakker Chautauqua
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
Gotta agree with many of the above regarding the deficiencies of the new keyword tool. I am one of those (.01%?) who caption and keyword in bulk using the older and faster interface where I can copy and paste for each photo on one page while I am looking at all the gallery thumbs. It is more intuitive, quicker and far less mouse clicking. I haven't migrated yet, but the loss of that more effective tool is going to be one of the reasons I will wait even longer to do so. This new SM tool looks nicer but for me seems far clunkier. Please consider adding some of the features of the old tool to the new keyword tool.
But on the plus side, I have been adding location data to my photos with the organizer and in bulk due to the new arrangement, and that makes it easy.
My Smugmug
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
This looks promising (though I'd rather the desired functionality reside within SM directly of course).
I have a few questions:
Q1. I assume that this will only work with the Chrome browser. True?
Yep! While it could be ported to other browsers, I can't be bothered
Q2. Have you seen difficulties / glitches when the browser software is updated?
No, I never have. There have been one or two times when the tool hasn't worked because of SmugMug updates, but it normally doesn't take me long to fix.
Q3. I assume this works with the "new" SM vs Legacy. True?
Yeah, only new SM.
Here's how the in-development tool is going so far, still plenty for me to do!
We've been asking for the ability to edit titles at the same time as keywords and captions - bulk, as in the old way of doing bulk. Assigning all three entries on the same window is something I would love to have.
The new tool has lost the ability to assign different captions and keywords to all of the photos in a gallery at a single time.
Well, not at the same instant in time - but it was quick to add different captions to each photo in the gallery in the bulk edit tool.
There is no longer appears to be a reasonable way to quickly caption all photos in a gallery with a different caption on each photo.
It looks like the keyword functionality is usable (once I adapted to the new way of doing things).
Yes, the new tool is pretty. But the bulk caption functionality does not feel as functional as the old.
>>> since I wrote this post I did some more playing. I found an error in the way I tried to use the tool initially - I had selected all of the photos. I have since discovered that I needed to select only one photo, select titles and captions. I entered title/caption, save, next, etc. The UI flowed well - but it took longer to go through a full gallery since I needed to save on each photo. Still better than my initial impression, much more usable.
--- Denise
Thanks, Denise. I'd like to get your take on some of the ways we have in mind to reduce clicks. Can I call on Tuesday?
Beautiful photos. Surprised at the snow. That must be a rare occasion.
Unfortunately, when we were in New Zealand we didn't get to Dunedin. After a week on the north island, our second week on the south island took us from Nelson to Christchurch to Queenstown and Milford Sound. We cut inland before getting as far south as Dunedin. We wanted to go there because we heard great things, but just didn't have enough time to fit it in.
SmugMug site => The Bakker Chautauqua
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
Can you recreate that issue consistently? If so, I would love to know the steps taken. Thanks!
I am able to recreate it consistently by going to a gallery, clicking "Organize", selecting all photos in the gallery, clicking the wrench, clicking "Keywords", deselecting all of them, selecting any number of them, and clicking "Keywords" in the right sidebar. From there it expands leftwards out of frame, but I have found that if I change my selection by adding or removing a photo it returns to the size it should be. I also notice that elements of the right frame that are close to the left side appear to be partially covered by the thickness of the scrollbar for the left frame.
To my surprise when I stumbled just now onto this thread, and the changes to keywording, I broke down and cried. Crying? Really, I did. I'm not a professional photographer - but I have TONS of keyword corrections to do. I would say a significant part of my site has to be re-done altogether. Yet, I have stayed away from keywords in new Smug for now because over the last many months there have been tons of changes in the keyword programming. Some of the changes caused problems, some sets of keywords broke. I'm actually not sure if all of that got fixed or not. Waiting, for now, seemed to be the best option.
The ONLY keyword functioning that I need, primarily, is the set of edits to bulk keywords, including copy/paste, but mostly the dropdown variations that Allen posted the image of. Those are the only option, the only method, that can scan hundreds of keywords and do global search and replace. Such sophistication - critical for managing keyword and site organization.
And now it's gone. So I'm dead in the water, as far as I'm concerned.
I don't understand why SM would dumb-down quality programming. And - how many people have simply stayed away from keywords for now, while waiting for the new world to stabilize.
Ack my tears. Why - dumb - down - quality - program - functionality?
Maybe the new version is prettier, but - it - is - dumbed - down. cry
The ONLY keyword functioning that I need, primarily, is the set of edits to bulk keywords, including copy/paste, but mostly the dropdown variations that Allen posted the image of. Those are the only option, the only method, that can scan hundreds of keywords and do global search and replace. Such sophistication - critical for managing keyword and site organization.
And now it's gone. So I'm dead in the water, as far as I'm concerned.
thenickdude (a.k.a. Lamah) has added to his smug plugin for Chrome. See this post.
thenickdude (a.k.a. Lamah) has added to his smug plugin for Chrome. See this post.
--- Denise
I installed this plugin on Chrome..Said it was installed successfully, but am still a little confused.
I've never installed plugins for smugmug before so that is why.
It says to click the SM in the address bar. What address bar am I looking for? I do not see a SM anywhere. Not when I click an individual gallery or anywhere.
Is it supposed to be at the top where it says "upload-organize-customize"?
Please direct me..thanks!
I installed this plugin on Chrome..Said it was installed successfully, but am still a little confused.
I've never installed plugins for smugmug before so that is why.
It says to click the SM in the address bar. What address bar am I looking for? I do not see a SM anywhere. Not when I click an individual gallery or anywhere.
Is it supposed to be at the top where it says "upload-organize-customize"?
Please direct me..thanks!
It's in the browser address bar.
You must be using your smug URL, not your custom URL.
In order to see the bulk edit you must be in a gallery.
thenickdude (a.k.a. Lamah) has added to his smug plugin for Chrome. See this post.
--- Denise
Thank you Denise, I did see that post. Great tool - with no advanced search and replace, correct?
Diamonds lost:
Add/Remove/Replace/Empty
Field for any text we wish
All/empty/filled/selected/unselected/contains/not contains
keywords/captions/both
This is about as sophisticated as it could get. Gone.
I'll add as well the ability to run this on keywords only - by itself that was uranium alongside the diamond field.
I've worked with advanced software systems of a particular type for 22 years. Along the way the institution has gone through several system upgrades. Each time, I have seen decisions made that were cost effective for the institution, but which cut advanced functionality. The same reasoning was used: most users don't need to do x y z. Every time, in the end, the portion of users who need advanced functionality, suffer. They (me included) have had to do workarounds. These are time consuming and limited. The institution ignored the need. Oh well, so now do A B C D E F extra - no problem. Yes, problem. Time for task was 1 minute. Now it's 20 min. Multiply times 100. Cost cutting takes priority over customer satisfaction.
To my mind, Smugmug is on the end of the spectrum for customer satisfaction, not the reverse. Advanced systems should be made available for IF/THEN scenarios. Millions may not see a need, but one day when someone says, shoot, I should have done it That way - Relief - the tool is there.
What's flabbergasting here is that the tool was already there.
I can't see how the old tool was not user friendly for the average customer.
The average customer didn't need it? No problem created.
The special customer needs it? Problem solved.
I woke up this morning and this was heavy on my mind. To my surprise again, tears.
thank so much for your help and the info..
Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to get to the smugmug URL instead of my custom URL
I typed in www.smugmug.com/debcampbellphoto and I keep getting this message screen. "These aren't the photos you're looking for."
Sorry, I've never had a reason to go back to smugmug URL before.
I cannot figure out how to get to the smugmug URL instead of my custom URL
I typed in www.smugmug.com/debcampbellphoto and I keep getting this message screen. "These aren't the photos you're looking for."
Sorry, I've never had a reason to go back to smugmug URL before.
Go into your account settings, Me tab. Your smugmug url is shown under your Nickname.
It's in the form http://<your nickname>.smugmug.com.
Thank you Denise, I did see that post. Great tool - with no advanced search and replace, correct?
Diamonds lost:
Add/Remove/Replace/Empty
Field for any text we wish
All/empty/filled/selected/unselected/contains/not contains
keywords/captions/both
This is about as sophisticated as it could get. Gone.
I'll add as well the ability to run this on keywords only - by itself that was uranium alongside the diamond field.
I've worked with advanced software systems of a particular type for 22 years. Along the way the institution has gone through several system upgrades. Each time, I have seen decisions made that were cost effective for the institution, but which cut advanced functionality. The same reasoning was used: most users don't need to do x y z. Every time, in the end, the portion of users who need advanced functionality, suffer. They (me included) have had to do workarounds. These are time consuming and limited. The institution ignored the need. Oh well, so now do A B C D E F extra - no problem. Yes, problem. Time for task was 1 minute. Now it's 20 min. Multiply times 100. Cost cutting takes priority over customer satisfaction.
To my mind, Smugmug is on the end of the spectrum for customer satisfaction, not the reverse. Advanced systems should be made available for IF/THEN scenarios. Millions may not see a need, but one day when someone says, shoot, I should have done it That way - Relief - the tool is there.
What's flabbergasting here is that the tool was already there.
I can't see how the old tool was not user friendly for the average customer.
The average customer didn't need it? No problem created.
The special customer needs it? Problem solved.
I woke up this morning and this was heavy on my mind. To my surprise again, tears.
I just got Nicholas' extension updated on my site and the bulk edit keywords function just appeared. MORE tears of incredible relief. His post #79, screenshot, was not of the legacy system, so I thought the new tool would be what that screenshot shows.
I just started myself and three customers on smugmug. I'm in the process of fixing/adding keywords. The time to do this just tripled.
I have absolutely NO idea why you would take away the bulk edit. Now I have to click all over the place, making sure I unclick a previous photo, etc. I develop software so I understand the need to improve... BUT THIS IS NOT AN IMPROVEMENT for bulk editing!!
I just started myself and three customers on smugmug. I'm in the process of fixing/adding keywords. The time to do this just tripled.
I have absolutely NO idea why you would take away the bulk edit. Now I have to click all over the place, making sure I unclick a previous photo, etc. I develop software so I understand the need to improve... BUT THIS IS NOT AN IMPROVEMENT for bulk editing!!
OMG I simply cannot believe you did this.
I'm now using thenickdude's extension to finish the work. Thank you so much for providing what SMUGMUG should have kept in the first place.
I'm now using thenickdude's extension to finish the work. Thank you so much for providing what SMUGMUG should have kept in the first place.
BTW - I love the new smugmug. It is why I paid and moved my galleries from self hosted websites. But one of the reasons I moved was so I wouldn't have to do so much work. It was great for a couple of weeks.
For now the extension is working well (url to link I hope smugmug will keep active).
0
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
What's flabbergasting here is that the tool was already there.
I can't see how the old tool was not user friendly for the average customer.
We're really sorry to have taken away something you loved and I thought about it all weekend. But hopefully the Chrome plugin will be a big help.
We have a little bit of shock over here because we have some PTSD regarding the old tool. I am sure somewhere on dgrin, people have said nice things about it, but I can't remember hearing about them. "Unusable for any gallery beyond a few hundred photos" was pretty much what we always heard.
I spent the weekend running what-if scenarios, because I felt about Apple's Final Cut upgrade what you feel about this: where did my timeline go? And I haven't been able to get used to the new Final Cut without the timeline.
But on the other hand, every time we tried to remove a tool in the past we faced this, only to bring it back and watch use of it decline to near zero. Anyway, the thing we're focused on now is getting the new tool working with keyboard shortcuts so you don't have to use the mouse, and rolling up title, caption and keyword together.
...Anyway, the thing we're focused on now is getting the new tool working with keyboard shortcuts so you don't have to use the mouse, and rolling up title, caption and keyword together.
This would help. A lot. Thanks!
My Smugmug
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
We're really sorry to have taken away something you loved and I thought about it all weekend. But hopefully the Chrome plugin will be a big help.
We have a little bit of shock over here because we have some PTSD regarding the old tool. I am sure somewhere on dgrin, people have said nice things about it, but I can't remember hearing about them. "Unusable for any gallery beyond a few hundred photos" was pretty much what we always heard.
I spent the weekend running what-if scenarios, because I felt about Apple's Final Cut upgrade what you feel about this: where did my timeline go? And I haven't been able to get used to the new Final Cut without the timeline.
But on the other hand, every time we tried to remove a tool in the past we faced this, only to bring it back and watch use of it decline to near zero. Anyway, the thing we're focused on now is getting the new tool working with keyboard shortcuts so you don't have to use the mouse, and rolling up title, caption and keyword together.
Thank you Baldy for thinking about this, I really appreciate it. I too look forward to the new program from Nicholas, if it provides the same advanced search/replace functionality.
[EDIT: Your response just now is timely because I've been really confused about why the Legacy system is now missing from Nicholas' Chrome tool. It was there this morning and now it's gone. I don't know whether that removal came from Smugmug, or from Nicholas. == Problem was my not being in a gallery directly for the tool to operate. =]
I wonder why someone would say, ""Unusable for any gallery beyond a few hundred photos". Did the program slow down too much with that volume? (I don't have that volume, so wouldn't have keyed in to it.) Or, a large volume of images does mean that one has to scroll and scroll, in order to find the keywords that need fixing. Or was it that "if it ain't broke, no need to comment" - a sad commentary because we should fill the webernet with praise where praise is due.
The legacy bulk keyword tool was so advanced it's practically ridiculous how great it was. If you think about it, Word can't come close. That tool has IF/THEN variations, for goodness sake! And I used them constantly. It is the most efficient system for search/replace I have seen anywhere.
One more example: When I had an assistant who was helping me, we were on the phone together and I was walking her through the tool, and I heard her try to rush to add or remove a keyword à la Word logic, and then she said, "Oh, wait, what's this... Oh. OH. OHHH.... So if I -- put in this phrase ... change this field ... OH MYYYYYY." You can't beat that kind of reaction, and I knew just what she meant.
There is no bulk way to fix a typing error in a caption or keyword without search and replace. I tried the
new tool by deleting one keyword and was going to add back the correct version but the whole keyword
list on every photo was deleted. http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=247282 post #4
There were 36 photos in the smart gallery and it deleted every keyword including the target KW.
These were across six galleries so finding and fixing all was quite tedious. Not to mention figuring out
what was missing besides the target KW.
This is probably the right place to mention that the other brilliant tool that is now gone, is the bulk keyword editing function for a keyword rather than a gallery. That tool is also irreplaceable.
We're really sorry to have taken away something you loved and I thought about it all weekend. But hopefully the Chrome plugin will be a big help.
We have a little bit of shock over here because we have some PTSD regarding the old tool. I am sure somewhere on dgrin, people have said nice things about it, but I can't remember hearing about them. "Unusable for any gallery beyond a few hundred photos" was pretty much what we always heard.
I spent the weekend running what-if scenarios, because I felt about Apple's Final Cut upgrade what you feel about this: where did my timeline go? And I haven't been able to get used to the new Final Cut without the timeline.
But on the other hand, every time we tried to remove a tool in the past we faced this, only to bring it back and watch use of it decline to near zero. Anyway, the thing we're focused on now is getting the new tool working with keyboard shortcuts so you don't have to use the mouse, and rolling up title, caption and keyword together.
I never liked the old tool and I've been waiting patiently for an update to it. But I was hoping for added ease of use and more functionality. Before price lists, I even asked for pricing to be added to the same tool... I pictured it becoming something like the organizer in new smug.
I used to manually add the date taken to every caption. I was hoping a new tool would let me do that automatically. I got pretty quick at doing it in the old tool... if a gallery had pictures from 2 days, I'd select all the photos from one day, add the date to all selected captions, then add the other date to the unselected captions. For 3 or more days it got a bit harder but I found ways to speed up the process... for example maybe adding the date to wrong days and then removing it using some other criteria that could be done in a few clicks. Putting in {date taken} at the end of a caption and letting smugmug do the replacement from the file's metadata seemed like a reasonable expectation in a future tool.
I don't want you to go back to the old tool. I want you to make a slick new tool that saves me time. I know I'm not using the tool like the majority of your customers. But I am using it exactly the way it was designed to be used. Why take that away from me? I think smugmug is getting far too focused on being "good enough" for the 99%. You're so close to being great for all of us. Why not challenge yourselves to take those tools that are confusing people and make them less confusing? Personally I'm finding the new photo editor tools to be a lot less intuitive than the tools they replaced... especially the keyword tool.
This is probably the right place to mention that the other brilliant tool that is now gone, is the bulk keyword editing function for a keyword rather than a gallery. That tool is also irreplaceable.
I have created a smart gallery so I can edit a keyword.
Comments
I have to admit, I'm a little surprised folks don't seem to be doing this. I thought it was a given to embed keywords, captions, as well as a variety of other information directly into an image's exif data. I find myself using the "file info" command (old school Adobe Bridge user here) as part of my image processing workflow. I include other relevant information as well, such a location, person pictured, etc.
The upside of doing it this way is my images are all ready to use. If SM closed its doors tomorrow, I could be up and running on a different service without looking at hours, and hours of work redoing all those keywords. Really, the File Info tool has a ton of potential for information sharing, especially if you think about the possibility of someone else inheriting your archive. When my grandparents passed, I ended up with boxes of old photos, and if I'm lucky, some have names written on them in ballpoint pen, or pencil. Perhaps someday my own grand-kids will be going through my digital collections, but they'll be able to read the who, what, where and when of the images (and hopefully not be too shocked by some of the more "personal" stuff!).
Anyway, there's no "right" way of doing it. But that said, I'm not effected by a software change out of my control.
As I mentioned in one of my posts in one of these threads, this change may cause me to re-think my approach. Your logic is sound. In my case it is captions, but the logic still applies. Perhaps even more so.
Thanks for sharing.
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
That is interesting. You did all the right things. I really appreciate you explaining your methodology.
I did not realize I was such an outlier with how people use the site. I wish I'd have been one of the random survey participants.
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
But on the plus side, I have been adding location data to my photos with the organizer and in bulk due to the new arrangement, and that makes it easy.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
I'm in Dunedin, here are some photos I've taken there:
http://www.sherlockphotography.org/Landscapes/Dunedin/
Please check out my gallery of customisations for the New SmugMug, more to come!
Yep! While it could be ported to other browsers, I can't be bothered
No, I never have. There have been one or two times when the tool hasn't worked because of SmugMug updates, but it normally doesn't take me long to fix.
Yeah, only new SM.
Here's how the in-development tool is going so far, still plenty for me to do!
Please check out my gallery of customisations for the New SmugMug, more to come!
Yes, I'd be happy to speak with you on Tuesday (or any other day that works for you!).
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Beautiful photos. Surprised at the snow. That must be a rare occasion.
Unfortunately, when we were in New Zealand we didn't get to Dunedin. After a week on the north island, our second week on the south island took us from Nelson to Christchurch to Queenstown and Milford Sound. We cut inland before getting as far south as Dunedin. We wanted to go there because we heard great things, but just didn't have enough time to fit it in.
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." (Einstein)
I am able to recreate it consistently by going to a gallery, clicking "Organize", selecting all photos in the gallery, clicking the wrench, clicking "Keywords", deselecting all of them, selecting any number of them, and clicking "Keywords" in the right sidebar. From there it expands leftwards out of frame, but I have found that if I change my selection by adding or removing a photo it returns to the size it should be. I also notice that elements of the right frame that are close to the left side appear to be partially covered by the thickness of the scrollbar for the left frame.
www.morffed.com
The ONLY keyword functioning that I need, primarily, is the set of edits to bulk keywords, including copy/paste, but mostly the dropdown variations that Allen posted the image of. Those are the only option, the only method, that can scan hundreds of keywords and do global search and replace. Such sophistication - critical for managing keyword and site organization.
And now it's gone. So I'm dead in the water, as far as I'm concerned.
I don't understand why SM would dumb-down quality programming. And - how many people have simply stayed away from keywords for now, while waiting for the new world to stabilize.
Ack my tears. Why - dumb - down - quality - program - functionality?
Maybe the new version is prettier, but - it - is - dumbed - down.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
I installed this plugin on Chrome..Said it was installed successfully, but am still a little confused.
I've never installed plugins for smugmug before so that is why.
It says to click the SM in the address bar. What address bar am I looking for? I do not see a SM anywhere. Not when I click an individual gallery or anywhere.
Is it supposed to be at the top where it says "upload-organize-customize"?
Please direct me..thanks!
http://www.debcampbellphoto.com
You must be using your smug URL, not your custom URL.
In order to see the bulk edit you must be in a gallery.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Thank you Denise, I did see that post. Great tool - with no advanced search and replace, correct?
Diamonds lost:
Add/Remove/Replace/Empty
Field for any text we wish
All/empty/filled/selected/unselected/contains/not contains
keywords/captions/both
This is about as sophisticated as it could get. Gone.
I'll add as well the ability to run this on keywords only - by itself that was uranium alongside the diamond field.
I've worked with advanced software systems of a particular type for 22 years. Along the way the institution has gone through several system upgrades. Each time, I have seen decisions made that were cost effective for the institution, but which cut advanced functionality. The same reasoning was used: most users don't need to do x y z. Every time, in the end, the portion of users who need advanced functionality, suffer. They (me included) have had to do workarounds. These are time consuming and limited. The institution ignored the need. Oh well, so now do A B C D E F extra - no problem. Yes, problem. Time for task was 1 minute. Now it's 20 min. Multiply times 100. Cost cutting takes priority over customer satisfaction.
To my mind, Smugmug is on the end of the spectrum for customer satisfaction, not the reverse. Advanced systems should be made available for IF/THEN scenarios. Millions may not see a need, but one day when someone says, shoot, I should have done it That way - Relief - the tool is there.
What's flabbergasting here is that the tool was already there.
I can't see how the old tool was not user friendly for the average customer.
The average customer didn't need it? No problem created.
The special customer needs it? Problem solved.
I woke up this morning and this was heavy on my mind. To my surprise again, tears.
Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to get to the smugmug URL instead of my custom URL
I typed in www.smugmug.com/debcampbellphoto and I keep getting this message screen. "These aren't the photos you're looking for."
Sorry, I've never had a reason to go back to smugmug URL before.
http://www.debcampbellphoto.com
It's in the form http://<your nickname>.smugmug.com.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Ok..I got it now...thank you so much for all your help.
Have a great day!
http://www.debcampbellphoto.com
I just got Nicholas' extension updated on my site and the bulk edit keywords function just appeared. MORE tears of incredible relief. His post #79, screenshot, was not of the legacy system, so I thought the new tool would be what that screenshot shows.
Now how long will legacy stay accessible....
Thank you SO MUCH NICHOLAS.
I have absolutely NO idea why you would take away the bulk edit. Now I have to click all over the place, making sure I unclick a previous photo, etc. I develop software so I understand the need to improve... BUT THIS IS NOT AN IMPROVEMENT for bulk editing!!
OMG I simply cannot believe you did this.
I'm now using thenickdude's extension to finish the work. Thank you so much for providing what SMUGMUG should have kept in the first place.
BTW - I love the new smugmug. It is why I paid and moved my galleries from self hosted websites. But one of the reasons I moved was so I wouldn't have to do so much work. It was great for a couple of weeks.
For now the extension is working well (url to link I hope smugmug will keep active).
We have a little bit of shock over here because we have some PTSD regarding the old tool. I am sure somewhere on dgrin, people have said nice things about it, but I can't remember hearing about them. "Unusable for any gallery beyond a few hundred photos" was pretty much what we always heard.
I spent the weekend running what-if scenarios, because I felt about Apple's Final Cut upgrade what you feel about this: where did my timeline go? And I haven't been able to get used to the new Final Cut without the timeline.
But on the other hand, every time we tried to remove a tool in the past we faced this, only to bring it back and watch use of it decline to near zero. Anyway, the thing we're focused on now is getting the new tool working with keyboard shortcuts so you don't have to use the mouse, and rolling up title, caption and keyword together.
This would help. A lot. Thanks!
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
Thank you Baldy for thinking about this, I really appreciate it. I too look forward to the new program from Nicholas, if it provides the same advanced search/replace functionality.
[EDIT: Your response just now is timely because I've been really confused about why the Legacy system is now missing from Nicholas' Chrome tool. It was there this morning and now it's gone. I don't know whether that removal came from Smugmug, or from Nicholas. == Problem was my not being in a gallery directly for the tool to operate. =]
I wonder why someone would say, ""Unusable for any gallery beyond a few hundred photos". Did the program slow down too much with that volume? (I don't have that volume, so wouldn't have keyed in to it.) Or, a large volume of images does mean that one has to scroll and scroll, in order to find the keywords that need fixing. Or was it that "if it ain't broke, no need to comment" - a sad commentary because we should fill the webernet with praise where praise is due.
The legacy bulk keyword tool was so advanced it's practically ridiculous how great it was. If you think about it, Word can't come close. That tool has IF/THEN variations, for goodness sake! And I used them constantly. It is the most efficient system for search/replace I have seen anywhere.
One more example: When I had an assistant who was helping me, we were on the phone together and I was walking her through the tool, and I heard her try to rush to add or remove a keyword à la Word logic, and then she said, "Oh, wait, what's this... Oh. OH. OHHH.... So if I -- put in this phrase ... change this field ... OH MYYYYYY." You can't beat that kind of reaction, and I knew just what she meant.
new tool by deleting one keyword and was going to add back the correct version but the whole keyword
list on every photo was deleted.
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=247282 post #4
There were 36 photos in the smart gallery and it deleted every keyword including the target KW.
These were across six galleries so finding and fixing all was quite tedious. Not to mention figuring out
what was missing besides the target KW.
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I never liked the old tool and I've been waiting patiently for an update to it. But I was hoping for added ease of use and more functionality. Before price lists, I even asked for pricing to be added to the same tool... I pictured it becoming something like the organizer in new smug.
I used to manually add the date taken to every caption. I was hoping a new tool would let me do that automatically. I got pretty quick at doing it in the old tool... if a gallery had pictures from 2 days, I'd select all the photos from one day, add the date to all selected captions, then add the other date to the unselected captions. For 3 or more days it got a bit harder but I found ways to speed up the process... for example maybe adding the date to wrong days and then removing it using some other criteria that could be done in a few clicks. Putting in {date taken} at the end of a caption and letting smugmug do the replacement from the file's metadata seemed like a reasonable expectation in a future tool.
I don't want you to go back to the old tool. I want you to make a slick new tool that saves me time. I know I'm not using the tool like the majority of your customers. But I am using it exactly the way it was designed to be used. Why take that away from me? I think smugmug is getting far too focused on being "good enough" for the 99%. You're so close to being great for all of us. Why not challenge yourselves to take those tools that are confusing people and make them less confusing? Personally I'm finding the new photo editor tools to be a lot less intuitive than the tools they replaced... especially the keyword tool.
Dave
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