New bulk title/caption/keyword editor extension now available

thenickdude

Hey everyone,

I've now completed a replacement for the old SmugMug Legacy "bulk edit" tool, which allows you to see all of the photos in your gallery on one screen, and make quick bulk edits to photos automatically. You can get this tool as part of my Unofficial SmugMug Extension for Chrome, version 0.4.0.7, which you can install from the Chrome Web Store:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unofficial-smugmug-extens/acobflahofemoblocddilbgnokclnphd

After installing it, go into the gallery you want to edit, then click the SM icon at the right side of your address bar to pop up the menu (if you're using a custom domain, it'll ask you to give permission first):



Choose the option to "Bulk-edit photo details", and the editor will load:



You can freely edit the text in the boxes, or if you like you can use the "make bulk edits" menu at the right to apply edits to many photos at once. When you're happy with what you see, click the "save changes" button at the top right to save your edits to SmugMug.

Also new in this version of the extension is the ability to use it on your custom SmugMug domain name (instead of having to switch to your .smugmug.com one).

Note that the location of the "SM" icon has shifted outside of the address bar in this version, it is now found to the right of the address bar.

If you prefer to use the old Legacy SmugMug version of the bulk edit tool, you can launch it by holding down the shift key on your keyboard when you click the SM-menu option to launch the bulk editor.

Allen

thumb

He didn't mention that you can hover a thumb and a small size original ratio photo pops up so you can
see all the photo content. I crop square thumbs tight to the main subject so now I can see all the
other objects in the photo and add appropriate captions and keywords.

Th extension opens in a tab so after a save click other tab, refresh, and see results without closing the
tool so you can continue to edit.

ChancyRat

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but I'm unable to access the bulk edit options. I kept updating the extensions (both versions of the tool, one without beta in the title and one with unofficial as the start, were 4.0.7. Neither worked. Then I uninstalled both and reinstalled fresh from the Chrome store, but the options are not available.
Edit: and the SM icon is outside the URL bar.

ChancyRat

ChancyRat wrote: »

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but I'm unable to access the bulk edit options. I kept updating the extensions (both versions of the tool, one without beta in the title and one with unofficial as the start, were 4.0.7. Neither worked. Then I uninstalled both and reinstalled fresh from the Chrome store, but the options are not available.
Edit: and the SM icon is outside the URL bar.

Typically, I again forget one must be IN a gallery before the options become visible.


:poke

:dgrin

W.W. Webster

Magnificent! A Godsend!

sixguntom

thenickdude wrote: »

Hey everyone,

I've now completed a replacement for the old SmugMug Legacy "bulk edit" tool, …

THANK YOU! My god you just saved me so much grief. I'm still fuming they took batch functionality away and that's another issue but your tool put it back for me.

W.W. Webster

There's very little about this tool not to like. I use it every day as an integral part of my workflow and my gratitude for Nicholas's work grows and grows.

However, it has occurred to me that the Crop Thumbnail function might be further improved if, as the tool moves from image to image, the crop ratio defaulted to that used on the previous image rather than requiring the user to set it again each time.

Waddayareckon Nicholas?

James Lyall

thenickdude wrote: »

Hey everyone,

Nicholas, you are a genius! I join the ranks of those who rejoice at your amazing contribution. How wonderful it is to have use again of the old bulk edit tool (a vital part of my way of addressing images). What is more, your own version of bulk editing adds icing to the cake.
My gratitude knows no bounds - thank you so much!

thenickdude

W.W. Webster wrote: »

However, it has occurred to me that the Crop Thumbnail function might be further improved if, as the tool moves from image to image, the crop ratio defaulted to that used on the previous image rather than requiring the user to set it again each time.

While it's not impossible to augment SM's tool like that (and that's a feature I've often wanted in the past), I suspect that any work on that tool will be obsoleted in the mid-term by the new thumbnail cropping concept that Baldy mentioned (that'll work on more gallery styles than just SmugMug-style). So I'm not super pumped to work on it .

Allen

I've just came up with another use case.

In the bulk edit caption I want to add, actually append another line to a caption. In my case I'm adding
the gallery name at the bottom of all gallery captions. I probably could add a
in front of the new
line but would rather not use html.

Can you add another option in the drop to add/append a "new line" of text to captions so it breaks to new line?

first caption line
second caption line
...
new added line at bottom <<<<

Thanks

thenickdude

Would the newly-added line form a new paragraph (i.e. with a blank line above it)?

Allen

thenickdude wrote: »

Would the newly-added line form a new paragraph (i.e. with a blank line above it)?

I hadn't thought of the extra line. I haven't added one here. But it might not be a bad idea. It would
make it stand out, like a gallery name or race name or event name. Could be useful when viewing in
places outside its home gallery.

Edit: on second though you could add space, append, add text, append. Then get the paragraph effect.
So you could have both.

ChancyRat

Nicholas, the tool is currently not functioning for the bulk edit part.
A couple of notes start here: http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1968836&postcount=171

I just used the default SM tool to make a couple of edits (my first time doing anything serious with it), and I'll be honest it was painful. Highly motivated to reach you on the current problem.

ChancyRat

I meant to mention that I cleared cookies on all browsers, updated your tool (4.0.1), and my computer is very up to date. Chrome is Version 37.0.2062.120 m.

Earlier today I did a backup of my site and that had no problem. It wasn't until someone else posted the problem with bulk edit that i went and checked and cannot use it (same behavior posted on the other thread).

thenickdude

Looks like SmugMug has tightened security up a bit and I need to add a workaround; I've now fixed this problem with the release of version 0.4.0.11.

Chrome will auto-update to that version after a few hours, but you can speed it up by updating manually. Click the Chrome main menu button, then Tools -> Extensions. Tick the "developer mode" tickbox at the top right, then click the "Update extensions now" button. You should see the version number next to the "Unofficial SmugMug extension for Chrome" tick over to 0.4.0.11 after a few minutes.

W.W. Webster

PTL! Thanks a million Nicholas.

Allen

Thanks Nicholas, been a life savior. Updated version and works again.

ChancyRat

Oh thank you AGAIN Nicholas.
Is there a danger of SM knocking you off 100% permanently?
Some of us might need to prepare well in advance of such a tragic possibility.

thenickdude

SM could certainly make changes in the future that'd knock the extension out. However, the bulk editing / PayPal button / list galleries tools all use SmugMug's v2 API, which is designed to be accessible to programmers (or will be when it becomes finalised, at least). This means that my extension shouldn't appear much different from other applications which are written to use the API (like the Lightroom plugin for SmugMug) and there's no real reason to expect it to be blocked. At worst, you may have to accept some new permissions for the extension, or explicitly give permission to the extension in your SmugMug "allowed applications" list.

The website backup tool uses internal SmugMug APIs that were never intended for public use. If SM decides to lock these down a bit for security, getting it working again would be trickier.

Allen

Looks like saving title/caption/keyword will not save.

ChancyRat

I confirm what Allen sees.
Under "Save" is a pink:

"4/4 failed to save
Please try again"

I assume the edits were on 4 of the images.

W.W. Webster

You're right - SmugMug has broken it again. I discovered it earlier today.

This is soul-destroying. No product announcement (that I can see) that they promise to make, just change the system and break stuff.

What worries me is concern as to what on my site gets broken that I never know about when they make these changes, and that I will only ever discover by accident or if a visitor happens to tell me. Who 'voted' for the changes that cause this? This goes on and on. How long do we put up with this cr*p?

Allen

The crop thumbnails is still working.

David_S85

I will wait to install the extension. When I read that Nick has been able to get it working again, I'll try it. This is about the only thing that keeps me from finalizing my design and converting over to new SM. The stock caption/keyword implementation of SM's just isn't for me.

thenickdude

Okay, looks like security has tightened up a further notch. Hope to get things fixed in the next day or so.

W.W. Webster

thenickdude wrote: »

Hope to get things fixed in the next day or so.

thenickdude

I've now fixed the problem with the release of version 0.4.0.12.

Chrome will auto-update to that version after a few hours, but you can speed it up by updating manually. Click the Chrome main menu button, then Tools -> Extensions. Tick the "developer mode" tickbox at the top right, then click the "Update extensions now" button. You should see the version number next to the "Unofficial SmugMug extension for Chrome" tick over to 0.4.0.12 after a few minutes.

David_S85

Just installed it and it works awesomely! Works like the older SM bulk tool, but is even more advanced. Adding titles is a breeze too. Thanks, Nick!

W.W. Webster

thenickdude wrote: »

I've now fixed the problem with the release of version 0.4.0.12.

Thanks Nicholas!

lhitchner

Thanks for a great extension
Hey thanks thenickdude. I love your extension that I just learned about and installed today.

I have been very frustrated by SmugMug's lack of provisions for formatting photo captions. After discovering that embedded HTML is supported in captions I was dismayed that I would have to edit each and every caption manually -- VERY TEDIOUS!!!

But with your bulk edit I can do that now quite quickly. However, it sure would be nice if SmugMug were to provide a gallery-wide customization where we can specify HTML format for ALL captions in a gallery or in all galleries.

So for now I am doing the following:

1. Type into the Caption box of the 1st photo something like before my caption text.
2. Copy that HTML tag
3. Paste the tag into the start of the Caption box of all the rest of my photos (still a bit tedious)

then

1. select Edit Caption
2. select Add Text
3. set the Text to
4. select Apply to All Photos

Does this seem like the best way to do that with the current version of your extension?

It sure would be a lot easier and faster if I could replace my first step of multiple copy and pastes with:

1. select Edit Caption
2. select Insert Text
3. set the Text to
4. select Apply to All Photos

So, if you could add a menu option called "Insert Text" that would allow a bulk insertion of text at the _START_ of each caption (keyword, title) instead of only at the _END_, I would be really happy. I think that should be an easy modification for you to include. Hope you can find the time to do so.

thenickdude

Ihitchner, it sounds like you want to apply the same styling to all of your captions? In that case, you can achieve that by adding one global CSS content block in the customiser, instead of manually editing the HTML for each caption. The CSS would be something like this:

.sm-lightbox-info, .sm-tile-info {
    color:yellow !important;
    font-size:16px;
    font-weight:bold;
}