Will Links to Public Folders / Galleries Still Work After Being Moved?

WinsomeWorks

NOte: This should be in the "SmugMug Product News" forum... Idk how it got here. Should be in the thread called: "PREVIEW: Upcoming Changes to "Get a Link" / Share "

This is really a disaster, if you're honestly saying there's now no way to link to a gallery that insures the link will stay the same!! THis is something that SmugMug has touted for years as a great benefit, and it was. Nowwe will always have to be fretting over & guessing at future needs for hierarchy or gallery moves? And this also means that all those hundreds of gallery links we've put on FB pages or timelines are broken or will break?

Furthermore, if the above is true, then that directly contradicts the info given near the end of a "New SmugMug" webinar I just watched which was made in late August! Someone asked a question at the end about links in New SmugMug, & they were assured that these would all be perfectly fine. I'm extremely frustrated about this, as it affects so many other sites & emails I've sent out, blog photos, etc. etc. Didn't we already have enough people riled up over the whole mess with capitalizing certain words in links? Ugh... here comes the next wave of users mad about broken links & basically broken promises.

leftquark wrote: »

Unless you're linking to a specific image in a gallery, if it's a public (not unlisted or private) it will not contain the Album Key's required to be able to move a folder or gallery and maintain its links.

In other words, if you move a folder, gallery or page that is public, the links will break.

leftquark

Quick note: I'm pulling this topic out into its own thread since it wasn't part of the "Share Menu" topic....

The one thing I want to stress right away: all your links will still work. Nothing will break by going to the New SmugMug.

Some details:
- First, as the webinar mentioned at the end, links that were generated in the Old SmugMug will continue to operate and redirect to wherever you move them. So the webinar that you watched was correct. They are perfectly fine. All the emails, share links, blog photos, etc, will all still work.
- In the New SmugMug, links to individual images will continue to work, even if you move them, so blog posts and other embedded content will also always work.
- What won't work in the New SmugMug, if you move Folders and Galleries, is links directly to Public Folders or Galleries. So for example, if you linked someone to "http://www.mysite.com/Nature/Landscapes" and you move the gallery to the a new folder, it will not redirect to "http://www.mysite.com/NewFolder/Landscapes".
- In Old SmugMug, changing a category's URL would break all links, so nothing is new here.
- Links to Unlisted Folders and Galleries will still work, even if you move them.

Why did we change this?
Because you all asked for it! Having "nice gallery names" was something we heard a lot -- that you wanted to share links that were "http://www.mysite.com/Nature/Landscapes" instead of "http://www.mysite.com/Nature/Landscapes/12934789_TXHF8x".

This all comes down to how it worked in the Old SmugMug: links that have the Gallery or Image Key in them will always work if you move them. Links that don't have the Gallery or Image Key in them won't work if you move them.
- Images always have their Image Key in them and moving the images to a new gallery does not change the Image Key, thus links will continue to work.
- Galleries that are unlisted always have their Gallery Key in them, so moving them will also continue to work. Public Galleries revert to the "Nice name" and do not have their Gallery Key, and thus will not work if you move them.
- Folders (or categories) never had their folder key in them, so they'll also all break if you move them.

You can rename Folders and Galleries without changing the nice name and thus the URLs/links will continue.

What Can Be Done in the Future?
One thing we could add to the new Share Panel would be a "Permalink" option which would link to the Image, Folder, or Gallery Key and thus remain active even if the item is moved. We're not able to add that in right now but it's certainly something we'd love to do in the future.

pbandj

leftquark wrote: »

- Galleries that are unlisted always have their Gallery Key in them, so moving them will also continue to work. Public Galleries revert to the "Nice name" and do not have their Gallery Key, and thus will not work if you move them.


What Can Be Done in the Future?
One thing we could add to the new Share Panel would be a "Permalink" option which would link to the Image, Folder, or Gallery Key and thus remain active even if the item is moved. We're not able to add that in right now but it's certainly something we'd love to do in the future.

I really hope this happens; I only have a few things keeping me from being enthused about new Smugmug, and this is about number 2 on my list. I initially misunderstood Smugmug's not-entirely-forthright message about how "you can reorganize your site easily"...I had assumed the "custom url" (fka nicename) would protect the entire link from changing...so I've published some New Smug links that aren't permalinks. I now feel stuck with my current hierarchy. I've since been jumping through hoops to find the gallery key and manually adding it to gallery links I publish so that if I later decide to reorganize in spite of broken links, the damage won't be as bad.

ChancyRat

... I've since been jumping through hoops to find the gallery key ...

Nicholas Sherlock's Chrome extension can really help with this - it can:
- show you the permalink with one click (which you can copy with a click) in any gallery you are in
- generate a CSV or HTML list of galleries - and you can filter which galleries you choose with many parameters, including using the permalink instead of the regular URL.

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=240752

pbandj

ChancyRat wrote: »

Nicholas Sherlock's Chrome extension can really help with this - it can:
- show you the permalink with one click (which you can copy with a click) in any gallery you are in
- generate a CSV or HTML list of galleries - and you can filter which galleries you choose with many parameters, including using the permalink instead of the regular URL.

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=240752

Thanks, I'll have to give that a go.

leftquark

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Note: This should be in the "SmugMug Product News" forum... Idk how it got here. Should be in the thread called: "PREVIEW: Upcoming Changes to "Get a Link" / Share "

As I mentioned in my reply, I split this topic off into its own because this is not related to the new Share Panel preview that is posted in the Product News forum. This is its entirely own topic and should not pull the discussion away from the new Share Tool that we are developing. Additionally, permalinks are a Support / Feature Request Issue, not a Product News item, so that's why I've pulled it out of the Product News forum.

I did this to help people, so they can actually find this topic / discussion rather than have it buried in some other thread that has nothing to do with the topic of permalinks.