Hate the new smug mug

1pocket · November 1, 2015

I HATE the new smugmug websites and the interface for twerking them. I use smugmug so I don't have to figure out all that crap!! Oh, I know I could hire one of your pocket experts to get the design looking like I want. Why don't I just hand over a credit card and you can just reach in and take whatever you want lol.

The new "designs" all seem to feature SMUGMUG top and bottom of every page -- and there doesn't seem to be an option to change that in the page designs lol.

Starting to feel like a royal rip off and pain in the ASS!

denisegoldberg · November 1, 2015

1pocket wrote: »

The new "designs" all seem to feature SMUGMUG top and bottom of every page -- and there doesn't seem to be an option to change that in the page designs.

It looks like you found the option but in case someone else is reading your post and needs help...

To remove the smugmug header and footer,
> Customize
> Content and Design
> click the settings button
> change header and footer options as desired

--- Denise

sara505 · November 1, 2015

Nobody hates the new smug mug more than I do. And no, I don't want any solicitations. I wish there were an easy way to move nine years' worth and thousands and thousands of photos someplace else. HATE IT!

photoclick · November 1, 2015

Steve - did you have an actual question?

sarasphotos · November 2, 2015

I am not a SmugMug fangirl but I am soooo tired of hearing all of your qwetching! You have all had TWO YEARS to move or choose another provider. Seems like plenty of time to me, even with an incredibly busy schedule. The SmugMug crew and loads of volunteers have been INCREDIBLY patient and polite in the face of abuse from all of you who fight change tooth and nail.

Wake up everyone! The Internet is a rapidly changing place and every service provider has to keep up with the changes in technology and taste or face closure. IMHO the old SmugMug interface is horribly dated and I'm glad to see the last of it. And I'm thankful that the SmugMug staff now only has one interface to support.

Please excuse my rant - this has been bubbling up inside of me for quite some time and it had to be said.

Greetings from Augsburg, Sara

HaraldE · November 2, 2015

sarasphotos wrote: »

I am not a SmugMug fangirl but I am soooo tired of hearing all of your qwetching! You have all had TWO YEARS to move or choose another provider. Seems like plenty of time to me, even with an incredibly busy schedule. The SmugMug crew and loads of volunteers have been INCREDIBLY patient and polite in the face of abuse from all of you who fight change tooth and nail.

Wake up everyone! The Internet is a rapidly changing place and every service provider has to keep up with the changes in technology and taste or face closure. IMHO the old SmugMug interface is horribly dated and I'm glad to see the last of it. And I'm thankful that the SmugMug staff now only has one interface to support.

Please excuse my rant - this has been bubbling up inside of me for quite some time and it had to be said.

Greetings from Augsburg, Sara

Absolutely correct. Couldn't have said it better myself. Dead on.

leftquark · November 2, 2015

1pocket wrote: »

I HATE the new smugmug websites and the interface for twerking them. I use smugmug so I don't have to figure out all that crap!! Oh, I know I could hire one of your pocket experts to get the design looking like I want. Why don't I just hand over a credit card and you can just reach in and take whatever you want lol.

The new "designs" all seem to feature SMUGMUG top and bottom of every page -- and there doesn't seem to be an option to change that in the page designs lol.

Looks like you were able to remove the SmugMug header and use the mini-footer on your page! Glad you were successful. As always, we have 24/7/365 support to help you become more comfortable with your SmugMug site. The Heroes are always here to help you get the design looking how you want, and they don't need your credit card either. All they want is a smile!

sara505 · November 2, 2015

sarasphotos wrote: »

I am not a SmugMug fangirl but I am soooo tired of hearing all of your qwetching! You have all had TWO YEARS to move or choose another provider. Seems like plenty of time to me, even with an incredibly busy schedule. The SmugMug crew and loads of volunteers have been INCREDIBLY patient and polite in the face of abuse from all of you who fight change tooth and nail.

Wake up everyone! The Internet is a rapidly changing place and every service provider has to keep up with the changes in technology and taste or face closure. IMHO the old SmugMug interface is horribly dated and I'm glad to see the last of it. And I'm thankful that the SmugMug staff now only has one interface to support.

Please excuse my rant - this has been bubbling up inside of me for quite some time and it had to be said.

Greetings from Augsburg, Sara

Dear Sara, you are correct, of course, and we are all entitled to our rants; even me. Two years' notice? Totally escaped me. First I knew of a mandatory change was a couple months ago, during my busiest season when I did not (and am just barely now catching up to myself) have a spare minute to tend to this site. I like change, but handle it a lot better when it's on my own terms and on my own schedule. I am grateful for the Smug Mug heroes who have stepped up to help me and have even said so. I will, I'm sure, eventually love the new Smug Mug. I apologize for upsetting your otherwise peaceful life in Augsburg.

sarasphotos · November 2, 2015

Dear Sara (what a lovely name you have...),

although Augsburg may be the only city in the world to have an official public holiday celebrating peace (August 8), I work at the Theater where life is anything but peaceful!

I joined SM just as the "new" interface was introduced. For me it was never a question of using the old - I hated the look and feel of it and started using the modern interface the day it came out. It is far from perfect but at the time I was choosing between several different service providers and SM had the set of features that most matched with my use cases.

Cheers, Sara

agallia · November 2, 2015

A user since 2006, I very much like the new Smugmug over the old 'dinasaur' Smugmug site. Yes, it required starting over as my old customization was lost (it was becoming too complicated and confusing anyway) and learning a new WYSIWYG interface with 'modern' and simplified basic options. A whole new UI! Thanks for a good product.

sara505 · November 2, 2015

sarasphotos wrote: »

Dear Sara (what a lovely name you have...),

although Augsburg may be the only city in the world to have an official public holiday celebrating peace (August 8), I work at the Theater where life is anything but peaceful!

I joined SM just as the "new" interface was introduced. For me it was never a question of using the old - I hated the look and feel of it and started using the modern interface the day it came out. It is far from perfect but at the time I was choosing between several different service providers and SM had the set of features that most matched with my use cases.

Cheers, Sara

Dear Sara, you also have a great name - spelled properly, too, I see

Well, that explains a lot. If I had come into Smug Mug, brand new, starting from the new version with only a few photos, I'm sure I'd feel a lot differently. I've been on Smug Mug for almost ten years and was pretty happy with the thing. And when something you've been working with for that length of time - knowing exactly where everything is located and how to find your way around (which yes, took time to learn - and I'm talking a period of years, not days) - and somebody comes along suddenly (yes, for me it was sudden and unwanted - right or wrong, whether you agree or not) and changes the thing dramatically (remember, for me it was overnight on a day not of my choosing), it's at the least annoying, at the most, totally infuriating. Especially with customers screaming for their photos, you're on a time schedule, you're exhausted, and you can't find the "Set Prices" feature. I'm sure, when the dust settles, I'll love the thing, but for now, it feels like someone came into my house and turned everything upside down.
Cheers.

WinsomeWorks · November 3, 2015

on one hand, on the other hand
A couple wks into it, I can hear you both. At first, I could only hear Sara505, & I still lean heavily with her frustrations. (& I'm glad to hear you're alive, trad-woman! Was wondering whether you were sitting up & taking nourishment after the switch-over!

Followed your blog the other day-- lovely musician photos!) I tell you, Sarasphotos, it can feel like a whole different story when you've been w/ SmugMug for the better part of a decade (that's me too) & coming to your site used to be like walking into a comfy room in your own home-- knowing exactly where stuff was, what you wanted to do, & could find the light switches in the dark.

Also, few people (certainly if they haven't been around here long) or even those designing the site & engineering it, seem to grasp how important & vastly different the ways of using the site are to each person. Few can visualize how someone else wants to be able to use it. Assumptions run rampant. Helps to realize that those who did the trial membership in Legacy SmugMug decided to go with it due to certain things-- often some fairly specific functionality, not just an overall look. Well, that's all changed. Surely, lots of the new site tools are better (even if pretty tough for me to grasp) as far as being able to change the appearance w/o code, etc. I'm not yet in a position to tell whether more of the organizing functionality is better, & someone who's only been here for a few months will not be able to convince me, because you don't really know what my needs are for my site or its tools.

For instance, every time I've been frustrated with how a tool works (now or in the past) "helpful" people will jump in & assert that I shouldn't really be doing that function on the site..."that's not how to use SmugMug, etc etc". cuz I should use PS or LR instead for that function. We-e-l-ll, let's just say I've heard it all before--- gazillions of times!! But listen, every tool that I can think of on the Legacy site was there for a very good reason. I'm sure the tools we have now are too. But most of us who've been here for yrs have lost some beloved tools or quicker/handier ways of getting the same job done, even if we've also gained some. Gotta realize that not everyone is sitting there 24-7 w/ a fantastic internet connection & constant access to PS, LR, watermarking tools, etc. And not everyone has the latest camera, either. I've had days at a time where I was traveling & heavily dependent on my site's bulk captioner, cropping & color correcting & all kinds of sorting from afar, while days later when reporting something needing fixing, there'd be someone telling me that tool wasn't important anyway. :cry

New SmugMug looks slick (even the tools), & I imagine I'll eventually warm up to more of the look. But some of the losses aren't easily forgotten, & I'm upset every time I'm up against them & simply can't do what I need to do. Ex: Arranging photos & editing gallery descriptions right there in a gallery, are both gone... why?? Imo, for no reason at all. I need those tools, & every new way of doing it is much harder & makes me crazy. It kinda shocks me that all the visual people looking over site design wouldn't grasp that visual people will want to edit something while they're looking at it-- not in some other, removed black box!! Bulk editing of keywords, titles & captions has also become ridiculous, & it was terrific before. (saving after each change-- GrrRrrr!!) Cropping is now done in an even smaller view, when many of us were begging for a larger one-- yikes, I can't even believe that one, & yes, it's pretty infuriating when you had a tool that worked but needed upgrading, lots of feedback was heard, yet now it's worse. With RCP like I have, I can't even copy & paste captions or parts of captions / titles / keywords as I used to do constantly! (I'm told I'm trying to copy my own photo!) So when I'm in that whole editor area, I feel like my hands are tied. One thing we've needed & kept asking for, was a way to put in a crop ratio & just keep going thru a gallery keeping that ratio. But even w/ these new tools, that wasn't implemented. Nor was a 1:2 ratio, even with many requests & the huge popularity of panoramics. Yes, I know I can set a ratio.. & keep setting it..

Fun.

I'm just avoiding uploading for now until I can face it w'o getting high blood pressure. Overall, yes, some of my site looks better. But I'll be using SmugMug Style a lot for its functionality & feel that looks worse now. I like the collage option, tho I sure wish it weren't so similar to every other photo site, & would love it more if it wouldn't penalize one orientation or the other (mix same sizes of portrait & landscape instead). Otherwise, I still have lots to fix & don't even know how or when. Viewed through a phone, my site has 2 tangled up logos & looks a disaster. It's humbling, esp since I was getting so many more views this week due to an exhibit I have hanging in public. Normally I'd have been glad to send people to my site. No, change is never easy. But I do think it could've been lots easier than this. It would help to know reasons why some great things are gone, too, such as embeddable slideshows & badges...a step backwards. For some reason, at least one of my badges is still chugging along, but I have no idea why & don't expect it to last for long.

sara505 wrote: »

Dear Sara, you also have a great name - spelled properly, too, I see
Well, that explains a lot. If I had come into Smug Mug, brand new, starting from the new version with only a few photos, I'm sure I'd feel a lot differently. I've been on Smug Mug for almost ten years and was pretty happy with the thing. And when something you've been working with for that length of time - knowing exactly where everything is located and how to find your way around (which yes, took time to learn - and I'm talking a period of years, not days) - and somebody comes along suddenly (yes, for me it was sudden and unwanted - right or wrong, whether you agree or not) and changes the thing dramatically (remember, for me it was overnight on a day not of my choosing), it's at the least annoying, at the most, totally infuriating. Especially with customers screaming for their photos, you're on a time schedule, you're exhausted, and you can't find the "Set Prices" feature. I'm sure, when the dust settles, I'll love the thing, but for now, it feels like someone came into my house and turned everything upside down.
Cheers.

leftquark · November 3, 2015

sara505 wrote: »

I've been on Smug Mug for almost ten years and was pretty happy with the thing.

Before I joined SmugMug as a Product Manager I was a customer for 7 years, 5.5 of which were spent on the Old SmugMug. Like you, I had learned everything and was super comfortable with it. The New SmugMug took some learning curve, as any new item will, but I quickly fell in love with it. Often I'd go back to the Old SmugMug and struggle with remembering how to do something, mostly because I couldn't believe how confusing it was (part of the reason why it took you years to learn. We don't want New SmugMug to be that way!). I'm incredibly grateful for the New SmugMug and hope you'll get to a place where you'll be comfortable and continue to love it!

We spent a lot of time thinking about the timing on when to retire the Old SmugMug. Ultimately the data won out: Pro's on New SmugMug sold more photos than on Old SmugMug, mostly because of the redesigned shopping cart. Knowing that the holiday season was coming up, we wanted to make sure everyone was on the best possible platform, with a little bit of time to spare before the holiday season kicked in.

sara505 wrote: »

and you can't find the "Set Prices" feature.

Hopefully you've found it, but it's right in the top of the page under the "Sell" menu, look for "Gallery Pricing"!

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Also, few people (certainly if they haven't been around here long) or even those designing the site & engineering it, seem to grasp how important & vastly different the ways of using the site are to each person. Few can visualize how someone else wants to be able to use it.

This is very much the problem, though we (the designers / engineers / product managers) do completely understand that there's an infinite number of ways SmugMug can be used, all of which can be easy or difficult for people to grasp. Our job is to make sure we create a product that everyone can use, which is slightly different than the philosophy when the Old SmugMug was created. Instead of releasing feature after feature after feature and building tools that help one or two users, we're trying to focus our attention on tools that all of our customers can use. Simplify, iterate, improve. We want to allow you to take these features and use them as you want them to, but we also can't let the features and options bloat so much that nobody can use them.

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

you don't really know what my needs are for my site or its tools.

For instance, every time I've been frustrated with how a tool works (now or in the past) "helpful" people will jump in & assert that I shouldn't really be doing that function on the site..."that's not how to use SmugMug, etc etc". cuz I should use PS or LR instead for that function. We-e-l-ll, let's just say I've heard it all before--- gazillions of times!! But listen, every tool that I can think of on the Legacy site was there for a very good reason. I'm sure the tools we have now are too. But most of us who've been here for yrs have lost some beloved tools or quicker/handier ways of getting the same job done, even if we've also gained some.

As I mentioned above, this is the problem. By now you've seen that we care deeply about each and every one of you. We have a really hard time disappointing a single customer (thus why I try to respond quickly and in depth with everyone here, especially you). Unfortunately, if we want to build SmugMug in a way that is easy to use, it also means restricting a few things that a few people would want. As much as we want to cover everyones use cases, we just can't build a strong product that way. There's a reason why photo company after photo company are going out of business.

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Arranging photos & editing gallery descriptions right there in a gallery, are both gone... why?? Imo, for no reason at all. I need those tools, & every new way of doing it is much harder & makes me crazy. It kinda shocks me that all the visual people looking over site design wouldn't grasp that visual people will want to edit something while they're looking at it-- not in some other, removed black box!! Bulk editing of keywords, titles & captions has also become ridiculous, & it was terrific before.

I'll go slightly off-topic for a quick second, but it comes to answer your question in the end. Humans use data to make decisions all the time. The term "data" is quite broad. It could be an anecdote from 1 user, or it could be an average of every user. In the past we may have made decisions on single memorable anecdotes: "It would be great if SmugMug could do <X>. It would help me do <y>." So we'd go ahead and implement that and this person would be happy. Over time, however, Feature X, Feature Y, Feature Z, ... added up to a lot of features. Some of them were easy to understand, some of them weren't. Eventually there are so many features that it takes "years" to know how to use the product (as sara mentioned). This is bad.

Speaking of anecdotes, I heard the CEO of a very popular photography site once say "for every new feature we release, we kill 2 others." This sounds pretty crazy, right?! While I'm not sure if they actually do that in practice, that philosophy is quite grounded: release features that people want, and get rid of features that people don't want.

When we make Product decisions we try to use as much real data as we can. Not an anecdote or two, but real data on how people are using SmugMug: how many people have this setting? How many users clicked this button? Which one of these 2 wording options sells more photos? etc. When we go to implement new features, or consider retiring others, we look at what features are being used and improve them; likewise, we look at features that aren't being used, and remove them.

Here's where it comes back to the original question: When we looked at how people comment, title, and keyword there photos we noticed an extremely strong trend: they were doing it before the photos got to SmugMug. And if they were doing it on SmugMug, they were doing similar bulk things like adding 1 keyword to all of their photos. The number of users individually changing each photos caption, title, or keywords in the old tool was surprisingly small. When it came time to build the tool for the New SmugMug we had a tough decision: rebuild it as it is, which wasn't being used very often, or change it to match how people were using it. We chose the later based on how the majority of users used the tool.

SmugMug was founded by a team of passionate photographers; it's employees are still passionate photographers. We use SmugMug every day. If SmugMug didn't exist, I don't know where I'd put my photos. It's a scary thought. Hundreds of thousands of you trust us with your priceless memories. This isn't something we take lightly. In order to remain your safe, and secure home for your memories we need to ensure that SmugMug continues to grow, and sometimes that means making the difficult decision of removing a feature that a small number of users love, in the name of making the site easy to use for the remaining majority. It's not a decision we like to make but we're going to be here for a very very long time, keeping your photos safe.

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Viewed through a phone, my site has 2 tangled up logos & looks a disaster. It's humbling, esp since I was getting so many more views this week due to an exhibit I have hanging in public. Normally I'd have been glad to send people to my site. No, change is never easy.

You've been really awesome about wanting to tackle your site yourself and I didn't want to interrupt, but you Allen, the Heroes, and I are all here, ready to help you clean up your Mobile view in a heart beat. If you'd like, just ask for some help and give us specifics on what you'd like and we can make it happen!

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

It would help to know reasons why some great things are gone, too, such as embeddable slideshows & badges...a step backwards.

As always, the Support Heroes and I monitor dGrin. If you ever have a question, feel free to ask. While the Heroes may not always know the answer, the reason why a Product Manager also runs dgrin is to that we can get you as many of these kinds of answers as we can!

WinsomeWorks · November 3, 2015

View in Mobile Browser ( Android )

leftquark wrote: »

...
.... ready to help you clean up your Mobile view in a heart beat. If you'd like, just ask for some help and give us specifics on what you'd like and we can make it happen! ...

This is probably for another thread, but just a quick note on the my statement about the messy view on my phone, of my site in a mobile browser: I can ask for help on the nit-picky mobile issues at some point, but for now, I'd be thrilled to just get rid of the extra logo & name floating & tangled near the top. At least it wouldn't be embarrassing then. I believe, Aaron, that you showed me it looked OK (not great, but at least OK) on an iPhone. So to see what I'm seeing, I'd guess all you or someone needs to do is borrow an Android. It looks bad in any Android browser I've tried, & it'll be obvious what looks bad. It's also worrisome because I think that extra logo is from some "Save for Later" logo I did, & if so, it means it's still there & viewable by some mobile browsers for some odd reason. I tried DuckDuckGo & Chrome, & whatever browser my Samsung calls "Internet"!! (yeah, idk, it's weird)

sara505 · November 3, 2015

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

A couple wks into it, I can hear you both. At first, I could only hear Sara505, & I still lean heavily with her frustrations. (& I'm glad to hear you're alive, trad-woman! Was wondering whether you were sitting up & taking nourishment after the switch-over! Followed your blog the other day-- lovely musician photos!) I tell you, Sarasphotos, it can feel like a whole different story when you've been w/ SmugMug for the better part of a decade (that's me too) & coming to your site used to be like walking into a comfy room in your own home-- knowing exactly where stuff was, what you wanted to do, & could find the light switches in the dark.

Also, few people (certainly if they haven't been around here long) or even those designing the site & engineering it, seem to grasp how important & vastly different the ways of using the site are to each person. Few can visualize how someone else wants to be able to use it. Assumptions run rampant. Helps to realize that those who did the trial membership in Legacy SmugMug decided to go with it due to certain things-- often some fairly specific functionality, not just an overall look. Well, that's all changed. Surely, lots of the new site tools are better (even if pretty tough for me to grasp) as far as being able to change the appearance w/o code, etc. I'm not yet in a position to tell whether more of the organizing functionality is better, & someone who's only been here for a few months will not be able to convince me, because you don't really know what my needs are for my site or its tools.

For instance, every time I've been frustrated with how a tool works (now or in the past) "helpful" people will jump in & assert that I shouldn't really be doing that function on the site..."that's not how to use SmugMug, etc etc". cuz I should use PS or LR instead for that function. We-e-l-ll, let's just say I've heard it all before--- gazillions of times!! But listen, every tool that I can think of on the Legacy site was there for a very good reason. I'm sure the tools we have now are too. But most of us who've been here for yrs have lost some beloved tools or quicker/handier ways of getting the same job done, even if we've also gained some. Gotta realize that not everyone is sitting there 24-7 w/ a fantastic internet connection & constant access to PS, LR, watermarking tools, etc. And not everyone has the latest camera, either. I've had days at a time where I was traveling & heavily dependent on my site's bulk captioner, cropping & color correcting & all kinds of sorting from afar, while days later when reporting something needing fixing, there'd be someone telling me that tool wasn't important anyway. :cry

New SmugMug looks slick (even the tools), & I imagine I'll eventually warm up to more of the look. But some of the losses aren't easily forgotten, & I'm upset every time I'm up against them & simply can't do what I need to do. Ex: Arranging photos & editing gallery descriptions right there in a gallery, are both gone... why?? Imo, for no reason at all. I need those tools, & every new way of doing it is much harder & makes me crazy. It kinda shocks me that all the visual people looking over site design wouldn't grasp that visual people will want to edit something while they're looking at it-- not in some other, removed black box!! Bulk editing of keywords, titles & captions has also become ridiculous, & it was terrific before. (saving after each change-- GrrRrrr!!) Cropping is now done in an even smaller view, when many of us were begging for a larger one-- yikes, I can't even believe that one, & yes, it's pretty infuriating when you had a tool that worked but needed upgrading, lots of feedback was heard, yet now it's worse. With RCP like I have, I can't even copy & paste captions or parts of captions / titles / keywords as I used to do constantly! (I'm told I'm trying to copy my own photo!) So when I'm in that whole editor area, I feel like my hands are tied. One thing we've needed & kept asking for, was a way to put in a crop ratio & just keep going thru a gallery keeping that ratio. But even w/ these new tools, that wasn't implemented. Nor was a 1:2 ratio, even with many requests & the huge popularity of panoramics. Yes, I know I can set a ratio.. & keep setting it.. Fun.

I'm just avoiding uploading for now until I can face it w'o getting high blood pressure. Overall, yes, some of my site looks better. But I'll be using SmugMug Style a lot for its functionality & feel that looks worse now. I like the collage option, tho I sure wish it weren't so similar to every other photo site, & would love it more if it wouldn't penalize one orientation or the other (mix same sizes of portrait & landscape instead). Otherwise, I still have lots to fix & don't even know how or when. Viewed through a phone, my site has 2 tangled up logos & looks a disaster. It's humbling, esp since I was getting so many more views this week due to an exhibit I have hanging in public. Normally I'd have been glad to send people to my site. No, change is never easy. But I do think it could've been lots easier than this. It would help to know reasons why some great things are gone, too, such as embeddable slideshows & badges...a step backwards. For some reason, at least one of my badges is still chugging along, but I have no idea why & don't expect it to last for long.

Dear Anna,
Thank you for your understanding and words of encouragement - I knew there was a bunch wrong, but until you pointed them all out, I never knew how many

!
Today's annoyance and surprise is, I used to be able to go into the settings of a gallery and easily see the password when people needed to know, now all I see is: *********** How is that going to help me? How will I tell people the password who lost it?

WinsomeWorks · November 3, 2015

sara505 wrote: »

Dear Anna,
Thank you for your understanding and words of encouragement - I knew there was a bunch wrong, but until you pointed them all out, I never knew how many !
Today's annoyance and surprise is, I used to be able to go into the settings of a gallery and easily see the password when people needed to know, now all I see is: *********** How is that going to help me? How will I tell people the password who lost it?

Ugh--- sorry to bring any more to your attention! (Guess I won't tell you about the meanies I found today, but hint hint, they're in bulk color-correcting... aargh!) Anyway, about the passwords, well, we were supposed to go & write down all our passwords, etc. etc. "due to security measures" etc. etc. It's all in several dozens of threads around here, but if you didn't get the memo, so to speak, I hear you can ask the Help desk to fetch them all for you. Hope you'll find that to be true. And when I say "ask" the Help desk, "chat" (which means tying messages back & forth real-time) or email are your 2 ways of communicating to Help folks. I only had a couple passwords, but I forgot to write them down as well, & don't know what they are, so I'll have to ask sometime.

Yes, I think the most frustrating things to me are the things I can no longer do in the view I want to have while doing them. Arranging images on a screen that looks nothing like how they'll be viewed makes absolutely no sense. (i use the other arranging too, but not for a couple pics at a time). And if I told you how many thousand times I've gone to click on the gallery description area & there's no "edit" clicker-- :bash That part is truly awful. Can't imagine what they were thinking. Well, good luck. Deep breathe. Play some very fast Irish reels when you're cooked. --Anna Lisa

sara505 · November 3, 2015

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Ugh--- sorry to bring any more to your attention! (Guess I won't tell you about the meanies I found today, but hint hint, they're in bulk color-correcting... aargh!) Anyway, about the passwords, well, we were supposed to go & write down all our passwords, etc. etc. "due to security measures" etc. etc. It's all in several dozens of threads around here, but if you didn't get the memo, so to speak, I hear you can ask the Help desk to fetch them all for you. Hope you'll find that to be true. And when I say "ask" the Help desk, "chat" (which means tying messages back & forth real-time) or email are your 2 ways of communicating to Help folks. I only had a couple passwords, but I forgot to write them down as well, & don't know what they are, so I'll have to ask sometime.

Yes, I think the most frustrating things to me are the things I can no longer do in the view I want to have while doing them. Arranging images on a screen that looks nothing like how they'll be viewed makes absolutely no sense. (i use the other arranging too, but not for a couple pics at a time). And if I told you how many thousand times I've gone to click on the gallery description area & there's no "edit" clicker-- :bash That part is truly awful. Can't imagine what they were thinking. Well, good luck. Deep breathe. Play some very fast Irish reels when you're cooked. --Anna Lisa

I give a separate password to each of my customers, all my weddings and family shoots. Bastards. (no, not my customers)

leftquark · November 3, 2015

sara505 wrote: »

Dear Anna,
Thank you for your understanding and words of encouragement - I knew there was a bunch wrong, but until you pointed them all out, I never knew how many !
Today's annoyance and surprise is, I used to be able to go into the settings of a gallery and easily see the password when people needed to know, now all I see is: *********** How is that going to help me? How will I tell people the password who lost it?

As Anna Lisa mentioned, you can email the Support Heroes and we can generate a list of your passwords for you. This only includes passwords created in the Old SmugMug. Anything in the New SmugMug going forward we will not be able to access.

Why Change This?
You only need to see the news to notice how important photo security is. Imagine how upset your clients would be if they found out that someone gained access to their private photos. Imagine how upset you would be if someone gained access to the photos you assumed were private and safe. Password security is extremely important, especially since we want you to have faith that we're keeping your photos safe. Trust and reputation take time to build but only a second to destroy. We want you to always have faith that your photos are safe on SmugMug.

Transmitting plaintext passwords over the internet is extremely dangerous. Someone at a table next to you in a coffee shop, or someone driving by your house could detect your unsecured password and gain access to these galleries. By securing them ("******") they're not able to detect your password.

We don't ever want to get in a situation where 1 persons bad password results in a security breach for all of the SmugMug community.

What Can I do Going Forward?
There are a number of options, including:
- You can securely store the passwords yourself (a password protected spreadsheet, for example).
- You can use a program like "1Password" to store all of your gallery passwords. 1Password is great because it's easily searchable, easy to use, integrates into your computer, Mobile Device, etc, and can even auto-fill the password.
- You can use a phrase convention so that you'll always know what the password is. For example, if the Gallery was "Sara's Wedding Photos - Nov 2015" taken in Hawaii, you could create a gallery password "Sara11-15Hawaii". Another gallery "Joe's Wedding - October 15" in California could be "Joe10-15California".

leftquark · November 3, 2015

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

This is probably for another thread, but just a quick note on the my statement about the messy view on my phone, of my site in a mobile browser: I can ask for help on the nit-picky mobile issues at some point, but for now, I'd be thrilled to just get rid of the extra logo & name floating & tangled near the top. At least it wouldn't be embarrassing then. I believe, Aaron, that you showed me it looked OK (not great, but at least OK) on an iPhone. So to see what I'm seeing, I'd guess all you or someone needs to do is borrow an Android. It looks bad in any Android browser I've tried, & it'll be obvious what looks bad. It's also worrisome because I think that extra logo is from some "Save for Later" logo I did, & if so, it means it's still there & viewable by some mobile browsers for some odd reason. I tried DuckDuckGo & Chrome, & whatever browser my Samsung calls "Internet"!! (yeah, idk, it's weird)

I've cleaned up your mobile and tablet views so things should be looking / working a lot nicer now. You'll find this code at the bottom of your Theme's Advanced CSS section:

/* ==================
   = Mobile Phones  =
   ================== */
@media only screen and (max-width: 670px) {
	/* Hide the weird second logo. Also hide the spacer after the slideshow */
	.sm-page-widget-12600280, .sm-page-widget-12641732 {
	    display: none;
	}

	/* Move the menu, slideshow, and Seascape favorites up a bit */
	.sm-page-widget-12621454, .sm-page-widget-12640688, .sm-page-widget-12641721 {
    	position: relative;
    	top: -25px;
	}
	
	/* Shrink the Copyright text and center it */
	.sm-page-widget-12641380 h3 {
	    font-size: 16px !important;
	    text-align: center;
	}

	/* Shrink the spacing between social icons so they fit on one line */
	.sm-page-widget-social-links.sm-social-links-medium.sm-social-links-horizontal li {
	    padding-right: 12px !important;
	}
	
}

/* =============================
   = iPads and Small Monitors  =
   ============================= */
@media only screen and (min-width: 671px) and (max-width: 800px) {
	/* Make the logo and menu take up the full width so they're on separate lines and fit better */
	.sm-page-layout-region-header .sm-page-layout-region-top .sm-page-layout-row .sm-page-layout-column {
	    width: 100% !important;
	}
	
	/* Give the menu some room on the left and center it */
	.sm-page-widget-12621454 {
    	margin-left: 10px !important;
    	text-align: center;
	}
	
	/* Center the logo */
	.sm-page-widget-12622515 .sm-page-widget-logo-container {
    	text-align: center;
	}
	
	/* Center the Copyright text */
	.sm-page-widget-12641380 h3 {
	    text-align: center;
	}
}

Feel free to ask if you have any questions on what the code does

P.S: Tested on multiple devices, all using Chrome.

WinsomeWorks · November 4, 2015

Thanks so much-- haven't tested it a lot, but where I did, it looks like a huge improvement! Excellent. The most noticeable further improvement it needs is to trim down lots of extra spacing between elements (like menu), and also it seems every font is way too huge for mobile; not sure why they're not shrinking along with the rest. (captions on my slideshow are ridiculously large in mobile, & if they were titles they'd be even worse). But other text is huge too. i know it's probably not worth going to a lot of detail with the mobile view yet tho, until I get more of my desktop site stabilized (more finalized, etc.) I'd still like to know where that extra header is hiding on my site, too. I mean, it's great it's hidden, but I know I did some major screw-ups early on, such as hit the "save for later" button, & maybe had an extra independent homepage, which is where that logo may be hiding.

Right now I don't think I have an independent homepage, & it's possible that I should, & should take everything that's on my homepage now & reconstruct it independently. But I really don't know, as I understood so little of what I was doing earlier. I think I may have ditched it because I couldn't get my nav bar to appear on it; idk. The only thing I do know is that it would sure be easier to reconstruct something now rather than later when it's less temporary. My whole homepage is rather thrown together currently & will certainly undergo closer inspection & design at some point. Just worried that not having the independent homepage is gonna come back to bite me with further customizations.

leftquark wrote: »

I've cleaned up your mobile and tablet views so things should be looking / working a lot nicer now. You'll find this code at the bottom of your Theme's Advanced CSS section:....
P.S: Tested on multiple devices, all using Chrome.

rainforest1155 · November 4, 2015

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Right now I don't think I have an independent homepage, & it's possible that I should, & should take everything that's on my homepage now & reconstruct it independently. But I really don't know, as I understood so little of what I was doing earlier. I think I may have ditched it because I couldn't get my nav bar to appear on it; idk.

When you enable the independent homepage, the homepage is completely separate from the rest of your site and doesn't use any of the customizations you make on the "entire site" section. So if you wanted to use a menu like the one from your entire site, you could only manually add it again on the homepage. There's not an option to copy the menu from the entire site to your independent homepage. For future changes to your menu, you would also have to make the changes on both, entire site and homepage.

WinsomeWorks · November 4, 2015

PS -- Lack of Large Pop-up Images in Organizer is Great Loss
In regards to decisions that got made about tools to keep, functionality to lose, etc...One huge frustration with the organizer that I must vent is the lack of large pop-up (on hover) versions of each thumb. Those pop-ups used to give much more info too (the little info icon was terrific!!!) than just the filename that's already there. I find this makes many of my tasks impossibly hard to do. We happily have much larger preview photos now on public folder displays, but yet smaller visual references for our site tools now, when what we needed were larger ones, if anything.

Those pop-ups were gold, & not having them makes me feel just... stuck, & slow, in tasks that used to be easy (even very basic selection). What's especially sad about that is that a few years back, we didn't have them, & people asked for such a thing in Feature Requests or elsewhere (many people wanted a larger way to view & select images when using all those tools like rotate, color, arrange). Then we finally got them, but now they're gone again!! That kind of change (hard-won gains, then reversions) is what's the toughest & hardest to swallow for us old-timers around here.

It feels like 5-10 yrs with a company (as much as you love it) shouldn't feel like you're such an old-timer that you have to remind that company of its own history (even just 5 yrs or it) & what functions you fought for, because it just makes progress feel like a nasty vicious cycle. No one wants to spend their time here begging for stuff they already spent time on getting implemented a short 4 years ago.. it's not like some of those basics were failed experiments or something! If it's usage data that's driving that particular type of decision (to drop stuff recently hard-won), then I would say some folks are reading the data in the wrong way & making lots of people unhappy doing so.

Maybe you only see a small # of folks using a certain tool, so you decide it's no biggie to ditch it. However, I'll bet it's often more like this: a tool I & others may only use during 3 of 10 uploads is seen as unimportant. But those 3 upload types where I need it & don't have it, the situation feels very critical. In other words, simple frequency of use (or trying so hard to follow the latest trend, like the "clean" look!!) is often a very poor way to evaluate the importance / necessity of certain functionality / tools. Think of the times you've had a splinter in a finger. You can't find a tweezers anywhere in your house. There's really nothing else that works. You haven't used that tweezers in 2 months, but now you're tempted to drive to the pharmacy to buy one when there's none at hand.

So here I am on a site where I used to have certain (sometimes hard-won) tools right at my fingertips. I can't drive to the pharmacy to get them back. I tried to color-correct some photos in bulk today (7, I think). I couldn't even see the changes on them before hitting "done". If a goal is to make people stop using certain tools, sure, that'll do it. But I'm not so cynical yet that I think that's the goal.

And no one, no matter what data I'm shown, will convince me that a lot of people weren't using "Arrange" on a page, or editing their descriptions right there where they're displaying. I'd assert that was simply someone's need to go trendy with a clean look. Yet our visitors see none of that, so who cares about a clean look when you're in the garage? What good is a garage with shiny, empty tool-chests? If I'd wanted someplace like that, ever, I wouldn't be here. That kind of site is available elsewhere. What SmugMug has meant & provided is not available elsewhere.

bwg · November 4, 2015

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

In regards to decisions that got made about tools to keep, functionality to lose, etc...One huge frustration with the organizer that I must vent is the lack of large pop-up (on hover) versions of each thumb.

double clicking an image thumb in organizer will open the photo in a lightbox

WinsomeWorks · November 4, 2015

I meant to say something about that, as I figured it would get a mention. Yep, I know a photo will open up that way, but that really does nothing for me when I'm wanting/needing to stay in that selection area. I simply want to be able to see right there (not in seaparate screen) differences in a few different images, see pop-up info as I did before such as time taken, file size, etc. If the filename is what's showing w/o popup, then caption should show on pop-up. If caption is what's there w/o popup, then filename should show on pop-up. (we need the option of both at our fingertips)

If I can't see the image enough to see quickly that this is the one where so & so is smiling, or this one's the one that needed cropping, it greatly reduces the usefulness of all these tools, because now I've gotta get out pencil & paper & make notes to myself on another page of my gallery. Then I've gotta go back to Organizer and count over in the thumbs display because, guess what? They're not numbered! There's 2 choices of display-- thumbs w/ filenames or thumbs without. Why not at least thumbs w/ captions? Also, if I've got square thumbs displaying in SmugMug view, what shows up in the Organizer? Square thumbs! I cannot think of one tool where that's a useful Organizer view-- except possibly "Crop Thumbnail". In organizer, I need to see the whole image, not my thumb crop! All I can figure is that users testing these tools had small galleries w/ all images already culled, sorted, & each thumb quite different from the next. Not users wanting to see identifiable faces, any EXIF, or crop / color needs, captions, number in gallery... i.e. all the stuff we had before within many of the tools where we needed it.

bwg wrote: »

double clicking an image thumb in organizer will open the photo in a lightbox

WinsomeWorks · November 4, 2015

I understand all this, but many people say you really should have (or should've had) an independent homepage. However, I'm not nearly experienced enough with all the workings of the site to make a truly informed decision whether I myself should have one. (And I don't see anything in Help that really informs that decision). I know I may want to change my theme sometime. I know I'll want to change layouts on my homepage, add & subtract stuff, make a new logo. I'll be doing stuff to the Nav Menu. I know I'd like to at some point try to make my blog match up seamlessly as it used to (I now have it open in a separate tab because it doesn't). I also know that a customization for my homepage slideshow now affects slideshows in galleries, & shouldn't.

What I don't know is, if I have some things on my homepage set for "just this page" already, how essentially different is that from having an independent homepage? I also don't know the pros & cons with respect to my particular site... i.e. whether moving forward, it'll hamper me to either have an independent page or not have one. I basically just need someone way more experienced to tell me (knowing the above stuff) "Yes, in your case you should" or "No, you shouldn't." The Help pages are too basic for decisions like this.

rainforest1155 wrote: »

When you enable the independent homepage, the homepage is completely separate from the rest of your site and doesn't use any of the customizations you make on the "entire site" section. So if you wanted to use a menu like the one from your entire site, you could only manually add it again on the homepage. There's not an option to copy the menu from the entire site to your independent homepage. For future changes to your menu, you would also have to make the changes on both, entire site and homepage.

leftquark · November 4, 2015

Your homepage either takes on everything in "Entire Site", or it doesn't. Things on 'Just this Page', 'Just this Folder', or 'Just this Gallery' never impact the Homepage because they're completely different pages.

I do NOT use an independent homepage, because my "Entire Site" includes my left nav and my logo, and I want it consistent on every page: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/
On the other hand, a site like The Gilmore Gang, uses a completely separate homepage from the rest of the site, drawing users in, then transitioning to a totally different menu: http://www.gilmoregang.com/

If you're going to keep elements on your homepage that you also want on every other page (like a navbar on the top), you'll probably want a non-independent homepage.

zbreeze · November 5, 2015

I also hate a lot about the new smugmug, but with the mandatory switch, our choices are to leave or stay and deal. I've mostly learned to deal, after searching out other sites and not liking anything better.

To preserve my sanity (and that of my friends and family who were starting to get tired of my smugmug rants), I have started a rant list on my blog. Whenever I discover something new I hate, I add it to the rant list. That seems to help keep me from obsessing.

The latest to be added, rant # 22 is the new share dialog box (which used to be a drop down menu) and now requires 5 clicks to get a picture to paste into my blog.

I appreciate the concept of data driven decisions, though they don't address the relative importance of features that are dropped because "most" people don't use them, to particular individual users. But, if you really want to convince us, show us the data at least -- vague statements about users don't generally use something are better than anecdotes to you, who have the data, but to me, the user, they sound like convenience (and, sometimes in dark moods, conspiracy).

zbreeze · November 5, 2015

Rant #24, In Smugmug view, the icons under the picture all do different things: the share now brings up a dialog box (and dims the rest of the screen), the tools still has a drop down menu (with an odd hierarchy -- some items open dialog boxes, some have immediate actions, . . .), the info brings up a box on the screen, and download just downloads the picture (immediate effect). The arbitrary differences violate all the rules of user interface design.

1pocket · November 11, 2015

denisegoldberg wrote: »

It looks like you found the option but in case someone else is reading your post and needs help...

To remove the smugmug header and footer,
> Customize
> Content and Design
> click the settings button
> change header and footer options as desired

--- Denise

It looks like I found the option??? Now you have me confused because when I look at either of my Smugmug sites, I see Smugmug both at the top and the bottom of the home page

1pocket · November 11, 2015

denisegoldberg wrote: »

It looks like you found the option but in case someone else is reading your post and needs help...

To remove the smugmug header and footer,
> Customize
> Content and Design
> click the settings button
> change header and footer options as desired

--- Denise

1pocket wrote: »

It looks like I found the option??? Now you have me confused because when I look at either of my Smugmug sites, I see Smugmug both at the top and the bottom of the home page

And at the footer....

1pocket · November 11, 2015

photoclick wrote: »

Steve - did you have an actual question?

Yes -- how do I get rid of the Smugmug logos?

How do I change the slide show speed? The new slide show seems to be only sloooooowwwww. (The old slideshow had slow-med-fast playback options always available right within the viewer)

How do I actually add new design blocks in the customize site window? When I try to add I get a warning asking me to click in certain areas -- actually I was trying to add new areas to the left of the slide show for some kind of basic text "About me" sort of thing.

Can I add an "About Me" page or are we stuck with exactly three predetermined page choices? (Home-Browse-Search)

Hate the new smug mug

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