Global password AND "People I choose" access?

ChairmanMeow

I have a SmugMug site that is for friends and family only. As such I have set a global password and adjusted the access rights of selected folders to be "People with Password (Inherited)". Those folders contain other folders with galleries in them. This works well for the most part, people just enter the password and can see all the pictures I've shared.

The problem is some of the older, less technical, relatives still have a lot of trouble with even that (and others don't speak or read English and aren't comfortable with an English password prompt), but they do have newer tablet/phone devices. What I would like to do is install the SmugMug Android app on their devices and log them in with a guest account that has access to all of the shared folders so they can just tap on the app and browse the pictures without having to remember the address/bookmark and password.

However, when I set the access rights of a folder to "People I Choose", that folder is no longer accessible from the website when logged in with the global password. Is there any way to have BOTH a global password AND shared folders? I obviously don't want to use my super user credentials to log them into the Android app because they would probably screw something up unintentionally. And I don't want to require everyone to create their own SmugMug guest accounts (I tried that and no one did it).

Ideally I'd like to have a single read-only account that has access to selected folders via the Android app, AND still use a site wide password for everyone else. If that's not possible, does anyone have suggestions for how to enable my less technical users?

-Thanks

owilliams

Hi there ChairmanMeow!

Thanks for getting a hold of us.

Unfortunately, the two access options - people with a password and people I choose cannot be used together. They are meant to be selected one or the other at the site wide levels.

Furthermore, having a site wide password set and then having privately shared folders/galleries inside would only make it more difficult for your visitors to access the photos since they would have to go through both security options.

You mentioned having non-english speaking guests. What you can do would be to enter a password hint in for the site in their native language. With that, they would be able to get the instructions that they need to get in.

I'm sorry that I could not get you a better answer for this one. If you need specific assistance getting your account to look and act the way that you want, you can email help@smugmug.com for some quick assistance.

Best,
Oliver
SM Support.

ChairmanMeow

Thanks for the response Oliver!

owilliams wrote: »

Furthermore, having a site wide password set and then having privately shared folders/galleries inside would only make it more difficult for your visitors to access the photos since they would have to go through both security options.

That would only be an issue for visitors to the website though. Those with the app would already be logged in and therefore wouldn't ever need to enter a password. Regardless, it sounds like that idea won't work. Bummer.

My next idea is to create a 'mirrored' folder structure and share that with the guest account so when they use the app they can see all the same content as the primary folders without having to log into the website.
However, I see some problems with that approach as well, primarily around setting the content of folders and/or collecting galleries.

For example, here's my primary structure:
- Folder 1

- Sub Folder A

- Gallery 1

- Gallery 2

- Sub Folder B

- Folder 2
etc...

I'd like to do something like this:
- Folder 1 copy

- Sub Folder A

- Gallery 1

- Gallery 2

- Sub Folder B

- Folder 2 copy
etc...
Where the top level folders have different names than their primary counterparts, but the sub folders and galleries are all named the same.

When I create this structure I don't see a way to 'collect' an entire Gallery into the other folder and trying to set the content of "Folder 1 copy -> Sub Folder A" to point to the Galleries in "Folder 1 -> Sub Folder A" doesn't show up in the app when I browse to that folder.

Unfortunately it seems the only way to do this is to re-create each gallery in the new folders and then go through one by one and manually collect each picture from each gallery to get all the content in the primary folders. Does that sound right?

There's got to be a better way! Collecting every single photo is obviously not a smart way to manage things.

owilliams

Hi again,

Right, so we don't have an option of collecting whole folders or galleries. What you will need to do is to go into your site organizer and recreate the structure manually but leave the final galleries empty. Once the structure is set up, you can then use the collected photos option in the organizer to collect the photos in bulk to their mirrored counterparts. You will click "Select All" in the organizer for the parent gallery and then drag them into the mirrored gallery and then click "Collect". This should make copies of the originals in that new gallery.

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93310-how-can-i-display-photos-in-more-than-one-gallery---collecting-photos

Let us know if you need anything else along the way.

Best,
Oliver

ChairmanMeow

I guess I hadn't dragged photos between galleries before and so didn't notice the copy/collect option. Thanks!

owilliams wrote: »

Right, so we don't have an option of collecting whole folders or galleries.

Is there a technical reason behind that choice, or is it just no one has asked for it? (I couldn't find anything in the feature request sub) Seems like that feature would be very useful.

Cheers!