Changes to "Visibility" Settings

leftquark

We've been working hard to make some improvements to the way Visibility works and they've just gone live. These updates have 2 goals:
1) To remove some of the confusion regarding "inheritance"
2) To make it so that when you share an Unlisted folder, your visitors might actually see some of the contents.

Without further ado, the changes!
1) Unlisted visibility will no longer be inherited from the folder above it. You can now set every folder, gallery, or page to be "Public", "Unlisted", or "Private". Previously if the parent folder was "Unlisted", anything inside was forced to be Unlisted. You can now have an Unlisted folder with Public items inside it. Sharing the Unlisted URL will allow your visitors to see only the Public contents.

2) We'll automatically convert all Folders, Galleries, and Pages that were previously "Inherit Unlisted" into explicitly "Unlisted". None of the links to your Folders, Galleries, or Pages will change. Everything should exist as it previously did.

3) In order to make these changes, the URL's may change if you toggle the Visibility of a Folder, Gallery or Page. We had to move the "Node Key" in the URL to be the first Unlisted item in the path. You may need to re-share any links if you toggle Visibility to or from Unlisted.
Example: If you had a URL that was "leftquark.smugmug.com/2016/Family/Thanksgiving/n-AbCdEf" (all Unlisted items) and I make "2016" Unlisted and "Family" & "Thanksgiving" Public, the URL would change to "leftquark.smugmug.com/2016/n-ZxYwV/Family/Thanksgiving".

4. When creating a new Folder, Gallery, or Page, we'll look at its parent and see what Visibility it had and pre-select that Visibility on the new item, though you can always change it in the Visibility drop-down. For example, if your Parent Folder was "Unlisted", then a new Gallery inside it will have "Unlisted" selected by default. I could toggle it to Public or Private if I desired.

5. We're cleaning up the messaging with Private items. A Private item will always have Private children. Previously we allowed you to change the Visibility of a Private child (to unlisted, for example), but then ignored it and made it Private. We'll no longer let you change the Visibility of a Private child. It will be Private unless you change its parent. A message describing this will be placed in the Gallery Settings.
For example: if a Folder "Family" is Private, a Gallery inside it "Thanksgiving" will also be Private, and I cannot set it to anything else.

Also, "Access" controls will still Inherit. If a Folder has "Password" or "People I Choose" set, then all containing items will also have those settings.

6. The Helpies in the Gallery settings (the "?" next to an option) have been updated and change text when you toggle various Visibility settings, to provide more help on the specific setting you've selected.

7. (Slightly separate, not related to Visibility): The screen to create a New Gallery has been updated and now allows you to set the "Access" controls for a gallery. Previously only "Visibility" could be set.

tl;dr Summary:
- Unlisted Folders can now have Public contents.
- You can share an Unlisted Folder and only those Public contents will be displayed.
- Previously shared URL's might change if you toggle the Visibility settings.
- Gallery settings have been cleaned up a bit.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

leftquark

For those following, the updates are now live!

markderry

These are fantastic changes, keep up the good work!

picomoments

leftquark wrote: »

Also, "Access" controls will still Inherit. If a Folder has "Password" or "People I Choose" set, then all containing items will also have those settings."

Awesome work guys. It would be really great to change this as well.

I want to password protect a Top level folder but all of it's subfolders need to be accessible without passwords. I want to be able to share a subfolder with no password required, but when the user clicks on my breadcrumbs to the top level folder they should be prompted with a password. This will prevent them from seeing the other subfolders. Visitors with the password for the top level folder will be allowed to view all the subfolders.

Example:
Top Level Group = "Clients"
SubFolder = "Kim & Family"

User Kim will be able to view her gallery without a password (the gallery wouldn't be searchable) but if she clicked on "Clients" from the breadcrumb "Home > Clients > Kim & Family", she would be prompted with a password.

Thanks

Ferguson

So to make sure I understand, creating a new folder or gallery underneath an unlisted folder will no longer inherit the setting of the parent, but will default from the setting of the parent.

Did I get that right? (I just did a brief test and it seemed to be true).

So inheritance only works for private (in the sense a child of a private parent is forced to be private), and never public or unlisted.

(And yes, I noticed you can make changes to operate on either a folder or folder+children if changing, which is nice.)

nonlinearartist

Protection at parent and child folders need independence
Agree with the need to set a top level as password-protected but certain child folders as no password.

Having a client be able to roam other clients' files is damaging if you have competing clients in the same field because they can see that you are working with competitors and see what they are doing. This drives setting all folders as password-protected, which I'd like to avoid.

Maybe there's an equivalent setting to attain this goal, but I haven't figured it out. Thanks for your updates.

Allen

Creating a new gallery down in a tree where the whole tree previously inherited a password
from the top folder I do not see "People with Password (inherited)"? Only "People with Password"
with blanks to add new PW on the drops. This indicates a new PW needs to be entered?
Not good. I only want one PW at the top to control whole tree.
Visibility is set to "Public (Anyone)" for whole tree.

Actually, for any level of a tree it should state in Settings "Password inherited from above".
I think this is only on creating new galleries as existing galleries do have "inherited".
Nothing shows about inherited on the "create gallery" screens.

Trains

Guys, this is better, but you are still trying to exercise too much control. Your USERS know what privacy settings they want on their folders and galleries, and everyone's requirements are different. Provide a drop down menu and let your customers SELECT. Don't impose settings.

Keep it simple works best.

For example, for the last few months I have been tearing my hair out trying to have a top level unlisted folder, which requires a password when you use the unlisted link. However, once you are "in" you can see any gallery within the folder. I used to be able to do this, and then you "improved" things and it no longer worked. Now (I think) I may have got it going again...

However, your "private" rules are just silly. Menus for everything, please.

leftquark

Ferguson wrote: »

So to make sure I understand, creating a new folder or gallery underneath an unlisted folder will no longer inherit the setting of the parent, but will default from the setting of the parent. Did I get that right? (I just did a brief test and it seemed to be true).

So inheritance only works for private (in the sense a child of a private parent is forced to be private), and never public or unlisted.

That is correct. It's still sort of like inheriting, except now we don't prevent it from being Public.

Allen wrote: »

Creating a new gallery down in a tree where the whole tree previously inherited a password from the top folder I do not see "People with Password (inherited)"? Only "People with Password"
with blanks to add new PW on the drops. This indicates a new PW needs to be entered?
Not good.

Nothing changed with Access settings like Password Protection.

Trains wrote: »

Guys, this is better, but you are still trying to exercise too much control. However, your "private" rules are just silly. Menus for everything, please.

When you say we're exercising too much control, I'm assuming you mean that we're forcing Private to be inherited? If you make a Folder private (only you have access to it), it seems odd that something inside it would be accessible to anyone. That'd be like locking your money in a safety deposit box and giving me access to your money without giving me the key to the safety deposit. We don't want to give people control where they could accidentally give access to something they didn't intend to give access to.

I'm a fan of options / settings, when they make sense and provide flexibility for the majority of our customers. However, I'm not a fan of using options everywhere because it creates an overly complex system that becomes extremely difficult to use.

Trains wrote: »

for the last few months I have been tearing my hair out trying to have a top level unlisted folder, which requires a password when you use the unlisted link. However, once you are "in" you can see any gallery within the folder. I used to be able to do this, and then you "improved" things and it no longer worked. Now (I think) I may have got it going again...

You can now do this by setting your Folder to have:
- Visibility = Unlisted
- Access = Password Protected
- All your child folders, galleries, pages with Visibility = Public

Ferguson

Trains wrote: »

Guys, this is better, but you are still trying to exercise too much control. Your USERS know what privacy settings they want on their folders and galleries, and everyone's requirements are different. Provide a drop down menu and let your customers SELECT. Don't impose settings.

I might agree with that sentiment but I am not 100% sure I understand it. I think the users should have choices, yes, and the less limits the better. Don't go all microsoft on us and prevent us from doing things "for our own good" (notably as opposed to than guiding us toward things for our own good).

BUT... if you mean users need to choose for each gallery all the time -- please, no. Intelligent defaults (or inheritance) are much better for those of us who create lots of galleries. Example: I came back Friday from a shoot and have 4 different events. I started post processing about 10pm and finished and had all uploaded at 2am. I can really use intelligent defaults when operating in zombie mode -- don't make me manually go in and set things. The whole lightroom plugin and publish module is a life saver for people in a rush.

max:P

leftquark wrote: »

tl;dr Summary:
- Unlisted Folders can now have Public contents.
- You can share an Unlisted Folder and only those Public contents will be displayed.
- Previously shared URL's might change if you toggle the Visibility settings.
- Gallery settings have been cleaned up a bit.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

FANTASTICO!

Max