Adding Date to Gallery and Sorting by that Date

jgwalter

There does not appear to be a way to assign (or change) the date that a gallery was created? I'd like to create a sort of, newsfeed of galleries ordered by that date. Any ideas? Also, if there is a folder nested in a folder that contains images, it seems to only be placed at the beginning. No ability to sort.

AceCo55

If I'm understanding your problem, you can do that by
1. logging in to your site
2. going to the folder with all the galleries you want to sort
3. click on "Organize" (or do 2 and 3 in the reverse order)
4. In the top right of the "Organize" screen there is a "Sort by" drop down menu with four options
5. Choose "Sort by date created"
6. Next to that choose 9-1 (most recent first) or 1-9 (most recent last)

As I said, I hope I have understood your issue

jgwalter

Thank you for responding. I understand how that works, however, the problem is when I choose 'Sort by Date Created', it uses the date that the gallery itself was created in SmugMug, and there is no way to change that date. This means that if I have a group of galleries, for example, photos taken in 2018, and I want to display them in a chronological order related to when the photos in each were taken, I must create those galleries in that order. There is no way to insert one later or correct a mistake as there is no date associated with the gallery itself.

Here are some examples of the same group of galleries on different sites that I have been working with:

1. PhotoDeck: johngwalter.com/-/galleries/blog/friends-family -- Galleries sorted by date, displaying only a single image from each.

2. Wordpress: travelogue.johngwalter.com/index.php/category/friends-family/ -- Galleries sorted by date, displaying all photos in sequence.

3. Smugmug: johngwalter.smugmug.com/Friends-Family/2018 -- Galleries sorted by Date Created. First two are coincidentally correct, but the remainder are not, as they were uploaded randomly from Lightroom.

My apologies for the lack of links, but this site won't let me post them yet.

leftquark

At this time there is no ability to set a "date" to a gallery, or to have the gallery know what dates the photos inside it were taken during. Other customers have requested this as well and we'll keep the feature request in mind as we work on making it easier to organize your photos.

kevmacmills

Another bump for this request: I'm laying out my galleries under folders for each year. Being able to sort the galleries by "Date Captured" within the folder would be a great help!

denisegoldberg

@kevmacmills said:
Another bump for this request: I'm laying out my galleries under folders for each year. Being able to sort the galleries by "Date Captured" within the folder would be a great help!

Until (if!) this request is implemented in SmugMug, have you considered naming your galleries with a leading date in the format year-month-day and sorting by the gallery name? This could work for you with names like "2018-12-01 ".

kevmacmills

> @denisegoldberg said:
> Until (if!) this request is implemented in SmugMug, have you considered naming your galleries with a leading date in the format year-month-day and sorting by the gallery name? This could work for you with names like "2018-12-01 ".

Yes... :smile: I just prefer the clean look of a single word or two and it would mirror my layout in MacOS Photos.

WinsomeWorks

@jgwalter said:
There does not appear to be a way to assign (or change) the date that a gallery was created? I'd like to create a sort of, newsfeed of galleries ordered by that date. Any ideas? Also, if there is a folder nested in a folder that contains images, it seems to only be placed at the beginning. No ability to sort.

I may not be completely understanding your issue, & maybe it's been solved adequately (until SmugMug changes something) for your needs. However, I just wanted to be sure you know you can also click & drag galleries & folders around within the Organizer. I mean, even if you have the order set to "Date Created - ascending", for instance, while you're looking at a gallery's contents in the Organizer, or a folder or sub-folder's contents, you can click on a photo's thumbnail, or a gallery's thumbnail, or a folder's thumbnail & drag it to the spot you want in your line-up. At that point, the order will re-set to "Manual Order" or something like that (I forget the exact wording). but when other galleries or folders are added, they'll continue to fall into the order they originally were going in, while still saving the manual changes.

jgwalter

@WinsomeWorks said:

@jgwalter said:
There does not appear to be a way to assign (or change) the date that a gallery was created? I'd like to create a sort of, newsfeed of galleries ordered by that date. Any ideas? Also, if there is a folder nested in a folder that contains images, it seems to only be placed at the beginning. No ability to sort.

I may not be completely understanding your issue, & maybe it's been solved adequately (until SmugMug changes something) for your needs. However, I just wanted to be sure you know you can also click & drag galleries & folders around within the Organizer. I mean, even if you have the order set to "Date Created - ascending", for instance, while you're looking at a gallery's contents in the Organizer, or a folder or sub-folder's contents, you can click on a photo's thumbnail, or a gallery's thumbnail, or a folder's thumbnail & drag it to the spot you want in your line-up. At that point, the order will re-set to "Manual Order" or something like that (I forget the exact wording). but when other galleries or folders are added, they'll continue to fall into the order they originally were going in, while still saving the manual changes.

Thanks for the response. Yes, I am aware of the ability to manually order a gallery. It is way too time-consuming, and error-prone, for my intended result. I've since moved away from using SmugMug for this purpose.

rjwilner

There is a fairly easy way of doing this. Prefix the filename with the date the image was shot and sort galleries by filename. For me, batch renaming of images is part & parcel of importing images from the camera. I use a format that results in file names being something like '20190101_SomethingAboutTheLocation_0001' when imported.

jgwalter

@rjwilner said:
There is a fairly easy way of doing this. Prefix the filename with the date the image was shot and sort galleries by filename. For me, batch renaming of images is part & parcel of importing images from the camera. I use a format that results in file names being something like '20190101_SomethingAboutTheLocation_0001' when imported.

Thanks, but I think you missed the point of my post? I am interested in sorting the galleries, not the images within. The images within are easily sorted via a filename syntax as you describe. I tested a similar scheme for naming galleries, which worked, but since the gallery name is what is presented on the website, the results were not ideal. What is lacking is a simple parameter for a date within the gallery itself.

Teetime

I want to add my 2 cents to this aging request because I think it is a great need and suggestion. On my Smugmug site I use the built in features to provide access to my galleries by category (e.g., family, travel, etc.). I have also created an HTML page that offers selected galleries by date (example attached). Family, friends and I appreciate and frequently use this view of the galleries. But it is tedious (and error prone) to create. What I would really like to see is the following new properties/options for galleries:
1. Optionally add a "sort by date" to each gallery.
2. Add ability to choose from several "sort by date" gallery display styles (e.g., thumbnails, textual title only, etc.) and options (e.g., ascending/descending and grouping options).

denisegoldberg

@Teetime said:
1. Optionally add a "sort by date" to each gallery.

There is a sort by date option for galleries. You can choose to sort by date taken, date uploaded, or date modified.

There is also a sort by date available when sorting the galleries in a folder. Folder options include the ability to sort the contents of the folder by date created or by date modified.

Teetime

Denise, thanks for your excellent post. I will try to remember to not go off on a rant about something from distant memory ;-). I have just been enjoying my site for a while rather than further customizing it and I definitely misspoke. I've now gone in and refreshed my memory cells and I think this is my real issue: There doesn't seem to be an easy way to offer to site visitors the ability to view galleries either by category or by chronological date. As you have stated, it is easy to set up your galleries by date within folders (categories), or you could put all galleries in one folder and display galleries by date. In my case where I wanted visitors to be able to choose from either. The only way I could figure to accomplish that was to organize my galleries in category folders, and then manually create an HTML block listing of the galleries by date.

Unless I am missing something, there is no way to display ALL galleries from an underlying folder structure in chronological order independent of the folder structure. For example, if I have this folder/gallery structure:

Folder A
-1/1/2019
-12/30/2019
Folder B
-6/1/2019
-6/2/2019

I would like to display a list of all galleries in chronological order:
-1/1/2019
-6/1/2019
-6/2/2019
-12/30/2019

Any way to do that?

denisegoldberg

@Teetime said:
The only way I could figure to accomplish that was to organize my galleries in category folders, and then manually create an HTML block listing of the galleries by date.

>

Unless I am missing something, there is no way to display ALL galleries from an underlying folder structure in chronological order independent of the folder structure. For example, if I have this folder/gallery structure:

Folder A
-1/1/2019
-12/30/2019
Folder B
-6/1/2019
-6/2/2019

I would like to display a list of all galleries in chronological order:
-1/1/2019
-6/1/2019
-6/2/2019
-12/30/2019

Unfortunately manually creating an HTML block listing of galleries by date is the only way I have found to guarantee an alternate order.

You can use a Galleries block with the option Galleries I Choose - but I have never been able to reliably specify an order for these.

rainforest1155

@denisegoldberg said:
You can use a Galleries block with the option Galleries I Choose - but I have never been able to reliably specify an order for these.

The "galleries I choose" option should display the galleries in the order they're selected in. While there's currently not an option to rearrange those, you could click on the "selected" option in the upper right of the gallery picker to get a listing of all currently selected galleries, click on each to deselect them and then select them again in the desired order.

denisegoldberg

@rainforest1155 said:

@denisegoldberg said:
You can use a Galleries block with the option Galleries I Choose - but I have never been able to reliably specify an order for these.

The "galleries I choose" option should display the galleries in the order they're selected in. While there's currently not an option to rearrange those, you could click on the "selected" option in the upper right of the gallery picker to get a listing of all currently selected galleries, click on each to deselect them and then select them again in the desired order.

I've tried that in the past and found that it's not consistent. It's really a shame that there isn't a sort option available in that galleries block.

Allen

Before adding and/or changing the order for "galleries I choose" I always open the folder showing all of them in another tab.
That gives me quick reference of the original content and order.

rainforest1155

@denisegoldberg said:

@rainforest1155 said:
The "galleries I choose" option should display the galleries in the order they're selected in. While there's currently not an option to rearrange those, you could click on the "selected" option in the upper right of the gallery picker to get a listing of all currently selected galleries, click on each to deselect them and then select them again in the desired order.

I've tried that in the past and found that it's not consistent. It's really a shame that there isn't a sort option available in that galleries block.

You probably did this, but on a longer listing of galleries, you may have to scroll down in the "selected" section to see and be able to deselect all the items. If you're still noticing an issue with this, could you perhaps take a screencast / video showing this and send it to our HelpDesk along with a link to the specific page you're working on?

denisegoldberg

@rainforest1155 said:
You probably did this, but on a longer listing of galleries, you may have to scroll down in the "selected" section to see and be able to deselect all the items. If you're still noticing an issue with this, could you perhaps take a screencast / video showing this and send it to our HelpDesk along with a link to the specific page you're working on?

Yes, I did this in the past.

The page where I use this content block pulls galleries from different folders. Honestly, you are asking me to do work that should be done by the product. It's software, and adding the ability to specify a sort sequence for the galleries in the content block would be much preferred over having me deselect and reselect all galleries in the content block whenever I need to add a single gallery.

rainforest1155

Denise,
I agree that it would be nice to have a sort or arrange mode added to the feature. I've added your vote for this on our feature request list.

While this may not work for you if you add a lot of galleries, one option right now could be to duplicate the galleries you'd like to display using the smart gallery feature. You could create a folder where you add new galleries for all the galleries you'd like to display and then set up a smart rule for each new gallery to display the photos from the respective original gallery.
Instead of "galleries I choose", you could then point the galleries content block to the newly created folder and pick the sort by "organizer position". The arranging could then be done within in the organizer.

denisegoldberg

@rainforest1155 said:
I agree that it would be nice to have a sort or arrange mode added to the feature. I've added your vote for this on our feature request list.

Thank you!