Are there any plans to fix the scaling when someone clicks to zoom on an image whilst in the lightbox?
I have my images set to X4 iPad res and they look fine and detailed scaled down to fit in the lightbox, but if I check the site when logged out, load an image in the lightbox and then press to zoom in on the photo it turns into a pixelated mess!
**I really hate the absence of the image size selector. **
What used to be a one-click operation (not trivial, but at least teachable) is now multi-click action including copy-paste and opening another tab or window.
A lot of my clients operate on phones only, so for them, the chance to get the size they want is now super difficult.
I myself used the image size selector daily to provide an appropriate resolution for my daily image posts. Now all of a sudden it's a chore.
Considering the fact there is a ton of space on that new action palette on the left, I am definitely in favor of bringing the size selector back, even if it opens the chosen size in another tab/window.
Thank you for your consideration!
I've been a Smugmug user for several years. The removal of the image size selector bothers me A LOT! Enough that I plan on starting to search for an alternative to using Smugmug to share my photos with friends. Not everybody wants to see Original sized photos but they may wish to view an image in more detail. Put the size selector on the left side of the screen, thetr is plenty of room. Companies that choose to ignore the desires/needs of their customers go the way of K-Mart.
@Stewey said:
I've been a Smugmug user for several years. The removal of the image size selector bothers me A LOT! Enough that I plan on starting to search for an alternative to using Smugmug to share my photos with friends. Not everybody wants to see Original sized photos but they may wish to view an image in more detail. Put the size selector on the left side of the screen, thetr is plenty of room. Companies that choose to ignore the desires/needs of their customers go the way of K-Mart.
The removal of the sizes button came directly from feedback and usage from all of you. Overall, very few SmugMug customers used the sizes button, and your visitors used them even less. When we investigated why usage was so low we found that most of you and your visitors were using it to zoom into the photo. It was a really bad experience for zooming, so we implemented a better zooming feature in the new Lightbox.
The other scenario we saw is that people used it to download a different size photo, but it wasn't a particularly great way to download photos either (you had to ignore the big "download" button on the photo, ensure "Right Click Message" was turned OFF, then hope your visitor knew to right-click on a photo and choose "Save image..."). We believe the better way to do this will be to expand the download button to allow you and your visitors to select the size. This is something we'd like to add in the future (though I don't have a date at this time).
The other scenario we saw is that people used it to download a different size photo, but it wasn't a particularly great way to download photos either...
I see your not listening again. You new suggestion would be very time consuming doing one photo at a time.
Actually it was a great way, nothing comes close, to very quickly get any a size you wanted. You could set a size and zoom photo to photo dragging a photo on desktop or folder. Nothing is needed but the image, EXIF or nothing. It is for clean posting in Facebook. etc.
The other scenario we saw is that people used it to download a different size photo, but it wasn't a particularly great way to download photos either...
I see your not listening again. You new suggestion would be very time consuming doing one photo at a time.
Actually it was a great way, nothing comes close, to very quickly get any a size you wanted. You could set a size and zoom photo to photo dragging a photo on desktop or folder. Nothing is needed but the image, EXIF or nothing. It is for clean posting in Facebook. etc.
If I'm not understanding the outcomes you're trying to achieve ("I'd like to easily download a smaller size" and "I'd like to be able to zoom in on a particular part of a photo to enjoy it more") I'd love to know what I'm not understanding. Could you expand on this? Is it that I'm not listening or we have different opinions on how to solve the use-cases you are trying to solve?
Dragging a photo to a folder or desktop is not very intuitive or quick. It requires you to either have 2 monitors, or 1) shrink the window size down such that you have a space to drag to... 2) then you have to click and hold your mouse, 3) while moving the mouse across the screen, potentially to the complete other side of it, 4) then let go, 5) bring the mouse back to your browser window, 6) click to the next photo and repeat. As photos build up, you have less space to drag to, so you may have to 7) go back to your other window and make some draggable room. It involves the mouse moving back and forth across the screen quite considerably and involves clicking from one photo to the next.
If you instead use the right-click method, then you'd have to 1) realize that you can even right click on the photo, or in many cases, get told you can't right click on the photo because its protected by the Right-Click Message, 2) right-click, 3) click on "Save as..." and 4) choose where to save it, then 5) browse to the next photo.
What we're proposing is 1) Click on download, 2) Select a size 3) choose where to save it. 4) browse to the next photo (which can be done with the arrow keys on your keyboard, since your hand is already there).. It's 1 step less and avoids any confusion on whether the photo is right-click protected or not.
Both methods you've mentioned require more steps, would take more action by the user, and aren't as robust with all of the settings that people use within SmugMug.
@Allen said:
Looks good but the new map view in lightbox needs a zoom up feature.
Also insures there is scroll bar, not good, needs toggle on/off button.
Suggestion: change one and add two new buttons in nav, Toggle caption, toggle info, toggle map.
@Allen said:
Looks good but the new map view in lightbox needs a zoom up feature.
Also insures there is scroll bar, not good, needs toggle on/off button.
Suggestion: change one and add two new buttons in nav, Toggle caption, toggle info, toggle map.
Could you expand on these? I'm not sure I follow.
The new map falls below the photo info. I including others have minimize the info by removing some items and hiding "Show More".
Works great by not having the scroll bar show.
But with both info and map insures a scroll bar appears. If the map appeared in the info space no scroll should show.
If both were toggle on you'd probably get the scroll, small price to pay for both.
I would assume visitors would scroll photo to photo seeing the caption and map. Photo info not that necessary, but available.
BTW, tho old map in info had an expand view toggle.
@Allen said:
BTW, tho old map in info had an expand view toggle.
We opted to not add the fullscreen view at this time so we could make some of the other improvements that many of you are asking about.
If you expanded the map into a fullscreen view, where would you expect the fullscreen view to appear? On top of the lightbox? Replace the photo to the right of the sidebar? Somewhere else?
I just checked window size to remove the scroll bar. It would take at least an 18" monitor.
That means EVERY laptop will see the scroll bar? I do have an 18" laptop so will check.
Love it but size not made anymore.
Just checked: With my minimized info list, hidden "Show More" and shorten side bar the 18" laptop shows a scroll bar.
@Allen said:
I just checked window size to remove the scroll bar. It would take at least an 18" monitor.
That means EVERY laptop will see the scroll bar? I do have an 18" laptop so will check.
Love it but size not made anymore.
Just checked: With my minimized info list, hidden "Show More" and shorten side bar the 18" laptop shows a scroll bar.
Keep in mind that 1) the 2 most used browsers by your visitors are Chrome and Safari, which have a minimized and customized scrollbar and 2) We'd like to include those customized sidebars on Firefox as well in the future.
In the lightbox map view is there some way to freeze the normal/satellite view and zoom level per session?
This would be really helpful scrolling photos, not having to reset map with each photo.
Out and in of LB resets map.
@Allen said:
BTW, tho old map in info had an expand view toggle.
We opted to not add the fullscreen view at this time so we could make some of the other improvements that many of you are asking about.
If you expanded the map into a fullscreen view, where would you expect the fullscreen view to appear? On top of the lightbox? Replace the photo to the right of the sidebar? Somewhere else?
There was not a full screen but an expanded view overlay in the gallery.
Maybe clicking "expand arrows" to temporary open overlay, then hitting X it returns to normal lightbox view. That's how the one in the gallery works. It should do just like the gallery one does.
Using the Smug app on iPhone 8+
The landscape photo, rotated phone, shows a gradient dark area at bottom all photos, Why?
Firefox and Safari on iPhone 8+ do not show this gradient dark area.
Phone in vertical and rotated views shown below.
Edit: noticed in Firefox and Safari the first line of the caption does not show like in the Smugmug app.
The app and mobile web use different interfaces. In the future we're looking to have similar experiences between app and mWeb but for now they'll use separate interfaces.
Based on wonderful feedback from many of you (and many others who took the time to write in on our blog, to our heroes, etc): we'll be bringing back at least 1 line of the caption below the title on top of the photo. Longer captions can be read by clicking to open the sidebar.
@leftquark said:
Based on wonderful feedback from many of you (and many others who took the time to write in on our blog, to our heroes, etc): we'll be bringing back at least 1 line of the caption below the title on top of the photo. Longer captions can be read by clicking to open the sidebar.
Yeah!
And I didn't even have time to send the large bribe I was considering.
I wouldn't mind if the "CAMERA INFO" and "LOCATION" titles could be clicked to expand/collapse its info.
Seems like the easiest way to implement hide/show.
But, how would visitors realize this action
Maybe? CAMERA INFO open/close LOCATION open/close
Of course, it should remain in state manually set. Out and in resets both to hide.
@leftquark said:
Based on wonderful feedback from many of you (and many others who took the time to write in on our blog, to our heroes, etc): we'll be bringing back at least 1 line of the caption below the title on top of the photo. Longer captions can be read by clicking to open the sidebar.
Please make it possible to display the title but not the caption when both are available, either by a switch somewhere or by suitable class structure so the user can hide just the caption.
@leftquark said:
Based on wonderful feedback from many of you (and many others who took the time to write in on our blog, to our heroes, etc): we'll be bringing back at least 1 line of the caption below the title on top of the photo. Longer captions can be read by clicking to open the sidebar.
I'm assuming that if "Show Camera Info is turned OFF in the Organizer > Gallery > Appearance Settings", and a guest clicks on view photo details, they will not see two captions (one in the photo details and one underneath the photo) right?
@hadron said:
I'm assuming that if "Show Camera Info is turned OFF in the Organizer > Gallery > Appearance Settings", and a guest clicks on view photo details, they will not see two captions (one in the photo details and one underneath the photo) right?
Regardless of the “Show Camera Info” setting, as soon as you click on the Title/Caption on top of the photo, the sidebar will open and the title/caption on top of the photo will disappear, in favor of the TItle/Caption in the sidebar. There will not be duplicate Titles/Captions.
Over the last week, I've been in the process of putting up a series of new galleries. I have a suggestion for adjusting the new lightbox that would improve my workflow. SmugMug folks, at least consider this.
Background first. My workflow typically involves writing captions in Lightroom, publishing, editing them in SmugMug, and syncing the updated captions back to Lightroom. As I've noted before, for me individual pictures and individual captions do not stand alone. They are part of larger story line that moves from picture to picture and spans the gallery. Seeing the whole story line together, as I can in my adjusted collage landscape display with large images and room for five line captions, helps me view and work the story flow. I sometimes find I need to edit a picture's caption based on what's before or after. I sometimes even move a sentence or two from one picture to another. The browser display also flags spelling errors and offers suggestions with a right click. Lightroom does not. Anyway, this process means there's lots of bouncing around from collage landscape view ... to editing a picture caption in the lightbox ... back to collage landscape view ... to editing another a picture caption in the lightbox ... and so on.
The new lightbox lengthens that process a little. With the old lightbox, the in-and-out steps looked like this: from the collage landscape view move to the lightbox by clicking the image, mouse to the caption and click, edit, click to exit, click the big X to return to the collage landscape display. Five steps. Today, it's six: from the collage landscape view move to the lightbox by clicking the image, bring up the details panel, click edit, edit, click save, click the big X to return to the collage landscape display. Besides the extra step, it just feels like there is more moving around the screen.
So, what would help me on this? Have the lightbox remember its state on exit to the collage display (i.e., the photo details panel was open) and return to that state when next moving back to the lightbox from that gallery's collage display. I'd still prefer to have the photo details panel open as the default, but this "remembered state" approach would at least address my gallery development workflow issues. It might even help the flow for someone looking at my galleries if they like to do the back-and-forth stuff too. As I said, consider it.
On a tangential note, let me call out one way the new lightbox offers a big advantage over the old for editing captions. I noted I like to right click to get caption editing suggestions. In the old lightbox that didn't work if the right click message was on for that gallery. (Yes, it's easily circumvented protection, but it does remind the honest to remain honorable.) Now that process works even for those right-click protected galleries since the caption area is away from the protected picture.
@Jtring said: So, what would help me on this? Have the lightbox remember its state on exit to the collage display (i.e., the photo details panel was open) and return to that state when next moving back to the lightbox from that gallery's collage display. I'd still prefer to have the photo details panel open as the default, but this "remembered state" approach would at least address my gallery development workflow issues. It might even help the flow for someone looking at my galleries if they like to do the back-and-forth stuff too. As I said, consider it.
For context, we added the extra "Edit Details" button based on observing a significant number of SM'ers who were trying to copy their Titles/Captions but ran into frustration of getting into "edit" mode. The extra step was added to make it easier to do those actions. Modern usability accepts 1 extra click, if that click is near the area of focus and easily identifiable.
That feedback is helpful. As we iterated on the Lightbox one of the designs that was live in the Organizer for a little while did remember the state of the captions if the Lightbox was re-opened. We opted to simplify and gather data to see if y'all would want the last state to be remembered and we're monitoring that as a potential solution in the future.
One thing that would help your current workflow is to know we've hooked up various keyboard shortcuts. When the LB launches you can press "e" to jump right into edit mode (it'll save you a click), and you can press the "return" key to save, as well as the "x" key to close the LB and return to the Collage. We had planned to have a window that opens to explain all the keyboard shortcuts but opted to launch the new LB, as soon as possible, without waiting to build that.
Like you, I also run into this same frustration with captions in LR. What I do is open a text editor next to LR and type my captions into there. A quick select-all, copy, and then keyboard shortcut to switch back to LR, and paste, does the trick. It's been pretty simple and painless, other than being annoyed at LR for not having spell checking and a bigger space to enter captions.
Another idea that I've tossed around is to let you choose, per gallery, the launch state of the Lightbox. On Monday we'll be releasing a gallery setting called Commerce Focused Lightbox (under the "Appearance" tab of Gallery Settings), with an ON/OFF toggle. When set to ON, the Lightbox will launch with the shopping cart already opened, helping show off which products are available for sale. We expect this will help all of you sell more photos. I've considered expanding this to allow you to choose which functionality the LB launches into, whether it's the photo-only mode, the commerce mode, the photo details mode, sharing, or commenting.
Taking that even further we could have a "Lightbox Style" selector which could auto-apply some of the CSS customizations in the other thread. But now I'm just letting my imagination run free. There's a few things we'd like to build for all of you before getting to something like this.
One thing that would help your current workflow is to know we've hooked up various keyboard shortcuts. When the LB launches you can press "e" to jump right into edit mode (it'll save you a click), and you can press the "return" key to save, as well as the "x" key to close the LB and return to the Collage. We had planned to have a window that opens to explain all the keyboard shortcuts but opted to launch the new LB, as soon as possible, without waiting to build that.
The "e" shortcut works (I like it), but the "x" does not work.
Also, "i" turns Captions On/Off, and "f" seems to On Full Screen. (The full screen Arrows in the upper left get out of sync when using the shortcut, ESC, and clicking on the arrows after using the "f" shortcut.)
Comments
Are there any plans to fix the scaling when someone clicks to zoom on an image whilst in the lightbox?
I have my images set to X4 iPad res and they look fine and detailed scaled down to fit in the lightbox, but if I check the site when logged out, load an image in the lightbox and then press to zoom in on the photo it turns into a pixelated mess!
Follow me on:
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**I really hate the absence of the image size selector. **
What used to be a one-click operation (not trivial, but at least teachable) is now multi-click action including copy-paste and opening another tab or window.
A lot of my clients operate on phones only, so for them, the chance to get the size they want is now super difficult.
I myself used the image size selector daily to provide an appropriate resolution for my daily image posts. Now all of a sudden it's a chore.
Considering the fact there is a ton of space on that new action palette on the left, I am definitely in favor of bringing the size selector back, even if it opens the chosen size in another tab/window.
Thank you for your consideration!
I second that.
My Website index | My Blog
The removal of the sizes button came directly from feedback and usage from all of you. Overall, very few SmugMug customers used the sizes button, and your visitors used them even less. When we investigated why usage was so low we found that most of you and your visitors were using it to zoom into the photo. It was a really bad experience for zooming, so we implemented a better zooming feature in the new Lightbox.
The other scenario we saw is that people used it to download a different size photo, but it wasn't a particularly great way to download photos either (you had to ignore the big "download" button on the photo, ensure "Right Click Message" was turned OFF, then hope your visitor knew to right-click on a photo and choose "Save image..."). We believe the better way to do this will be to expand the download button to allow you and your visitors to select the size. This is something we'd like to add in the future (though I don't have a date at this time).
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
I see your not listening again. You new suggestion would be very time consuming doing one photo at a time.
Actually it was a great way, nothing comes close, to very quickly get any a size you wanted. You could set a size and zoom photo to photo dragging a photo on desktop or folder. Nothing is needed but the image, EXIF or nothing. It is for clean posting in Facebook. etc.
My Website index | My Blog
If I'm not understanding the outcomes you're trying to achieve ("I'd like to easily download a smaller size" and "I'd like to be able to zoom in on a particular part of a photo to enjoy it more") I'd love to know what I'm not understanding. Could you expand on this? Is it that I'm not listening or we have different opinions on how to solve the use-cases you are trying to solve?
Dragging a photo to a folder or desktop is not very intuitive or quick. It requires you to either have 2 monitors, or 1) shrink the window size down such that you have a space to drag to... 2) then you have to click and hold your mouse, 3) while moving the mouse across the screen, potentially to the complete other side of it, 4) then let go, 5) bring the mouse back to your browser window, 6) click to the next photo and repeat. As photos build up, you have less space to drag to, so you may have to 7) go back to your other window and make some draggable room. It involves the mouse moving back and forth across the screen quite considerably and involves clicking from one photo to the next.
If you instead use the right-click method, then you'd have to 1) realize that you can even right click on the photo, or in many cases, get told you can't right click on the photo because its protected by the Right-Click Message, 2) right-click, 3) click on "Save as..." and 4) choose where to save it, then 5) browse to the next photo.
What we're proposing is 1) Click on download, 2) Select a size 3) choose where to save it. 4) browse to the next photo (which can be done with the arrow keys on your keyboard, since your hand is already there).. It's 1 step less and avoids any confusion on whether the photo is right-click protected or not.
Both methods you've mentioned require more steps, would take more action by the user, and aren't as robust with all of the settings that people use within SmugMug.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
Looks good but the new map view in lightbox needs a zoom up feature.
Also insures there is scroll bar, not good, needs toggle on/off button.
Suggestion: change one and add two new buttons in nav, Toggle caption, toggle info, toggle map.
Map would fit nice in info space when info is off
My Website index | My Blog
If a photo had GPS coordinates in the metadata, the map will now be displayed in the Photo Details sidebar
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
Could you expand on these? I'm not sure I follow.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
The new map falls below the photo info. I including others have minimize the info by removing some items and hiding "Show More".
Works great by not having the scroll bar show.
But with both info and map insures a scroll bar appears. If the map appeared in the info space no scroll should show.
If both were toggle on you'd probably get the scroll, small price to pay for both.
I would assume visitors would scroll photo to photo seeing the caption and map. Photo info not that necessary, but available.
BTW, tho old map in info had an expand view toggle.
My Website index | My Blog
We opted to not add the fullscreen view at this time so we could make some of the other improvements that many of you are asking about.
If you expanded the map into a fullscreen view, where would you expect the fullscreen view to appear? On top of the lightbox? Replace the photo to the right of the sidebar? Somewhere else?
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
I just checked window size to remove the scroll bar. It would take at least an 18" monitor.
That means EVERY laptop will see the scroll bar? I do have an 18" laptop so will check.
Love it but size not made anymore.
Just checked: With my minimized info list, hidden "Show More" and shorten side bar the 18" laptop shows a scroll bar.
My Website index | My Blog
Keep in mind that 1) the 2 most used browsers by your visitors are Chrome and Safari, which have a minimized and customized scrollbar and 2) We'd like to include those customized sidebars on Firefox as well in the future.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
In the lightbox map view is there some way to freeze the normal/satellite view and zoom level per session?
This would be really helpful scrolling photos, not having to reset map with each photo.
Out and in of LB resets map.
My Website index | My Blog
There was not a full screen but an expanded view overlay in the gallery.
Maybe clicking "expand arrows" to temporary open overlay, then hitting X it returns to normal lightbox view. That's how the one in the gallery works. It should do just like the gallery one does.
My Website index | My Blog
Using the Smug app on iPhone 8+
The landscape photo, rotated phone, shows a gradient dark area at bottom all photos, Why?
Firefox and Safari on iPhone 8+ do not show this gradient dark area.
Phone in vertical and rotated views shown below.
Edit: noticed in Firefox and Safari the first line of the caption does not show like in the Smugmug app.
My Website index | My Blog
The app and mobile web use different interfaces. In the future we're looking to have similar experiences between app and mWeb but for now they'll use separate interfaces.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
Based on wonderful feedback from many of you (and many others who took the time to write in on our blog, to our heroes, etc): we'll be bringing back at least 1 line of the caption below the title on top of the photo. Longer captions can be read by clicking to open the sidebar.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
Please give us the option to remove the zoom feature if we do not want it. Many of us do not.
Yeah!
And I didn't even have time to send the large bribe I was considering.
I wouldn't mind if the "CAMERA INFO" and "LOCATION" titles could be clicked to expand/collapse its info.
Seems like the easiest way to implement hide/show.
But, how would visitors realize this action
Maybe?
CAMERA INFO open/close
LOCATION open/close
Of course, it should remain in state manually set. Out and in resets both to hide.
My Website index | My Blog
Please make it possible to display the title but not the caption when both are available, either by a switch somewhere or by suitable class structure so the user can hide just the caption.
I'm assuming that if "Show Camera Info is turned OFF in the Organizer > Gallery > Appearance Settings", and a guest clicks on view photo details, they will not see two captions (one in the photo details and one underneath the photo) right?
Now that this is live why are our gallery customizations not picked up in Organizer?
Another oddity, why in Chrome is the photo is showing a different ratio? Stretched wider.
Chrome left, Firefox right. Both portraits.
My Website index | My Blog
Regardless of the “Show Camera Info” setting, as soon as you click on the Title/Caption on top of the photo, the sidebar will open and the title/caption on top of the photo will disappear, in favor of the TItle/Caption in the sidebar. There will not be duplicate Titles/Captions.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
Over the last week, I've been in the process of putting up a series of new galleries. I have a suggestion for adjusting the new lightbox that would improve my workflow. SmugMug folks, at least consider this.
Background first. My workflow typically involves writing captions in Lightroom, publishing, editing them in SmugMug, and syncing the updated captions back to Lightroom. As I've noted before, for me individual pictures and individual captions do not stand alone. They are part of larger story line that moves from picture to picture and spans the gallery. Seeing the whole story line together, as I can in my adjusted collage landscape display with large images and room for five line captions, helps me view and work the story flow. I sometimes find I need to edit a picture's caption based on what's before or after. I sometimes even move a sentence or two from one picture to another. The browser display also flags spelling errors and offers suggestions with a right click. Lightroom does not. Anyway, this process means there's lots of bouncing around from collage landscape view ... to editing a picture caption in the lightbox ... back to collage landscape view ... to editing another a picture caption in the lightbox ... and so on.
The new lightbox lengthens that process a little. With the old lightbox, the in-and-out steps looked like this: from the collage landscape view move to the lightbox by clicking the image, mouse to the caption and click, edit, click to exit, click the big X to return to the collage landscape display. Five steps. Today, it's six: from the collage landscape view move to the lightbox by clicking the image, bring up the details panel, click edit, edit, click save, click the big X to return to the collage landscape display. Besides the extra step, it just feels like there is more moving around the screen.
So, what would help me on this? Have the lightbox remember its state on exit to the collage display (i.e., the photo details panel was open) and return to that state when next moving back to the lightbox from that gallery's collage display. I'd still prefer to have the photo details panel open as the default, but this "remembered state" approach would at least address my gallery development workflow issues. It might even help the flow for someone looking at my galleries if they like to do the back-and-forth stuff too. As I said, consider it.
On a tangential note, let me call out one way the new lightbox offers a big advantage over the old for editing captions. I noted I like to right click to get caption editing suggestions. In the old lightbox that didn't work if the right click message was on for that gallery. (Yes, it's easily circumvented protection, but it does remind the honest to remain honorable.) Now that process works even for those right-click protected galleries since the caption area is away from the protected picture.
For context, we added the extra "Edit Details" button based on observing a significant number of SM'ers who were trying to copy their Titles/Captions but ran into frustration of getting into "edit" mode. The extra step was added to make it easier to do those actions. Modern usability accepts 1 extra click, if that click is near the area of focus and easily identifiable.
That feedback is helpful. As we iterated on the Lightbox one of the designs that was live in the Organizer for a little while did remember the state of the captions if the Lightbox was re-opened. We opted to simplify and gather data to see if y'all would want the last state to be remembered and we're monitoring that as a potential solution in the future.
One thing that would help your current workflow is to know we've hooked up various keyboard shortcuts. When the LB launches you can press "e" to jump right into edit mode (it'll save you a click), and you can press the "return" key to save, as well as the "x" key to close the LB and return to the Collage. We had planned to have a window that opens to explain all the keyboard shortcuts but opted to launch the new LB, as soon as possible, without waiting to build that.
Like you, I also run into this same frustration with captions in LR. What I do is open a text editor next to LR and type my captions into there. A quick select-all, copy, and then keyboard shortcut to switch back to LR, and paste, does the trick. It's been pretty simple and painless, other than being annoyed at LR for not having spell checking and a bigger space to enter captions.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
Another idea that I've tossed around is to let you choose, per gallery, the launch state of the Lightbox. On Monday we'll be releasing a gallery setting called
Commerce Focused Lightbox(under the "Appearance" tab of Gallery Settings), with an ON/OFF toggle. When set to ON, the Lightbox will launch with the shopping cart already opened, helping show off which products are available for sale. We expect this will help all of you sell more photos. I've considered expanding this to allow you to choose which functionality the LB launches into, whether it's the photo-only mode, the commerce mode, the photo details mode, sharing, or commenting.Taking that even further we could have a "Lightbox Style" selector which could auto-apply some of the CSS customizations in the other thread. But now I'm just letting my imagination run free. There's a few things we'd like to build for all of you before getting to something like this.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
The "e" shortcut works (I like it), but the "x" does not work.
Also, "i" turns Captions On/Off, and "f" seems to On Full Screen. (The full screen Arrows in the upper left get out of sync when using the shortcut, ESC, and clicking on the arrows after using the "f" shortcut.)