Gallery Style Screw Up
TipiWalter
Registered Users Posts: 40 Big grins
Man, what a hassle. I have about 200 galleries and all of them changed from Gallery Style Smugmug(Active) to Collage Landscape (Active)(Default) WITH NO WARNING and Without my participation!!!
Now I have to go into each gallery and reset my Gallery Style to the style I want. Signed, Steamed.
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How can I set up Smugmug as my Default Gallery Style????
This help page has info on setting the default gallery style -
https://help.smugmug.com/change-the-look-and-feel-of-my-galleries-H1u4eePyNrM
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Hi @TipiWalter: previously to the change yesterday, there were multiple places that a gallery style could be set (one in the Customizer, one in Gallery Settings), and we've reduced that down to one: gallery style is always set in the gallery settings. We're seeing a very small # of folks get impacted with the issue you're seeing. Typically you could use the Bulk Settings to just change all of them back to SmugMug style in just a few clicks, but we're experiencing a small issue with the Bulk Settings. We hope to have that resolved this afternoon. I'd hang tight until we get the bug fixed and then it should be simple to get your galleries back to 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
Okay thanks. I did something in Apply Presets on one gallery and made Smugmug style my default and it seems to have applied to all galleries . . . maybe.
I also notice this thing came up when researching the problem and I can't find it anywhere on my Smugmug site. I really like to change the Viewer Controlled gallery style---if I even have it.
I'm pretty sure that is no longer an option, can't remember when it was removed.
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Thanks, guys.
Is there still a way to change the default gallery style which has now been (re-)set to Collage Landscape? The link Denise posted doesn't reflect the latest change. That line for setting the default gallery style is gone. Yes, it's possible to change gallery style for all the usual galleries directly one at a time or via the bulk setting tool, but the default style -- and only the default style -- defines the display for the system-generated galleries which hold the results from a keyword or a date search. On my site, I use Collage Landscape for most of my galleries, so the new default is fine. However, I prefer the SmugMug style for these two system-generated "results" galleries since that style makes it easier to bounce through lots of images if you are looking for something in particular. To do so I had kept the default at SmugMug style while changing almost all the galleries I post to Collage Landscape.
So ... with the latest change, it would seem that either the concept of "default" needs to be settable by the user or there needs to be a way to specify the style for those system-generated keyword and date search results galleries. (I guess the same applies to one's "Popular" gallery, per the comment on another thread, although I don't use that much.)
Ah, that's the answer to my problem, except it took me a while to work through it. Here, I think, is how things work.
The default gallery style now appears to be defined by the style in the default gallery preset. My default preset used Collage Landscape, so with the latest change, that became my default style. If I change my default preset to one with SmugMug style -- I created one for the purpose -- then the default style changes to SmugMug. Those system-generated keyword, date, and popular galleries then come out in SmugMug style. The gallery style identified as "default" on the drop down lists in the Organizer and under the Customize button reverts to "SmugMug". If no default preset is specified, the default gallery style reverts to SmugMug too, and in that case the Gallery Preset line shows "SmugMug Settings" when creating a new gallery. So, for me, changing the default preset in Account Settings to one using SmugMug style solved my problem. That appears to be what you (@TipiWalter) did as well.
None of this new behavior is documented in the SmugMug help. The page Denise referenced and probably the whole discussion of presets needs a refresh.
You haven't. The tools for changing gallery style in the Customizer are still there. What's gone is the line at the top of the gallery controls box inside the Customize/Content and Design display that changes the default. What's new is the method of setting that default via the default preset. I do agree it makes sense to get the whole gallery style business out of the depths of Customize/Content and Design, but that's not what been done. (Consider getting the controls in the Lightbox tab out of there too.)
Yep -- we're working our way through getting as much out of the hidden depths of the Customizer and into more obvious places. But we're doing it in pieces so we can focus on the bigger impact items that a majority of folks will benefit from (very few customers customize the Lightbox, for example).
Setting the Gallery Style is always done in Gallery Settings. The "default style" is controlled by the Default Preset, as you found.
The "Gallery" customizations in the Customizer shouldn't change the style set on a gallery -- it just lets you customize the look of that style should you go into the gallery settings and change it. For example, if the Gallery Style is set to "SmugMug" in the Gallery settings, going into the Customizer and changing things for "Collage Landscape" won't change the display of the gallery or set it to Collage. You'll need to set the gallery style to Collage in the Settings, and then the display changes will take effect.
I'll bump the request to update the help pages.
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'm going around in circles trying to understand all this double talk about the default gallery style setting. To me, it should be a site wide setting, not something set in any individual gallery.
I think we need two default gallery style settings. One for the service galleries, popular, keyword, date, etc. that we have no individual control over. Then another for all the user created galleries.
My Website index | My Blog
I'm still not tracking the all logic of what you are doing. As far as I can tell, the only place to change the defaults associated with a particular style now is in the deeply buried Gallery box inside Customize/Content and Design for a gallery. Given the desire to get things "out of the hidden depths of the Customer" that seems odd. Getting that default definition function into the first level of choices in the Customize drop-down would seem more consistent with what you've written about. I'll note I'm good with the current ability to set gallery style in Customize/Gallery Style, even if it is redundant with tools in the Organizer. Perhaps that and gallery default definition could be combined?
Does customizing a particular gallery style (ex: changing the spacing between photos in Collage Landscape) feel like customization (and therefore in the "Customize" menu)?
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
It does. But the issue seems to me is that it feels like a global customization, not customization local to the gallery up at the time. Hence my suggestion that it be at the top level of the Customization menu in the header bar, not tucked inside Customize/Content and Design. The latter is where you go for local customization: working the gallery at hand or working the gallery template (which applies only to galleries still on the template). It seems really odd to do a global customization task by first digging into guts of the customization process of an individual gallery. The other place you've tucked global things like this might be in Account Settings. That's where the presets have landed.
Let me follow up a little bit on yesterday's comment. I gave immediate sense of how I felt about the issue. My response, as it turns out, was based on a misunderstanding of how those controls worked. With a little more exploration and follow-on thinking today, I see the complexities here.
First of all, only today, after doing a bit more exploring, did I realize that changes to the Gallery and Lightbox tabs inside Customize/Content and Design apply to just that gallery (if it is off the template) or to the gallery template (if it is on). I had thought they propagated everywhere. Since I think of Customize/Content and Design as the place to work individual content blocks, a control that did global propagation didn't fit. When I worked out how they actually function, putting them inside the Customizer sort of works if you view the big gallery block or the lightbox as just one more content block on a gallery-type page.
The problem, for me at least, is that the gallery block and the lightbox are so integral to a gallery-type page that it's hard to think about them as just another content block. Adjustments here really do feel like ones to the larger structure of the gallery, more akin to those in the Gallery Settings box. And that's accessible in the Organizer and at the top level of the Customize drop down, not under Customize/Content and Design. Hence my thought of putting that tab in one or both of those places. But, as I now see and as Hamlet mused, there's a rub. Putting them in with the other gallery-level controls would break the linkage between these controls and the template structure. If you did so, you would have to define a different mechanism for defining default properties and individual-gallery exceptions. (One option might be to expand what's in the presets and the scope of settings (regular and bulk) in Gallery Settings. Instead of using presets there might be some sort of default dialog box. Or ... or ... or.)
I'm far from sure what's best here. I know finding those deeply buried tabs has been an issue for others. Even with plenty of experience, I missed the logic of how they worked. But extracting them may prove painful.
Anybody else on Dgrin have thoughts?
You're not wrong. Burying all of these things inside the Customizer makes them hard to find and often unused. We'd like to find better places for them.
And I think your original view of how it worked was correct. When you have the Customizer set to "All Galleries", then you're Customizing how the particular gallery style will appear on all galleries. Only when you set a gallery to "Just this gallery" will those gallery customizations apply to that specific gallery.
It's confusing as all can be, and one of our goals is to simplify it, at some point. We're tackling it in pieces.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
Do double check by trying it out yourself. It looks to me that if I go to a gallery that is off the template, move the indicator up to All Galleries, make a setting change, and do a Publish, then that change ends up being applies to galleries on the template but not those off. Real oddly, if the gallery I started from is off-template, it shows the change before I hit Publish then reverts after.
In any case, I'm in for simplification, subject to my comment on the other thread about seeing story telling (via pictures and their associated words) as being my reason for being here.
I keep seeing the word "template" being used. Is this some new term someone dreamed up because I've never seen it in the past?
I'm assuming it is the term for the default gallery setting. The setting that all newly created galleries and services galleries use?
My Website index | My Blog
Your assumption is correct. I was using "Gallery Template" it for the default gallery layout that shows up in the Customizer when you select "All Galleries". Likewise the "All Folders" setting is the folder template and the "Entire Site" is the site template.
While there's plenty of room for confusion with the word "template", it's not new in this context. Scan through old Dgrin posts and you'll see "template" used in this way, going back at least to the SmugMug design update in 2013. That's especially the case in conjunction with creating an "All Pages" setting in the Customizer, a "page template". See, for example, https://dgrin.com/discussion/comment/1984464. I think the words were more common in the official SmugMug documentation in the past, but there is still some reference to "template" as the status of the layout under "All Galleries" or "All Folders". See, for example, https://help.smugmug.com/fine-tune-my-design-with-content-blocks-HJ37leDJVrG. SmugMug documentation seems to be moving toward using the word "template" in association with presets, although presets don't deal with layout. And then, of course, there are "Site Templates", which are a different beasts altogether.
Preset = a specific set of gallery settings that can be saved. Formerly called "Quick Settings"
Template (or Site Template) = the specific pre-built design that sets the layout of your website, including your homepage, all folders, all galleries. Formerly called "Site Design"
Page Template = a pre-built page (webpage), used to create an "About Me", "Services", "Portfolio", or "Pricing" page.
Former SmugMug Product Team
aaron AT aaronmphotography DOT com
Website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com
My SmugMug CSS Customizations website: http://www.aaronmphotography.com/Customizations
Similarly: when you press DONE, could there be a pop-up box that says
--> "Apply changes to all galleries with current style [name of style]? APPLY / CANCEL."
A few changes in language like this might go a long way toward clarifying what is being changed.