Unexpected behavior from custom page with unlisted galleries

olegos

All I'm trying to do is to replicate the functionality that used to be available with Sharegroups: share a set of unlisted galleries (available to "Anyone with a link") together, as a collection, which I can keep modifying later. For example: send "My family trips" link to my parents.

I thought I found a solution: create a custom page (I have a Power account), put Galleries content block in it, pick the galleries, set the page's access to "Anyone with a link", and share the page by a link. Did that, can see the page the way I want it, quite nicely, with the "View on site" button, and it says "Accessible by anyone with the invitation" at the top. Beautiful.

Except it turns out that when I'm not logged in, none of the galleries show up on the page. I've emailed the Heroes, and a helpful one replied that this behavior is by design, and the galleries need to be made public to show up. If so, my opinion is that the design is wrong. I should be able to put non-public galleries on a non-public page, and have it viewable by those who are allowed access to both the page and the galleries on it. (This is how it used to be with Sharegroups.)

By the way, as an experiment, I made a test page with a couple of galleries, all of which I shared to "people I choose". Seems that the account to which they're shared can see the page with the galleries properly. I could live with that, if only I could choose both: "by link" and "by specific people" for a gallery, not only one or the other. (Though having to accept an invitation to each gallery individually is not pleasant...)

If there's another solution for this problem, I'm listening. As it is, I'm almost ready to start creating web pages on my web server with links to the galleries, which is a shame, with all these tools available within Smugmug, and me paying for a Power account.