Lightbox Discussion Thread

eti

In Smugmug I always use the "all thumbs" view so from an album of, say, 200 pictures I can pick ten that I want to view larger.

I click all of these with my middle button so they open in new tabs (Firefox). They load in the background and I keep looking through the thumbnails to see if there are others I want to see.

Then I just browse through all my tabs to see them.

Now I can't do that anymore - instead of links to pictures, the thumbnails have become links to Javascript. When clicked, the image will load in the same window, and I have to sit and wait, and then go back, etcetera.

I don't have a clue how others manage to see pictures that way - I can't. Is there any way to return to loading pictures in new tabs (or windows) or are we stuck with Javascript now?

Andy

eti wrote:

In Smugmug I always use the "all thumbs" view so from an album of, say, 200 pictures I can pick ten that I want to view larger.

I click all of these with my middle button so they open in new tabs (Firefox). They load in the background and I keep looking through the thumbnails to see if there are others I want to see.

Then I just browse through all my tabs to see them.

Now I can't do that anymore - instead of links to pictures, the thumbnails have become links to Javascript. When clicked, the image will load in the same window, and I have to sit and wait, and then go back, etcetera.

I don't have a clue how others manage to see pictures that way - I can't. Is there any way to return to loading pictures in new tabs (or windows) or are we stuck with Javascript now?

Hi Eti,
It's our new Lightbox feature.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/viewing-online-photo-albums

I can explain more if you'll give me a gallery link of yours? Thanks.

eti

Andy wrote:

Hi Eti,
It's our new Lightbox feature.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/viewing-online-photo-albums

I can explain more if you'll give me a gallery link of yours? Thanks.

Well, I don't have a Smugmug account, but I do browse other person's albums...

(I might get an account later - but well, not if it looks like this...)

I was just hoping I could turn this Lightbox off, because honestly, with this feature I'll probably just stop visiting Smugmug at all, sorry...

Andy

eti wrote:

Well, I don't have a Smugmug account, but I do browse other person's albums...

(I might get an account later - but well, not if it looks like this...)

I was just hoping I could turn this Lightbox off, because honestly, with this feature I'll probably just stop visiting Smugmug at all, sorry...

I'm sorry to hear that! The old way, Originals popped in a new popup. It was problematic. Lightbox is designed to set one photo off from the rest of the page.

smugbug

But before, you could set Originals as the preferred viewing size while in Thumbs mode (without a popup), and you could view images at original size using the standard navigation. Now Lightbox automatically turns on.

eti

in the old way i could middle click thumbs and they would open in a new tab. nothing would ever pop up.

is there still a way to load 10 pictures (in my preferred size whether that be large or orig never mind) in the background similtaneously? with lightbox i have to go back and forth 10 times.

Andy

eti wrote:

in the old way i could middle click thumbs and they would open in a new tab. nothing would ever pop up.

is there still a way to load 10 pictures (in my preferred size whether that be large or orig never mind) in the background similtaneously? with lightbox i have to go back and forth 10 times.

Depends on how the account owner has set up their site

Andy
www.moonriverphotography.com

renstar

What i am curious about, is.. is anything being done about this? There are more complaints about the way the lightbox works than any other feature that I have seen. Even non-customers are coming here to complain about it. All we get for a response is the same tune.. "That is how it is designed".

I want to know if people's complaints are actually registering or if i should be emailing customer service. Ive started to look around at other services. It is a shame too, because I love the way the rest of the site works and I like the way the printing service is set up.

[rant]As much as AJAX makes things nice, there needs to be an html only way to view everything. AJAX and just about everything else javacript has pretty much ruined browsing from the users perspective. I want things to open in new windows/tabs when I want them to, not when the website designer does. I want things in the same window when I want them there, not when the designer wants. Thats why html is a spec for marking up documents and it is the browsers job to decide how they are rendered, not the designers..[/(idealogous) rant]

Now back to the point. Does smugmug do any sort of user testing of these features before they go live? Or is it all in house? As nice as it is for highlighting one photo, it is incredibly deficient in other areas. This could have been caught earlier. The inability to turn it off on a user by user basis (user as in, those browsing, not those who run the site/the photogs) or the lack of a 'break javascript' feature that lets you open the photo to a stand alone page with more info makes it worse that using frames.. And that doesnt even go anywhere towards the window resizing bug. And that is a bug, not a randomly developed feature or design complaint.

I just get tired of logging in here, reading complaints about it, and feeling like the response from smugmug is sticking fingers in their ears and saying "la la la la la". And that is not a dig at Andy, who is incredibly helpful and does a good job being the face of the company on the internet. It just seems to be the response of the whole company about it (this particular issue at least). It doesnt upset me so much as it frustrates me.

end rant.

DodgeV83

I just did what you described, looked at a gallery in all thumbs and middle clicked on a few photos I want. They all opened and loaded in a new tab...

renstar

DodgeV83 wrote:

I just did what you described, looked at a gallery in all thumbs and middle clicked on a few photos I want. They all opened and loaded in a new tab...

Doesn't do it from the 'normal' view when clicking the larger version of the photo..

Andy

renstar wrote:

end rant. If someone wants to speak with me off board, i can be reached at renstarx >at< gmail >dot< com.

-russ
renstar.smugmug.com

Ouch - I can see you're upset, Russ. I promise you, that all of us read these comments. Keep in mind, we don't say much, if anything about what we're doing with new features before they come out, or changes we may or may not make to the site. We don't preannounce anything. We do, however, read, digest, and listen to every bit of feedback we get, whether it's here on Dgrin or via our helpdesk. And btw, to directly answer your question, you can email help but you'll get the same answer as you do here Either way, it's up to you. Thanks so much for taking the time to post.

Andy

renstar wrote:

Doesn't do it from the 'normal' view when clicking the larger version of the photo..

What's 'normal' to you please? Thanks...

renstar

Andy wrote:

Ouch - I can see you're upset, Russ. I promise you, that all of us read these comments. Keep in mind, we don't say much, if anything about what we're doing with new features before they come out, or changes we may or may not make to the site. We don't preannounce anything. We do, however, read, digest, and listen to every bit of feedback we get, whether it's here on Dgrin or via our helpdesk. And btw, to directly answer your question, you can email help but you'll get the same answer as you do here Either way, it's up to you. Thanks so much for taking the time to post.

As i said, frustrated, not upset (it is hard to distinguish/make distinguishable in text). And i understand that you don't preannounce anything as you dont want to get peoples hopes up if a feature doesnt pan out. That is a smart business decision in my opinion.

As to the semipublic beta thing, i guess that is more of a suggestion. Grab a few users from dgrin, ask them to test out a few ideas, get their feedback, and then roll the feature out live. Make them agree to an NDA or something, who knows, just... something.. heh

Thanks again for your prompt reply Andy, I know it is a late out there in New York.

-russ
renstar.smugmug.com

renstar

Andy wrote:

What's 'normal' to you please? Thanks...

i consider.. i think it is "style: smugmug" as the normal view, as that is the default view that i get in any unconfigured/modified gallery

perhaps the link from the photo should be a non JS link and there should a link to "view in lightbox". I dunno, just spouting ideas so im not just complaining and whining. I'd prefer to at least be constructive if i can

-russ
renstar.smugmug.com

Steve Cavigliano

Russ,
As previously mentioned, this is somewhat of a hot topic. I even went off on it the other day. If there were a way to turn lightbox off, Andy would tell us.

So all we can do is let him know our feelings and hope there is a way they can engineer a win-win solution. Andy busts his butt helping to make SM the best photo-sharing site on the net. He's part of the reason they get such high praise for Customer Service and Support. I trust him to do what can be done about this Even if the answer is, nothing can be done.

If there's a way, they will find it. There are some very talented people at Smugmug Not Andy, but the other guys


Steve

renstar

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Russ,
As previously mentioned, this is somewhat of a hot topic. I even went off on it the other day. If there were a way to turn lightbox off, Andy would tell us.

I know, ive been commenting on it since the feature rolled out..

So all we can do is let him know our feelings and hope there is a way they can engineer a win-win solution. Andy busts his butt helping to make SM the best photo-sharing site on the net. He's part of the reason they get such high praise for Customer Service and Support. I trust him to do what can be done about this Even if the answer is, nothing can be done.

And that is what i have done, and ive acknowledged what he does. With him around, it is nice because we get acknowledgement for our posts. In the old days, the smug muggers didnt have time to respond to everything (which was a huge complaint at the time, albeit not one of mine), so i appreciate what he does. The last part is where we differ, i dont think 'nothing can be done' is an acceptable answer.. though it hasnt been given yet so discussing it is a moot point.

-r

System

Russ, I think your comments are well reasoned, reasonable, and make just plain make sense. You voice my concerns with a technical edge that I don’t have, but in the end, your conclusions are the same as mine. And you have been respectful throughout, that is obvious. SM is lucky to get this kind of feedback. And I think at least Andy is appreciative of this too. Andy is a good guy, there has never been any question about that and never anything in any of your comments that suggest you feel otherwise.

On LightBox, I’m going to give SM a little time to give SM Pro account holders the ablity to disable it altogether. In the meantime, I’m exploring two other options…but I cannot have LB, it completely changes the nature of the viewing experience, especially troubling for Pro users. I just signed three contracts for local sports teams in the Spring season. While most of what I shoot is sold onsite and on CDs, online sales are going to part of this new arrangement (I’ve never focused on web sales before). I need a nice clean interface that makes viewing and buying easy, LB does not help this purpose. So like you, I’m waiting to see what SM is going to do with this. Best and thanks for the good post, Shane

renstar wrote:

I know, ive been commenting on it since the feature rolled out..




And that is what i have done, and ive acknowledged what he does. With him around, it is nice because we get acknowledgement for our posts. In the old days, the smug muggers didnt have time to respond to everything (which was a huge complaint at the time, albeit not one of mine), so i appreciate what he does. The last part is where we differ, i dont think 'nothing can be done' is an acceptable answer.. though it hasnt been given yet so discussing it is a moot point.

-r

dmc

Beta group
I gotta chime in on one point that I agree with. Whenever smugmug makes changes to the way users view pictures, they apparently need a beta test group that is bigger than what they are using now.

For example, I don't like the "processing gears", I think a beta test group would have provided some alternatives for that. (i.e. move them off the picture, leave the old picture on screen until the next one is ready, etc.)

when it comes to the occasionally inefficient interface we use to maintain our smugmug sites, we can deal with that, but if the way users view our pictures changes, and we can't control the change, we will get worked up over it.


FWIW

Andy

Hi Everyone, thanks so much for taking the time to let us know how you feel. We really want it straight from you guys. While we certainly understand and appreciate your feedback, with over 1,000,000 visitors a day to SmugMug, we'd be flooded with similar emails if far and away most folks didn't like the new feature. And remember, LB isn't really designed as much for scrolling, navigating (though it can be done now) but rather, to set one photo off from the rest of the page. And it's overwhelmingly preferred to the old popup windows (though not by you guys posting in this thread, we understand that).

That's not to say that we won't work hard at always improving the customer, vistor and overall user experience. And our engineers read each and ever comments made here.

Thanks again.

smugbug

Another annoying thing - say you're the site owner, and you're in thumbs or traditional viewing mode. You want to do something to a photo (delete, add caption, etc.), but when you click on a photo, Lightbox turns on! Whoops, original size as preferred size was set on. How do you get back to the normal navigation screen, where you can see exif into, get access to photo tools, etc? You must click on "L" or smaller viewing size in Lightbox, THEN exit your gallery and reenter it.

Andy, I hope that when you say that Smugmug engineers are reading these comments, that they are aware that Lightbox has serious flaws that need to be fixed as soon as possible, considering you have paying users. The 10% of people who are Firefox users can't even user Lightbox without their windows resize themselves.

One more thing - just because Lightbox wasn't "intended" as the main viewing mode, doesn't mean visitors won't treat it as it is. And there's no reason why it couldn't be a viable navigation alternative - provided some improvements are made.

Andy

smugbug wrote:

Another annoying thing - say you're the site owner, and you're in thumbs or traditional viewing mode. You want to do something to a photo (delete, add caption, etc.), but when you click on a photo, Lightbox turns on! Whoops, original size as preferred size was set on. How do you get back to the normal navigation screen, where you can see exif into, get access to photo tools, etc? You must click on "L" or smaller viewing size in Lightbox, THEN exit your gallery and reenter it.

Andy, I hope that when you say that Smugmug engineers are reading these comments, that they are aware that Lightbox has serious flaws that need to be fixed as soon as possible, considering you have paying users. The 10% of people who are Firefox users can't even user Lightbox without their windows resize themselves.

One more thing - just because Lightbox wasn't "intended" as the main viewing mode, doesn't mean visitors won't treat it as it is. And there's no reason why it couldn't be a viable navigation alternative - provided some improvements are made.

Hi smugbug,

Thanks for your comments.

Baldy

renstar wrote:

I want to know if people's complaints are actually registering or if i should be emailing customer service.

No worries, we're all over it. We simply want to thoroughly understand the issues so that any improvements we make are not knee-jerk, poorly tested or thought out.

Dunno if you were around when we redesigned SmugMug's look and introduced green font. Some of our customers curled in the fetal position because they hated it so much and to them it seemed it would threaten SmugMug's future, because who would sign up for a service with that hideous green?

Our mistake was to miss the obvious thing we should have done, which was to have a SmugMug classic style at the time we rolled out the green font. Once that was done we were fairly golden because most of the world thought the green was an improvement and it helped us get better reviews and more customers.

To me it looks like we made an obvious mistake with Lightbox, which was to submit our customers with slow connections or who like to see big originals to a long session of gears grinding. Ouch, dunno what we and our testers were thinking. And there are other issues too like no progressive downloads, which we're investigating.

But it's also clear that most of our customers really like it, so we're trying to thoroughly understand the issues and come up with simple solutions.

The simple solutions are, counterintuitively, usually the hardest to think up. Just ask iPod competitors.

BTW, we did Lightbox in response to requests from some of our most respected customers who are thrilled about it, one reason why we're carefully sifting through who likes what under what circumstances.

Whoever suggested publice beta, good idea. We've done that a few times with mixed success, like with the Universal Uploader. Hard to get much usage or bug reporting, tho.

Steve Cavigliano

Chris,
Thanks so much for responding personally

After talking to Andy yesterday, I felt that this issue will get some attention. I'm not sure what can be done, but as I mentioned in my previous post, I have a lot of confidence in the SM tech staff. Just to let you know, this change really bunched my undies...lol

Maybe I can explain where I am coming from. I agree the "pop up" window was passe and a bit hokey. It did have a couple of advantages though. One being that even though you'd see a slowly scrolling image appear, you knew the pic was loading. Second, you could click back on your gallery and do/view other things while the pop up got moved to the back ground to continue loading.

The LB, offers neither of these advantages and I have to tell you the gears are even hokier than the pop-up window, IMO. As I mentioned in another thread, it just seems like an update of the Windows hourglass that everyone hates to see. No scrolling pic loading and the gear animation almost force the viewer to dwell on the load time. Since they really can't do much else on the site while the LB is loading. While I realize that the time it takes to upload a large image for viewing is longer than most people desire and very similar among all sharing sites. IMHO, this is not something SM should be bringing to viewers/customers attention. Either wittingly, or un-wittingly. I fear the blank "loading" page and the gear animation, does just that as the viewer waits 30 seconds +, for an image to appear.

I told Andy that I wasn't embarassed for myself or my galleries, regarding this issue. I was embarassed for SM, which as you know, I tout highly at every opportunity. The gears are something I would expect to find on a site for children, so their attention doesn't wander. Not on a site for Pros and Semi-Pros (granted most Pros don't leave "View Originals" on). Not only don't I think we need this animation, I think we can do, or could have done better :

Public beta sounds fantastic That way people won't have a valid "they sprang this on us with no warning" complaint. It would free up Andy to handle real issues (not saying this issue isn't real).

Thanks again,
Steve

Sigurd

I'll join in saying that I'm not very happy with the lightbox-changes either. It's great that you're adding features and improving the site, but I really don't like that the way my pages are working is suddenly changed without me being able to do anything about it.

Would it not be possible to simply add these features and not replace the way stuff currently works? A couple of checkboxes so that people who wanted the changes could activate them rather than 'forcing' them on everyone?

For my part, I moved my existing gallery over here not long ago and those pictures had already been resized and processed to look just as I wanted to present them on the web. As such, what I'd prefer is a simply thumbnails view that goes directly to a new page with simply the original-size picture on it.

As long as I informed people that they should turn on the 'original' view, this worked perfectly fine the way it was. Now, it's pretty useless to be honest and I've had to ask people who regularly visit my galleries to switch to 'large' instead. For one of the users, the pictures never even loaded but she was left staring at those wheels forever.

My (rather longwinded) point is: I changed from my previous handcoded manually updated web-page to here to make things easier for me. I don't mind the initial customizing and fiddling about, but I do not want to have the 'threat' that things'll suddenly change and I'll have to spend hours and days changing stuff about again.

I'm a boring old git who just want a straightforward, fast gallery with no fancy-schmancy newfangled java-scripts, lightboxes or ghosted backgrounds.

Pretty please with sugar on top?

Andy

Sigurd wrote:

Pretty please with sugar on top?

Welcome to Dgrin, Sigurd! Thanks so very much for taking the time to post - your input is really valuable, and we appreciate it very much.

devbobo

Hi Don/Chris,

I haven't gone through all the threads on this topic, so some of this may be redundant. Here's a list of things, that I believe could be improved in the lightbox...

1. Page resize/offset for FF...this is uglier than some of my hacks...sorry
2. Image scrollbars don't work in FF when using mouse wheel, scrolls the main window instead, seems to work fine in IE.
3. Top alignment of lightbox images, would be much nicer if images were centered vertically, everything is squished up the top.

Hope this is constructive.

David

Baldy

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

this change really bunched my undies...lol

I know... Lessee, which smiles capture how I felt best when I read your post:

rofl

crycrycry

It was so good, I sent it out to every SmugMug internally and we had quite a lively debate about it this a.m.

The suggestion for keyboard shortcuts which sounded so brilliant, we're talking about it. There are some snafus to work through, so no promises. The getting Lightbox when you click on thumbs in all thumbs view, we're investigating, but that could be a bug.

One thing that's very hard to imagine when you hate a feature and you see it being talked about on dgrin, is the people who love it are almost completely unrepresented. We never heard a thing about the Ajax editing of captions & keywords, but people love it.

Our data indicates that a very small fraction of image views are originals and even fewer people go from original to original. The vast majority of our customers are using Lightbox to view larges and are completely in love with it. You just don't hear from them because for them it isn't b0rken.

That isn't to say we don't care about you Steve. You know we do we're just not looking to hurt what's great for 99% of what our customers do as we fix the way you use it.

Thanks,
Chris

Baldy

Sigurd wrote:

not happy

Welcome, Sigurd. Thanks for registering and weighing in on this issue.

Can you be specific about how you use it and what's causing the problems? We want to make sure we understand the steps you're taking. For example, the post about clicking on all-thumbs with preference set to original and opening each thumb in a Firefox tab was very useful to us.

Thanks,
Chris

Steve Cavigliano

Baldy wrote:

I know... Lessee, which smiles capture how I felt best when I read your post:

rofl

crycrycry

It was so good, I sent it out to every SmugMug internally and we had quite a lively debate about it this a.m.

The suggestion for keyboard shortcuts which sounded so brilliant, we're talking about it. There are some snafus to work through, so no promises. The getting Lightbox when you click on thumbs in all thumbs view, we're investigating, but that could be a bug.

One thing that's very hard to imagine when you hate a feature and you see it being talked about on dgrin, is the people who love it are almost completely unrepresented. We never heard a thing about the Ajax editing of captions & keywords, but people love it.

Our data indicates that a very small fraction of image views are originals and even fewer people go from original to original. The vast majority of our customers are using Lightbox to view larges and are completely in love with it. You just don't hear from them because for them it isn't b0rken.

That isn't to say we don't care about you Steve. You know we do we're just not looking to hurt what's great for 99% of what our customers do as we fix the way you use it.

Thanks,
Chris

Thanks for the reply Chris,

Yeah, I came off too strong in my original post on this subject I have been posting some family pics recently and have allowed "View Originals" so family members could D/L and or/print them. Usually, this wouldn't be an issue as other than the occassional "example" shots, I seldom post or link to originals.

Maybe, as another poster mentioned, it was mostly the issue of my gallery changing and me not knowing about it I hate when that happens You guys provide the service, but I believe most users feel that they are "Our" galleries. I'm sure you agree with and appreciate this fact. So even if you can't "tweak" this issue, the Public Beta idea still has lots of merit

And I SM and you guys too.....lol

DavidTO

smugbug wrote:

Another annoying thing - say you're the site owner, and you're in thumbs or traditional viewing mode. You want to do something to a photo (delete, add caption, etc.), but when you click on a photo, Lightbox turns on! Whoops, original size as preferred size was set on. How do you get back to the normal navigation screen, where you can see exif into, get access to photo tools, etc? You must click on "L" or smaller viewing size in Lightbox, THEN exit your gallery and reenter it.

This is not how it works, in my experience. Any view that does not give you access to the photo tools will NOT go through lightbox. It is only after you've had access to those tools to delete, add caption and all that lightbox activates. I really don't see what the problem is here...

devbobo

DavidTO wrote:

This is not how it works, in my experience. Any view that does not give you access to the photo tools will NOT go through lightbox. It is only after you've had access to those tools to delete, add caption and all that lightbox activates. I really don't see what the problem is here...

David,

I can confirm that this weirdness was infact happening. Things worked fine in FF but loaded LB in IE from a gallery in traditional or all-thumbs styles

It seems to be fine now.

David