Confusing Categories & Subcategories
skube
Registered Users Posts: 6 Beginner grinner
Hi there, I am new to the whole Smugmug experience and have so far found it interesting, albeit a tad confusing at times. I'll save my UI gripes for another thread, but I did want to voice my comments regarding the whole Categories/SubCategories/Galleries thing.
From what I've read on this forum, there have been some concerns regarding having too many categories or perhaps not enough for power users. Myself, I have found setting up categories and having to decide which photos should go where, confusing and somewhat limiting.
Looking at the web today, Google is undeniably the dominating search engine. It surpassed long ago other heavy weights such as Yahoo. Comparing Yahoo and Google - one has a Category/Subcategory model several times deep while the other is basically flat and simple. Some web experts are now agreeing that the future of successful websites hinges on fast, accurate searching and that the traditional menus may be a thing of the past.
Smugmug seems to be taking a hybrid approach, offering the ability to both categorize as well as to search. Logical, perhaps in the beginning, but short sighted in the long run. My suggestion would be to focus on one method and excel. Looking at the immensely successful Google, I think the choice is obvious. Why should one be forced into categorizing every photo, when Keywords are implicitly doing this? Looking for recent photos, Timeline is there. Looking for a John Doe's birthday photo shot in 1999, then Search.
Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to the benefits of categories. Although, I think if Smugmug is all about simplicity and ease-of use, then there is nothing more simple than asking what someone wants and then giving it to them.
From what I've read on this forum, there have been some concerns regarding having too many categories or perhaps not enough for power users. Myself, I have found setting up categories and having to decide which photos should go where, confusing and somewhat limiting.
Looking at the web today, Google is undeniably the dominating search engine. It surpassed long ago other heavy weights such as Yahoo. Comparing Yahoo and Google - one has a Category/Subcategory model several times deep while the other is basically flat and simple. Some web experts are now agreeing that the future of successful websites hinges on fast, accurate searching and that the traditional menus may be a thing of the past.
Smugmug seems to be taking a hybrid approach, offering the ability to both categorize as well as to search. Logical, perhaps in the beginning, but short sighted in the long run. My suggestion would be to focus on one method and excel. Looking at the immensely successful Google, I think the choice is obvious. Why should one be forced into categorizing every photo, when Keywords are implicitly doing this? Looking for recent photos, Timeline is there. Looking for a John Doe's birthday photo shot in 1999, then Search.
Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to the benefits of categories. Although, I think if Smugmug is all about simplicity and ease-of use, then there is nothing more simple than asking what someone wants and then giving it to them.
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Comments
You do not have to use categories at all. On your homepage, simply display via galleries if you like. You can ignore categories. It's your choice. And especially since you are keywording everything, you can, as you say, find by keywords or even timeline.
I hope this helps
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
To me, this mean you must use Categories. If I find it confusing, I assume there are others out there as well...
OK well, technically everything goes in a category - but that doesn't mean you have to use it
Sorry for the confusion.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Also, the (not used) category is still going to appear in the breadcrumb whether I like it or not, correct?
Btw, I like the way you've setup you Moon Photography site.
Thanks!
It'll be in the breadcrumb unless you are a power or pro user, you can turn the breadcrumb off, via customization. And use navbar links, instead.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
You could easily create a category called Galleries, and put all your albums in that.
Cheers,
David
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
Also I have to agree with you that the keywords offers a way to do pseudo-heirarchy. I would love to see this expanded by smugmug to allow the keword pages to have the ability to act like other galleries in that they would allow the owner the option of setting a specific gallery style (or allow a viewer controlled gallery style) and allow comments to http://username.smugmug.com/keyword/term galleries (although I'm not sure how they'd do this or if it'd really be possible at all).
But the good news for you is that you most certainly can customize your keyword galleries using CSS all you want. Simply go to one of your keyword galleries and then look at the body tag. The body tag will have a unique class for whatever keywords you used to access that page which you can then use to specify CSS styles for that page.
Very, very neat. I for one would like to set up my page using keyword galleries mostly but it'll take some time to rearrange them. If you decide to do this let us know so we can look at it to see how you did it.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/