SmugMug Feature Requests #5

Andy

Please put your feature requests in this thread.

Occasionally we will move a thread, or posts from a thread, to here, for the sake of having everything in one place. Thanks in advance for your input and telling us like it is!

Here are the prior two FR Threads, for reference:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=23482
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=1349

jh4wvu

Feature Request
As discussed in the Smugmug has some shoes to fill thread...would add a lot to Smugmug.

1. Package pricing/volume discounts (for one or multiple photos)
2. digital downloads
3. Customized Watermarking
4. Discount coupons

dmc

Virtual Galleries
Virtual Galleries via keyword url

1) Create new Gallery
2) select "virtual" option
3) 2 sources
--keyword : enter keyword url (enter url ie "mysite.smugmug.com/keyword/mom")
--shortcut : point to existing gallery (to duplicate it)
4) move it around your site just like a real gallery

that's it, a nice gallery of mom pics.

Cindy

dmc wrote:

Virtual Galleries via keyword url

1) Create new Gallery
2) select "virtual" option
3) 2 sources
--keyword : enter keyword url (enter url ie "mysite.smugmug.com/keyword/mom")
--shortcut : point to existing gallery (to duplicate it)
4) move it around your site just like a real gallery

that's it, a nice gallery of mom pics.

Hey I really like your idea. I've set up galleries with keywords but would like to add one more to your idea above to perfect it... Enable bulk adding these virtual galleries to the cart. Currently it's impossible so parents ordering pics tagged with their kids names for example have to click each individual keyworded picture to add to cart... if they click bulk add it takes them to add the gallery of the actual photo being viewed when clicked (such as in smugmug style). Hope that makes since :-)

Andy

dmc wrote:

Virtual Galleries via keyword url

1) Create new Gallery
2) select "virtual" option
3) 2 sources
--keyword : enter keyword url (enter url ie "mysite.smugmug.com/keyword/mom")
--shortcut : point to existing gallery (to duplicate it)
4) move it around your site just like a real gallery

that's it, a nice gallery of mom pics.

The virtual keyworded gallery has been posted and noted in the prior thread.

But a question - you can do this now, http://www.moonriverphotography.com/keyword/nyc

So I'm not understanding what you are asking for here... a place to store that link? Is that it? Because you could do that, too, simply by creating a gallery of virtual galleries, and putting all the links in the gallery description.. just a thought.

dmc

Andy wrote:

The virtual keyworded gallery has been posted and noted in the prior thread.

But a question - you can do this now, http://www.moonriverphotography.com/keyword/nyc

So I'm not understanding what you are asking for here... a place to store that link? Is that it? Because you could do that, too, simply by creating a gallery of virtual galleries, and putting all the links in the gallery description.. just a thought.

"virtual" galleries appear to be just another regular smugmug gallery to the visitor. the source of the pictures in that gallery come from either a keyword url, or a url pointing to another gallery. Like a windows Shortcut on your desktop, which has an icon, it looks like the application or file, but is really just a pointer to the real thing. This also solves the "how can I have a single gallery in multiple places without duplicating the photos?" question.

Virtual galleries could have an appropriate subset of gallery attributes which we could "Customize" (like preferred Style) and even have a feature photo too.

These virtual galleries could be arranged on our site just like any other gallery.

I'm not talking about putting hyperlinks into descriptions, yes that is a workaround to what what I was asking for. :

Andy

dmc wrote:

I'm not talking about putting hyperlinks into descriptions, yes that is a workaround to what what I was asking for. :

And, a darn good one

Mike Lane

I too would like to see certain things in the keyword and dates galleries. It would be great if they could act like regular galleries with regard to gallery styling. If you can assign a gallery style to your keyword and dates galleries I haven't found out how. Other than that, there isn't much missing from the .keywordPage and .datesPage IMHO.

mercphoto

Andy wrote:

And, a darn good one

I do the hyper-link in a description flavor of virtual galleries all the time. It works very well and customers seem to like it as well.

My top three feature requests:

1) Digital downloads, from the "Standard Prints" drop-down (nobody seems to look past standard prints).

2) We can price by image, gallery and portfolio. Add price by sub-cat and category.

3) Less obtrusive PROOF. I'd prefer a narrower font, and the word "COPYRIGHT" instead.

jfriend

Keywords + virtual galleries + support in pwd protected galleries

Andy wrote:

The virtual keyworded gallery has been posted and noted in the prior thread.

But a question - you can do this now, http://www.moonriverphotography.com/keyword/nyc

So I'm not understanding what you are asking for here... a place to store that link? Is that it? Because you could do that, too, simply by creating a gallery of virtual galleries, and putting all the links in the gallery description.. just a thought.

One still can't do it if any galleries are password protected (as keywords don't seem to cross the boundary into password protected galleries). I take a lot of pictures of school events or kid sports and most of those galleries need to be password protected to keep parents feeling comfortable. Witrhout the use of keywords, I have to upload duplicates in order to show different views of the same images (by game, by person, by event, highlights, etc...).

So, I'm asking for some sort of virtual gallery feature here that allows the content to be password protected.

Andy

jfriend wrote:

One still can't do it if any galleries are password protected (as keywords don't seem to cross the boundary into password protected galleries). I take a lot of pictures of school events or kid sports and most of those galleries need to be password protected to keep parents feeling comfortable. Witrhout the use of keywords, I have to upload duplicates in order to show different views of the same images (by game, by person, by event, highlights, etc...).

So, I'm asking for some sort of virtual gallery feature here that allows the content to be password protected.

Thanks John. Can't say if or when that'll be done but we appreciate the feature request!

chrisjlee

A client upload utility as lightweight and simple as flickr's upload utility.

Trying to upload 432432 photos is a pain.

unless i'm missing something and smugmug has a upload client that I don't know about.

Andy

chrisjlee wrote:

A client upload utility as lightweight and simple as flickr's upload utility.

Trying to upload 432432 photos is a pain.

unless i'm missing something and smugmug has a upload client that I don't know about.

Well, our Universal Drag and Drop uploader is unlimited - have you reached a limit that I'm unaware of?

chrisjlee

Andy wrote:

Well, our Universal Drag and Drop uploader is unlimited - have you reached a limit that I'm unaware of?

Andy,

I've been using that; I have to drag one image at a time. Sometimes I have 100-200 photos in a folder. I tried dragging the whole folder in and it'll freeze up my browser (firefox) or it just won't work.

It's sorta quirky. It'd just seem easier if it was a client side app or If i could ftp it.

Andy

chrisjlee wrote:

Andy,

I've been using that; I have to drag one image at a time. Sometimes I have 100-200 photos in a folder. I tried dragging the whole folder in and it'll freeze up my browser (firefox) or it just won't work.

It's sorta quirky. It'd just seem easier if it was a client side app or If i could ftp it.

You're not trying to drag a file called "thumbs.db" are you? I routinely drag 200 files at a time into the box. Are you on Mac or PC, and what version of Firefox?

chrisjlee

Andy wrote:

You're not trying to drag a file called "thumbs.db" are you? I routinely drag 200 files at a time into the box. Are you on Mac or PC, and what version of Firefox?

the newest version of firefox.
version 1.5.0.1

Andy, ya it might be because i'm dragging other non-jpeg files - picasa.ini or like you said thumbs.db...

but anyways I would love to see smugmug roll out a client version so you can tag photos, add descriptions, as you would do online. I'm sure it's probably been requested before.

Andy

chrisjlee wrote:

the newest version of firefox.
version 1.5.0.1

Andy, ya it might be because i'm dragging other non-jpeg files - picasa.ini or like you said thumbs.db...

but anyways I would love to see smugmug roll out a client version so you can tag photos, add descriptions, as you would do online. I'm sure it's probably been requested before.

Have you looked at Star Explorer, SendToSmugMug and the others?

chrisjlee

Andy wrote:

Have you looked at Star Explorer, SendToSmugMug and the others?

Hmm. no. link?

Andy

chrisjlee wrote:

Hmm. no. link?

http://www.smugmug.com/hack/hacks-apps

chrisjlee

Andy wrote:

http://www.smugmug.com/hack/hacks-apps

thanks!

Bodley

Again as jh4wvu pointed out items discussed in the Smugmug has some shoes to fill thread.

1. Package pricing/volume discounts (for one or multiple photos)
2. digital downloads
3. Customized Watermarking
4. Discount coupons

Also for event/sports high volume shoots - I would like to see something like this: when an order is placed the photog would be notified by email with the opportunity to submit a processed replacement photo. The order would be placed on hold for 24-48 hours. After which time the order would be filled - either with the replaced photo or as placed if the photog didn't respond with a change. The problem would be email reliability. Maybe placed on hold, with automated emails daily, until the photog responds. No response for 7 days and the order is rejected with an email back to the customer stating the photogs failure to respond. This fulfillment method would be an option selected by the photog in gallery customization "automatic" or "photog approved".

I know I rambling - just some thoughts.

Andy

Bodley wrote:

Again as jh4wvu pointed out items discussed in the Smugmug has some shoes to fill thread.

1. Package pricing/volume discounts (for one or multiple photos)
2. digital downloads
3. Customized Watermarking
4. Discount coupons

Also for event/sports high volume shoots - I would like to see something like this: when an order is placed the photog would be notified by email with the opportunity to submit a processed replacement photo. The order would be placed on hold for 24-48 hours. After which time the order would be filled - either with the replaced photo or as placed if the photog didn't respond with a change. The problem would be email reliability. Maybe placed on hold, with automated emails daily, until the photog responds. No response for 7 days and the order is rejected with an email back to the customer stating the photogs failure to respond. This fulfillment method would be an option selected by the photog in gallery customization "automatic" or "photog approved".

I know I rambling - just some thoughts.

He's also posted in this very thread, #2 post, Bodley:
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=267927&postcount=2

The other part of your request we're referring to as "Proof and Reupload" and we've discussed this a lot on Dgrin, in the other two FR threads, as well as other threads, and it's something we'd like to offer to our Pros. Thanks for mentioning it again, Bodley!

rainforest1155

I really want to personalize (add additional info like about what the community is about in form of a bio or add a link on the homepage) and cobrand communities individually.

Plus I want a third option to only enable cobranding on the community homepage and not to force the cobranding on all associated galleries! That was a think always bothering me about communities, because this way other people's galleries would accidently look like they were mine. Mike figured out that if the user is using a theme only his layout wouldn't be affected though, but I want this also to work for for traditional cobranding.

While we're currently at it: Give us a option to move keywords under the gallery listing. Erik told me he did not like having to scroll through the keywords all the time in our DailyPhotos community and I can't blame him so I turned them off. I still would like to put them at the bottom even though I'm also waiting for an option to filter out redundant keywords, like 'dailyphoto' for the DailyPhoto community (I requested this already in the old thread).

Thanks,
Sebastian

Andy

rainforest1155 wrote:

I really want to personalize (add additional info like about what the community is about in form of a bio or add a link on the homepage) and cobrand communities individually.

Plus I want a third option to only enable cobranding on the community homepage and not to force the cobranding on all associated galleries! That was a think always bothering me about communities, because this way other people's galleries would accidently look like they were mine. Mike figured out that if the user is using a theme only his layout wouldn't be affected though, but I want this also to work for for traditional cobranding.

While we're currently at it: Give us a option to move keywords under the gallery listing. Erik told me he did not like having to scroll through the keywords all the time in our DailyPhotos community and I can't blame him so I turned them off. I still would like to put them at the bottom even though I'm also waiting for an option to filter out redundant keywords, like 'dailyphoto' for the DailyPhoto community (I requested this already in the old thread).

Thanks,
Sebastian

THanks Sebastian. No promises on if or when but they're lockin in here now!

bham

Feature requests:

Incorporating photographer's name somewhere in the confirmation email order from smugmug and incorporating the photograher's name onto the insert that goes along with the prints to the customer. EZPrints does this for others and can do it for smugmug. Other hosting companies that use EZPrints have it setup that way. And for as much as smugmug thinks the customer is theirs, they are mine. I brought them to the site, I took the picture they ordered, smugmug did the host/billing/printing. They are more a customer of mine than yours. I want this.

g1r2e3g

keyword display style
Hi,

I think it would be useful for all of us co-branders that we could force a default gallery style for keyword and date lookups. Currently I can force a gallery style on all my own galleries but the minute you click on a keyword from the homepage it defaults to 'smugmug large' which breaks my 800px fixed width design.

Thanks.

Greg

peestandingup

Not sure if its been requested before, but how 'bout a sort of quality level indicator below each photo in the image info field that you could turn on/off?? This would be an estimate & could let people know just how big of a print the image could give & still have good results. Most people (especially non-savy users) would love this info to be quick to find like that & it would make life very easy on everyone.

I think there is a warning if the image is too small during checkout, but this would help out those who offer paid/free downloads of their original images as well. Cheers...Kerry

wslam

Coming from my self-maintained Coppermine servers, I am hoping to see Smugmugh to extend some features:

1. More flexible Category and Subcategory structure. While I understand Smugmug is trying to make users use Keywords to organize our photos (for community effect I assume), it is a real pain to use, and sometimes, some photos are not easy to assign keywords. Logically, I see no reason why the number of subcat levels should be limited, but at least extend it by one to two more levels will be a GREAT start!
2. In Admin mode, please allow thumbnails to show for password-protected galleries. Lock icon can be showed to indicate status.
3. For password-protected galleries, if the browser has the password save in a cookie already, show thumbnails!
4. Option to show a fixed thumbnail for Galleries, including Password-Protected Galleries! You can still place a small lock icon over or below the thumbnail
5. Slideshow mode is great, except that it stretches photos to fit screen. For example, if my originals are only 1024px but my display is 1920px wide, the photos get stretced and look seriously ugly. It will be nice to have an option to shrink photos to full screen in slide mode, or to show original (100%, nothing beyond) if the screen is bigger then the original.
6. Under Customize Gallery, the Template idea is great but not very well implemented, especially in Bulk mode. Ideally, Templates can control different settings of different fields. So for example, Template A may only contain ONE value, say Password. Template B may contain other values. Applying Template B on a Template A forum will not affect the values modified by Template A.
7. Bulk settings: Template on a Category and Subcategory levels.
8. Please fix the sorting bug! Cat, SubCat and Galleries order are totally out of control. I can spend my time arranging them, and once I save, the order gets messed up. Or sometimes, it is ok before I sleep and gets messed up by the time I wake up! Please fix this asap!

Ok, sorry for all the suggestions, especially when I am still relatively new, but I think Smugmug has GREAT potentials! Keep it up!

jfriend

A few answers/comments for wslam

wslam wrote:

Coming from my self-maintained Coppermine servers, I am hoping to see Smugmugh to extend some features:

1. More flexible Category and Subcategory structure. While I understand Smugmug is trying to make users use Keywords to organize our photos (for community effect I assume), it is a real pain to use, and sometimes, some photos are not easy to assign keywords. Logically, I see no reason why the number of subcat levels should be limited, but at least extend it by one to two more levels will be a GREAT start!
2. In Admin mode, please allow thumbnails to show for password-protected galleries. Lock icon can be showed to indicate status.
3. For password-protected galleries, if the browser has the password save in a cookie already, show thumbnails!
4. Option to show a fixed thumbnail for Galleries, including Password-Protected Galleries! You can still place a small lock icon over or below the thumbnail
5. Slideshow mode is great, except that it stretches photos to fit screen. For example, if my originals are only 1024px but my display is 1920px wide, the photos get stretced and look seriously ugly. It will be nice to have an option to shrink photos to full screen in slide mode, or to show original (100%, nothing beyond) if the screen is bigger then the original.
6. Under Customize Gallery, the Template idea is great but not very well implemented, especially in Bulk mode. Ideally, Templates can control different settings of different fields. So for example, Template A may only contain ONE value, say Password. Template B may contain other values. Applying Template B on a Template A forum will not affect the values modified by Template A.
7. Bulk settings: Template on a Category and Subcategory levels.
8. Please fix the sorting bug! Cat, SubCat and Galleries order are totally out of control. I can spend my time arranging them, and once I save, the order gets messed up. Or sometimes, it is ok before I sleep and gets messed up by the time I wake up! Please fix this asap!

Ok, sorry for all the suggestions, especially when I am still relatively new, but I think Smugmug has GREAT potentials! Keep it up!

I am not from smugmug, but thought I'd respond to a few of your questions...

RE: questions 2-4: In case you didn't already know, you can set the image that you want to show in the gallery thumb for password protected galleries. Just go to that gallery and pick "feature photo". Smugmug doesn't pick one for you because it doesn't know what you think will be OK to display, but you can pick it. I do this all the time. See http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Talent%20Show%202005 for an example of a category filled with password protected galleries where you can see a thumb for every one.

On the slideshow images stretched question, have you uploaded your real originals? While you may not have wanted to do that when using coppermine, a bunch of smugmug's features work better if you do upload your real originals including slideshow. I agree with your request to prohibit image stretching if there isn't a big enough image to fit the screen. That makes sense. I looked at the JavaScript for the slideshow feature and it didn't immediately look easy for us to change it to fix this. It would be possible to change your customization to provide your own maxWidth() and maxHeight() copies of the JavaScript functions in the slideshow feature to set a max size for the slideshow images (e.g. 1024px), but that would limiit the feature even if you had larger originals.

I agree that gallery sorting within categories is busted. Nearly everytime you add a new gallery, the sorting goes haywire, even if you've previously customized the sort. The sorting feature has matured over the last year and it's almost there, but this one "bug/problem" is quite annoying.

lurker

can smugmug track where are images being hotlinked from?
good to track out leechers eating up bandwidths

tq

wslam

jfriend wrote:

RE: questions 2-4: In case you didn't already know, you can set the image that you want to show in the gallery thumb for password protected galleries. Just go to that gallery and pick "feature photo". Smugmug doesn't pick one for you because it doesn't know what you think will be OK to display, but you can pick it. I do this all the time. See http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Talent%20Show%202005 for an example of a category filled with password protected galleries where you can see a thumb for every one.

Thanks! I just did that to 500 of my albums MANUALLY! I wish there's a easier way... But anyway, thank you so much for the tip. I didn't know about this.

On the slideshow images stretched question, have you uploaded your real originals? While you may not have wanted to do that when using coppermine, a bunch of smugmug's features work better if you do upload

I will consider, it's not that I don't want to, it's the idea that i need to upload my 12MP photos, about 200 each every week, over my DSL line which has a cap of 60kbps uplink (and 6Mbps downlink) that bothers me. It will take forever, and Smugmug is supposed to SAVE me time.
I intend to upload 1800px images.

your real originals including slideshow. I agree with your request to prohibit image stretching if there isn't a big enough image to fit the screen. That makes sense. I looked at the JavaScript for the slideshow feature and it didn't immediately look easy for us to change it to fix this. It would be possible to change your customization to provide your own maxWidth() and maxHeight() copies of the JavaScript functions in the slideshow feature to set a max size for the slideshow images (e.g. 1024px), but that would limiit the feature even if you had larger originals.

I would actually settle for that. If I know my originals uploaded to SM is never bigger then say 1024, then I just set it to 1024 for slideshow.

I agree that gallery sorting within categories is busted. Nearly everytime you add a new gallery, the sorting goes haywire, even if you've previously customized the sort. The sorting feature has matured over the last year and it's almost there, but this one "bug/problem" is quite annoying.

They really need to look into this one. something is really messed up.