Bizzarre. I posted in OneThumbs thread in the open talk forum at dpreview. I can't believe Phil is think of banning all external links to Smugmug. That's hardly going to be in his own best interests.
OK, I signed up for the Unlimited Account ($35 after referral code) over at Zenfolio almost a month ago after using the (no credit card) trial version for a few days. I started getting interested after really using it to browse other peoples galleries, so I wanted to give it a shot & do a real in depth review of the service, not just nose around the site for a bit & then write it off as a Smugmug copy cat (which it isnt). I wanted to really get my hands dirty & use it just as much as I do my Smugmug site, which means uploading all my content, doing captions, rearranging stuff, setting up different page layouts/styles, and other options. What did I find out?
Smugmug has more features but Zenfolio has better browsing. I love the way it automatically resizes the main photo to fit peoples browser window & how the thumbnails arent actual links. That means each time you click on a new thumbnail or page number, the browsers page position stays put & doesnt make you scroll each time, which I find SUPER annoying in SM. (Yes, I know people can use Lightbox, but it doesnt allow you the same freedom as this with choosing thumbnails & such).
Zen also allows users to make their breadcrumb as deep as they want, which I find to be very useful at times. Everything looks nice & neat on the page, I like the way you hover over things to get info such as exif/download links/photo & gallery links/etc instead of having all that info strewn all over the page, the slideshow rocks pretty hard, and my god is this site fast! Most of the time it goes just as fast as I can click, which has a lot to do with the way they prefetch the images. But, I cant tell you how good that feels when you are dealing with a bunch of photos in a gallery & it goes that fast & doesnt make you scroll each time you view a new photo or page in a gallery.
But, like I said, Smugmug (as of now) has more pro features, more users, this awesome forum, great customer service. Although, I will say that everytime I have contacted Zenfolio support, they have replied within the same hour & were always extremely helpful & very nice too. What about prints? Smugmug all the way, no question. But, of course Zenfolio doesnt have a print service yet & they assure everyone its coming soon & will be a very robust system that will satisfy everyone, so we'll have to wait on that one to compare. Smugmug lets you customize your page with your own html/css code, which can be a good thing or bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Zenfolio has pre-made templates (not just themes), which again can be a good thing or a bad thing. Depends on what you want to do with your page & how savy you are with coding, but I think its safe to say most people arent good with html/css. But, overall, there is no denying Zen is a VERY "Web 2.0" kind of setup & was built that way from the beginning.
So, for now, im keeping both accounts because I like different things about each service. Although, my Zenfolio site may get the pleasure of having my custom domain name point to it as soon as they get their CNAME switch in place, which they say is coming in the next week or two. So, for $40 a year, that aint bad at all!
OK, I signed up for the Unlimited Account ($35 after referral code) over at Zenfolio almost a month ago after using the (no credit card) trial version for a few days. I started getting interested after really using it to browse other peoples galleries, so I wanted to give it a shot & do a real in depth review of the service, not just nose around the site for a bit & then write it off as a Smugmug copy cat (which it isnt). I wanted to really get my hands dirty & use it just as much as I do my Smugmug site, which means uploading all my content, doing captions, rearranging stuff, setting up different page layouts/styles, and other options. What did I find out?
Smugmug has more features but Zenfolio has better browsing. I love the way it automatically resizes the main photo to fit peoples browser window & how the thumbnails arent actual links. That means each time you click on a new thumbnail or page number, the browsers page position stays put & doesnt make you scroll each time, which I find SUPER annoying in SM. (Yes, I know people can use Lightbox, but it doesnt allow you the same freedom as this with choosing thumbnails & such).
Zen also allows users to make their breadcrumb as deep as they want, which I find to be very useful at times. Everything looks nice & neat on the page, I like the way you hover over things to get info such as exif/download links/photo & gallery links/etc, the slideshow rocks, and my god is this site fast! Most of the time it goes just as fast as I can click, which has a lot to do with the way they prefetch the images. But, I cant tell you how good that feels when you are dealing with a bunch of photos in a gallery & it goes that fast & doesnt make you scroll each time you view a new photo or page in a gallery.
But, like I said, Smugmug (as of now) has more pro features, more users, this awesome forum, great customer service. Although, I will say that everytime I have contacted Zenfolio support, they have replied within the same hour & were always extremely helpful & very nice too. What about prints? Smugmug all the way, no question. But, of course Zenfolio doesnt have a print service yet & they assure everyone its coming soon & will be a very robust system that will satisfy everyone, so we'll have to wait on that one to compare. Smugmug lets you customize your page, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Zenfolio has pre-made templates, which again can be a good thing or a bad thing. Depends on what you want to do with your page. But, overall, there is no denying Zen is a VERY "Web 2.0" kind of setup & was built that way from the beginning.
So, for now, im keeping both accounts because I like different things about each service. Although, my Zenfolio site may get the pleasure of having my custom domain name point to it as soon as they get their CNAME switch in place, which they say is coming in the next week or two. So, for $40 a year, that aint bad at all!
I hope my little "review" helps. Cheers...Kerry
As you know, we rarely talk about future features, but I let the cat out of the bag a little bit already when talking about Google's entrant, so...
The fast browsing stuff is coming to SmugMug, too. We've tested it a few times and never put it out because it makes the URLs uglier if you still want people to have nice links (which we do)... but I think we've now crossed the bridge that the speed benefit is worth it.
I wouldn't hold your breath, but it should be coming.
I also signed up for the free trial period - and eventually paid $15 for the Basic plan (I had a $10 coupon). For now, I plan on keeping both sites active.
I agree with Kerry - the speed at Zenfolio is awesome! And their slideshow is great! But my main reason for really liking Zenfolio is the fact that I don't have to scroll when viewing my galleries. I expressed my concern about scrolling in this thread: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=35038
Although I got answers, I didn't get a solution that didn't require me having to do something on my part - like pressing F11, or having to get rid of my status bar. To quote Andy, he blamed it on my "...fat status bar, and bookmarks bar". That may be true - but I guess my friends and family must also have the same fat status bar and bookmarks bar because they also have to scroll at my Smugmug site.
Anyway - I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents. For now, I'm happy with Smugmug (as always), but it's nice to have my account at Zenfolio as well.
As you know, we rarely talk about future features, but I let the cat out of the bag a little bit already when talking about Google's entrant, so...
The fast browsing stuff is coming to SmugMug, too. We've tested it a few times and never put it out because it makes the URLs uglier if you still want people to have nice links (which we do)... but I think we've now crossed the bridge that the speed benefit is worth it.
I wouldn't hold your breath, but it should be coming.
Thanks for the write up!
Don
Thanks, Don! You're welcome.
Glad you guys are working on improving browsing on smugmug. I definitely think the JavaScript/Ajax way of browsing photos is the way to go. It just makes for a more pleasing experience overall. I dont think the links part is that big of a deal. Especially if you put the "this is not a link" wording in the address bar like Zenfolio does.
...I agree with Kerry - the speed at Zenfolio is awesome! And their slideshow is great! But my main reason for really liking Zenfolio is the fact that I don't have to scroll when viewing my galleries. ....
Their slide show seems good, but the fade between pics was annoying and jumpy, and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Slide shows are nice, but 1 pic at a time is just not good enough.
I still like my Journal Large (hacked) view best... (see it here) With Journal Large I get 10 pictures on one page, and I just scroll up and down to check em out. Load time is fast. I wish I could adjust how many pics per page, I would just set it to 100 and be able to a view a whole gallery nice and easy. My request (already on the request thread) is to give everyone more options in the journal style (pics per page, size, etc), I'm convinced that it is the easiest way to view pics.
interesting... I use IE 6 something on windows 2000, and it isn't smooth...hmmmm
Not sure why its not smooth for you. It may require XP's version of IE. My girlfriend (err, wife) has XP SP1 & whatever version of IE that came with it (she never updates & we just did another clean install for reasons I wont go into, lol).
Zenfolio just looks like a clone of SM to me. (snippage)
-Matt-
Honestly, if they have Digital Downloads before SM, after at least 18 months of the feature being asked for here, I'm gone.
I don't sell any prints (by virtue of my entire target demographic being here in New Zealand with me) but I know that I would sell a bunch of Digital Downloads.
Official Smugmug peoples, if you're listening, you might want to break your silence on planned features for this one, unbelievably often requested feature.
Honestly, if they have Digital Downloads before SM, after at least 18 months of the feature being asked for here, I'm gone.
I don't sell any prints (by virtue of my entire target demographic being here in New Zealand with me) but I know that I would sell a bunch of Digital Downloads.
Official Smugmug peoples, if you're listening, you might want to break your silence on planned features for this one, unbelievably often requested feature.
I cant speak for Zenfolio, but I asked that specific question a while back & they said prints are coming in a couple months, paid digital downloads probably within this calendar year.
Comparison Smugmug vs Zenfolio
I read this thread with interest, because I am curious about Zenfolio as well. My main concern is Halos on pics I upload to DP Review. When a viewer uses the DP review magnification tool (magnify twice) Halos become evident with my smugmug pics that are not in the original picture that I prepared for upload. I'm not sure how to get rid of halos in the uploaded image.
Zenfolio seems to have less halos.
I posted a side by side test onto DP review, it may get deleted however, after recent events. Link below. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1018&message=18967522
Glad you guys are working on improving browsing on smugmug. I definitely think the JavaScript/Ajax way of browsing photos is the way to go. It just makes for a more pleasing experience overall. I dont think the links part is that big of a deal. Especially if you put the "this is not a link" wording in the address bar like Zenfolio does.
Actually, we think linking is 100% necessary. We wouldn't do it if the links weren't easily copy & pasteable - too many people use them to share via email, forums, and blogs.
Interesting that Zenfolio's doesn't work - that sounds like a big drag, to me. I thought for sure they would.
Actually, we think linking is 100% necessary. We wouldn't do it if the links weren't easily copy & pasteable - too many people use them to share via email, forums, and blogs.
Interesting that Zenfolio's doesn't work - that sounds like a big drag, to me. I thought for sure they would.
Don
Doesnt work?? I have direct photo linking turned off for visitors, but they can still link to the gallery itself or photo within the gallery. You have to click on the "Send Link" button in the upper-right & you get these links:
Doesnt work?? I have direct photo linking turned off for visitors, but they can still link to the gallery itself or photo within the gallery. You have to click on the "Send Link" button in the upper-right & you get these links:
And here are the other sizes they offer me for direct linking:
Smugmug offers the same except for the square thumb and the very large (should be coming soon). Also smugmug has got another thumb size, which is 100px I think. Plus you can resize the image on the fly to any size you want to in direct linking (imageID-500x500 - to get a 500px wide or high image - aspect ratio is maintained in any case).
Smugmug offers the same except for the square thumb and the very large (should be coming soon). Also smugmug has got another thumb size, which is 100px I think. Plus you can resize the image on the fly to any size you want to in direct linking (imageID-500x500 - to get a 500px wide or high image - aspect ratio is maintained in any case).
Sebastian
Well, in all honesty, they both offer different sized thumbnails (which isnt a big deal to most), but the kicker is Zen's "Very Large" size that puts it ahead for now. Thats just my opinion though. Yes, SM is probably getting a Very Large size too, but "getting" & "got" are two different things.
And Zenfolio also has resizing on the fly thats pretty similar. Right-click on the photo I provided above & choose to view it separately. In the address bar, at the end you will see "-3.jpg". Change that "3" to any number from 0-5 (0 is the smallest, 5 is the biggest) & that changes the size of the image. Take that number away (along with the dash) & that is the original size. I dont know about sizing it to any random size you want. Havent tried that.
Well, in all honesty, they both offer different sized thumbnails (which isnt a big deal to most), but the kicker is Zen's "Very Large" size that puts it ahead for now. Thats just my opinion though.
And Zenfolio also has resizing on the fly thats a little easier actually. Right-click on the photo I provided above & choose to view it separately. In the address bar, at the end you will see "-3.jpg". Change that "3" to any number from 0-5 (0 is the smallest, 5 is the biggest) & that changes the size of the image. Take that number away (along with the dash) & that is the original size.
Is that easy enough?
that's not the same as SM on the fly resizing. SM already has that capability..it's just called Ti, Th, S, M, L, O instead of 0-5.
with the SM on the fly feature you can plug in any arbitrary size and have that photo generated on the fly.
Thanks for clearing that up. Yeah, I realized what he was talking about & edited my post right before you posted this. You're too damn quick, BWG! See:
Well, in all honesty, they both offer different sized thumbnails (which isnt a big deal to most), but the kicker is Zen's "Very Large" size that puts it ahead for now. Thats just my opinion though. Yes, SM is probably getting a Very Large size too, but "getting" & "got" are two different things.
And Zenfolio also has resizing on the fly thats pretty similar. Right-click on the photo I provided above & choose to view it separately. In the address bar, at the end you will see "-3.jpg". Change that "3" to any number from 0-5 (0 is the smallest, 5 is the biggest) & that changes the size of the image. Take that number away (along with the dash) & that is the original size. I dont know about sizing it to any random size you want. Havent tried that.
Yes, SM is probably getting a Very Large size too, but "getting" & "got" are two different things.
And Zenfolio also has resizing on the fly thats pretty similar. Right-click on the photo I provided above & choose to view it separately. In the address bar, at the end you will see "-3.jpg". Change that "3" to any number from 0-5 (0 is the smallest, 5 is the biggest) & that changes the size of the image. Take that number away (along with the dash) & that is the original size. I dont know about sizing it to any random size you want. Havent tried that.
You're right with that they got it already, but if you want the XL size for direct linking, you can have it on smugmug also now. Just add any size (like -1200x1200) instead of the -Th,-Ti,-S,-M,-L or -O. Don't forget to allow originals and larges in your gallery settings though or you will just get upsamples of the smaller images.
I'm quite new to this online photo sharing stuff. I've always wanted an easy way to show my friends and family my pictures from travel and stuff, and when I found smugmug, I was really happy. I finally found a site that had all the features that I was looking for. I signed up for the regular account and paid my annual fee. After using smugmug for a few weeks, I really enjoy smugmug.
The one thing that bothered me the most though was that sometimes the site can seem "slow". It's really not that slow--there is just a small lag between pressing the next button and seeing the image--but slow enough so that someone that trying to look at an album with a hundred pictures might get a little annoyed. At the time I thought that there was just nothing that could be done about this problem because of bandwith issues and whatnot, but then I came accross Zenfolio. I like the design and all, but the one thing that caught my eye was the increadible picture browsing speed. I mean, it was just as fast as browsing them locally on my desktop! Because of this alone, I signed up for unlimited account and now use Zenfolio as my main picture site. I kind of feel bad about it though because I really like the friendliness and helpfulness of the people at smugmug.
Anyway, I'll keep both my accounts for the year and see how things change. If smugmug can match Zenfolio's browsing speed that would be great!
Since were on this topic, anothing thing that could be improved at Smugmug is that it would be nice if there was a central place where we could organize and take care of all of our albums and category. As it stands now, I find this process way too complicated. For example, put an album into a new custom named category, I have to first go to "organize and cutomize" in the control panel and select "category" to create the said category. I can't even create categories and sub-categories on the same page! Then you have to go to the album you want to move and select "customize" and finally you'll be able to move your gallery into the new custom sub-category. Phew! Instead of all this, why not have a page where you can see and modify the whole structure of your site?
Well, I'll stop my writing this message now as it is allready way too long. Sorry about that. I'm just trying to give Smugmug some feedback so that they can improve their product even more. Thanks,
Since were on this topic, anothing thing that could be improved at Smugmug is that it would be nice if there was a central place where we could organize and take care of all of our albums and category. As it stands now, I find this process way too complicated. For example, put an album into a new custom named category, I have to first go to "organize and cutomize" in the control panel and select "category" to create the said category. I can't even create categories and sub-categories on the same page! Then you have to go to the album you want to move and select "customize" and finally you'll be able to move your gallery into the new custom sub-category. Phew! Instead of all this, why not have a page where you can see and modify the whole structure of your site?
YES! That is something I should have included in my little write up earlier.
In Zenfolio, literally ALL options, edits, captions, titles, keywords, gallery/group creation, access controls, deleting, descriptions, uploading, re-arranging, etc is done in ONE centralized location for your entire content. And I mean everything!
This sounds like a bad idea because you would think thats too much info on one page, but its not like that at all & is actually very simple. You have a list of all your galleries/groups on the left & you just click on which ever one you want to make edits to, upload to (or whatever), then all the content appears inside the main area in the center with the options on the right. You can go deeper in your breadcrumb from there & make changes to any part of it. Then, you can view it as a guest would to see if its to your liking.
Its very refreshing & empowering to have all your controls in one place.
BTW, im really not trying to be overly critical of SM. If it sounds like that, its only because I like SM soo much. I do that with any product or service I love because I want them to be better.
You should see me on some of the Apple forums. WooWee!
YES! That is something I should have included in my little write up earlier.
In Zenfolio, literally ALL options, edits, captions, titles, keywords, gallery/group creation, access controls, deleting, descriptions, uploading, re-arranging, etc is done in ONE centralized location for your entire content. And I mean everything!
This sounds like a bad idea because you would think thats too much info on one page, but its not like that at all & is actually very simple. You have a list of all your galleries/groups on the left & you just click on which ever one you want to make edits to, upload to (or whatever), then all the content appears inside the main area in the center with the options on the right. You can go deeper in your breadcrumb from there & make changes to any part of it. Then, you can view it as a guest would to see if its to your liking.
Its very refreshing & empowering to have all your controls in one place.
I'd have to agree that Smugmug's settings are scattered all over the place, not easy to find and not easy to do a multi-step operation in one place. Here's something I tried to do yesterday. I wanted to create a new gallery, in a custom category and custom sub-category. I go to create my new gallery. I faintly remember that I can't create categories or sub-categories here. I have to find where you can create them. I find them in the control panel. I have to first create the category. Then I have to create the sub-category. Then, I have to go back to the create a gallery screen. Then, after creating the gallery, I have to go to the options screen to set the options the way I want it. All in all, I have to go four different places to do this.
IMHO, it should be that you go one place to create a gallery and, if you need to, you can also create categories, sub-categories for it and set custom options on the gallery all from that one place.
Yes, but most people don't do that. "Reading is hard" and teaching people new interfaces is hard.
99% of the people browsing SmugMug simply copy and paste the URL in their browser bar to share.
If that doesn't work, you're going to have pissed off people.
Amen. Whatever you do with the new AJAX browsing stuff, please keep the old link system alive if possible. I just like the way I can easily link directly to photos with the image ID and to photos in galleries with the image ID and gallery ID.
There's one thing about linking which always bothered me, because I almost always use traditional view. The links (e.g. http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/gallery/1582255/1/77938696) you got when using smugmug style are not working for a user with traditional/all thumbs! They result in showing the thumbs instead of the one picture someone wants to show me. Therefore I'm never sure what links to give out to people/post in forums. Often I decided using the single view links (http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/gallery/1582255/1/77938696/Medium), but they hide the cool smugmug view for visitors not familiar with smugmug and also force a viewing size.
I just want a redirect to single view when the visitor has traditional/all thumbs set for added conveniance that the user is getting the picture I want him to get.
I think I already posted this in either the feature request/bug thread long ago.
Amen. Whatever you do with the new AJAX browsing stuff, please keep the old link system alive if possible. I just like the way I can easily link directly to photos with the image ID and to photos in galleries with the image ID and gallery ID.
There's one thing about linking which always bothered me, because I almost always use traditional view. The links (e.g. http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/gallery/1582255/1/77938696) you got when using smugmug style are not working for a user with traditional/all thumbs! They result in showing the thumbs instead of the one picture someone wants to show me. Therefore I'm never sure what links to give out to people/post in forums. Often I decided using the single view links (http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/gallery/1582255/1/77938696/Medium), but they hide the cool smugmug view for visitors not familiar with smugmug and also force a viewing size.
I just want a redirect to single view when the visitor has traditional/all thumbs set for added conveniance that the user is getting the picture I want him to get.
I think I already posted this in either the feature request/bug thread long ago.
I'd have to agree that Smugmug's settings are scattered all over the place, not easy to find and not easy to do a multi-step operation in one place. Here's something I tried to do yesterday. I wanted to create a new gallery, in a custom category and custom sub-category. I go to create my new gallery. I faintly remember that I can't create categories or sub-categories here. I have to find where you can create them. I find them in the control panel. I have to first create the category. Then I have to create the sub-category. Then, I have to go back to the create a gallery screen. Then, after creating the gallery, I have to go to the options screen to set the options the way I want it. All in all, I have to go four different places to do this.
IMHO, it should be that you go one place to create a gallery and, if you need to, you can also create categories, sub-categories for it and set custom options on the gallery all from that one place.
i agree too, this is one of the functional elements of zenfolio i really liked.
I'd have to agree that Smugmug's settings are scattered all over the place, not easy to find and not easy to do a multi-step operation in one place. Here's something I tried to do yesterday. I wanted to create a new gallery, in a custom category and custom sub-category. I go to create my new gallery. I faintly remember that I can't create categories or sub-categories here. I have to find where you can create them. I find them in the control panel. I have to first create the category. Then I have to create the sub-category. Then, I have to go back to the create a gallery screen. Then, after creating the gallery, I have to go to the options screen to set the options the way I want it. All in all, I have to go four different places to do this.
IMHO, it should be that you go one place to create a gallery and, if you need to, you can also create categories, sub-categories for it and set custom options on the gallery all from that one place.
I really agree with all these lasts posts on this topic, the control could do with a MAJOR overhaul
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Bizzarre. I posted in OneThumbs thread in the open talk forum at dpreview. I can't believe Phil is think of banning all external links to Smugmug. That's hardly going to be in his own best interests.
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Smugmug has more features but Zenfolio has better browsing. I love the way it automatically resizes the main photo to fit peoples browser window & how the thumbnails arent actual links. That means each time you click on a new thumbnail or page number, the browsers page position stays put & doesnt make you scroll each time, which I find SUPER annoying in SM. (Yes, I know people can use Lightbox, but it doesnt allow you the same freedom as this with choosing thumbnails & such).
Zen also allows users to make their breadcrumb as deep as they want, which I find to be very useful at times. Everything looks nice & neat on the page, I like the way you hover over things to get info such as exif/download links/photo & gallery links/etc instead of having all that info strewn all over the page, the slideshow rocks pretty hard, and my god is this site fast! Most of the time it goes just as fast as I can click, which has a lot to do with the way they prefetch the images. But, I cant tell you how good that feels when you are dealing with a bunch of photos in a gallery & it goes that fast & doesnt make you scroll each time you view a new photo or page in a gallery.
But, like I said, Smugmug (as of now) has more pro features, more users, this awesome forum, great customer service. Although, I will say that everytime I have contacted Zenfolio support, they have replied within the same hour & were always extremely helpful & very nice too. What about prints? Smugmug all the way, no question. But, of course Zenfolio doesnt have a print service yet & they assure everyone its coming soon & will be a very robust system that will satisfy everyone, so we'll have to wait on that one to compare. Smugmug lets you customize your page with your own html/css code, which can be a good thing or bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Zenfolio has pre-made templates (not just themes), which again can be a good thing or a bad thing. Depends on what you want to do with your page & how savy you are with coding, but I think its safe to say most people arent good with html/css. But, overall, there is no denying Zen is a VERY "Web 2.0" kind of setup & was built that way from the beginning.
So, for now, im keeping both accounts because I like different things about each service. Although, my Zenfolio site may get the pleasure of having my custom domain name point to it as soon as they get their CNAME switch in place, which they say is coming in the next week or two. So, for $40 a year, that aint bad at all!
I hope my little "review" helps. Cheers...Kerry
As you know, we rarely talk about future features, but I let the cat out of the bag a little bit already when talking about Google's entrant, so...
The fast browsing stuff is coming to SmugMug, too. We've tested it a few times and never put it out because it makes the URLs uglier if you still want people to have nice links (which we do)... but I think we've now crossed the bridge that the speed benefit is worth it.
I wouldn't hold your breath, but it should be coming.
Thanks for the write up!
Don
I agree with Kerry - the speed at Zenfolio is awesome! And their slideshow is great! But my main reason for really liking Zenfolio is the fact that I don't have to scroll when viewing my galleries. I expressed my concern about scrolling in this thread: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=35038
Although I got answers, I didn't get a solution that didn't require me having to do something on my part - like pressing F11, or having to get rid of my status bar. To quote Andy, he blamed it on my "...fat status bar, and bookmarks bar". That may be true - but I guess my friends and family must also have the same fat status bar and bookmarks bar because they also have to scroll at my Smugmug site.
Anyway - I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents. For now, I'm happy with Smugmug (as always), but it's nice to have my account at Zenfolio as well.
Glad you guys are working on improving browsing on smugmug. I definitely think the JavaScript/Ajax way of browsing photos is the way to go. It just makes for a more pleasing experience overall. I dont think the links part is that big of a deal. Especially if you put the "this is not a link" wording in the address bar like Zenfolio does.
Their slide show seems good, but the fade between pics was annoying and jumpy, and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Slide shows are nice, but 1 pic at a time is just not good enough.
I still like my Journal Large (hacked) view best... (see it here) With Journal Large I get 10 pictures on one page, and I just scroll up and down to check em out. Load time is fast. I wish I could adjust how many pics per page, I would just set it to 100 and be able to a view a whole gallery nice and easy. My request (already on the request thread) is to give everyone more options in the journal style (pics per page, size, etc), I'm convinced that it is the easiest way to view pics.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
interesting... I use IE 6 something on windows 2000, and it isn't smooth...hmmmm
Not sure why its not smooth for you. It may require XP's version of IE. My girlfriend (err, wife) has XP SP1 & whatever version of IE that came with it (she never updates & we just did another clean install for reasons I wont go into, lol).
Honestly, if they have Digital Downloads before SM, after at least 18 months of the feature being asked for here, I'm gone.
I don't sell any prints (by virtue of my entire target demographic being here in New Zealand with me) but I know that I would sell a bunch of Digital Downloads.
Official Smugmug peoples, if you're listening, you might want to break your silence on planned features for this one, unbelievably often requested feature.
Please.
Cheers - Neil G
www.nzsnaps.com
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)
Im sure Smugmug is working on that too.
I read this thread with interest, because I am curious about Zenfolio as well. My main concern is Halos on pics I upload to DP Review. When a viewer uses the DP review magnification tool (magnify twice) Halos become evident with my smugmug pics that are not in the original picture that I prepared for upload. I'm not sure how to get rid of halos in the uploaded image.
Zenfolio seems to have less halos.
I posted a side by side test onto DP review, it may get deleted however, after recent events. Link below.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1018&message=18967522
www.razorsharp.smugmug.com
http://maxhr.zenfolio.com/
Actually, we think linking is 100% necessary. We wouldn't do it if the links weren't easily copy & pasteable - too many people use them to share via email, forums, and blogs.
Interesting that Zenfolio's doesn't work - that sounds like a big drag, to me. I thought for sure they would.
Don
Gallery Link
Photo Within Gallery Link
Only I may see the links to the photos themselves. I can choose between 7 different sizes. Here is "Medium (580 x 435)"
Yes, but most people don't do that. "Reading is hard" and teaching people new interfaces is hard.
99% of the people browsing SmugMug simply copy and paste the URL in their browser bar to share.
If that doesn't work, you're going to have pissed off people.
Don
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
And Zenfolio also has resizing on the fly thats pretty similar. Right-click on the photo I provided above & choose to view it separately. In the address bar, at the end you will see "-3.jpg". Change that "3" to any number from 0-5 (0 is the smallest, 5 is the biggest) & that changes the size of the image. Take that number away (along with the dash) & that is the original size. I dont know about sizing it to any random size you want. Havent tried that.
with the SM on the fly feature you can plug in any arbitrary size and have that photo generated on the fly.
for example if you want an extra large photo from sm you would request http://name.smugmug.com/photos/12345678-1200x900.jpg
or http://name.smugmug.com/photos/12345678-1200x900.jpg
or http://name.smugmug.com/photos/12345678-1300x1000.jpg
or http://name.smugmug.com/photos/12345678-1234x987.jpg
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
The one thing that bothered me the most though was that sometimes the site can seem "slow". It's really not that slow--there is just a small lag between pressing the next button and seeing the image--but slow enough so that someone that trying to look at an album with a hundred pictures might get a little annoyed. At the time I thought that there was just nothing that could be done about this problem because of bandwith issues and whatnot, but then I came accross Zenfolio. I like the design and all, but the one thing that caught my eye was the increadible picture browsing speed. I mean, it was just as fast as browsing them locally on my desktop! Because of this alone, I signed up for unlimited account and now use Zenfolio as my main picture site. I kind of feel bad about it though because I really like the friendliness and helpfulness of the people at smugmug.
Anyway, I'll keep both my accounts for the year and see how things change. If smugmug can match Zenfolio's browsing speed that would be great!
Since were on this topic, anothing thing that could be improved at Smugmug is that it would be nice if there was a central place where we could organize and take care of all of our albums and category. As it stands now, I find this process way too complicated. For example, put an album into a new custom named category, I have to first go to "organize and cutomize" in the control panel and select "category" to create the said category. I can't even create categories and sub-categories on the same page! Then you have to go to the album you want to move and select "customize" and finally you'll be able to move your gallery into the new custom sub-category. Phew! Instead of all this, why not have a page where you can see and modify the whole structure of your site?
Well, I'll stop my writing this message now as it is allready way too long. Sorry about that. I'm just trying to give Smugmug some feedback so that they can improve their product even more. Thanks,
Alexis
In Zenfolio, literally ALL options, edits, captions, titles, keywords, gallery/group creation, access controls, deleting, descriptions, uploading, re-arranging, etc is done in ONE centralized location for your entire content. And I mean everything!
This sounds like a bad idea because you would think thats too much info on one page, but its not like that at all & is actually very simple. You have a list of all your galleries/groups on the left & you just click on which ever one you want to make edits to, upload to (or whatever), then all the content appears inside the main area in the center with the options on the right. You can go deeper in your breadcrumb from there & make changes to any part of it. Then, you can view it as a guest would to see if its to your liking.
Its very refreshing & empowering to have all your controls in one place.
You should see me on some of the Apple forums. WooWee!
I'd have to agree that Smugmug's settings are scattered all over the place, not easy to find and not easy to do a multi-step operation in one place. Here's something I tried to do yesterday. I wanted to create a new gallery, in a custom category and custom sub-category. I go to create my new gallery. I faintly remember that I can't create categories or sub-categories here. I have to find where you can create them. I find them in the control panel. I have to first create the category. Then I have to create the sub-category. Then, I have to go back to the create a gallery screen. Then, after creating the gallery, I have to go to the options screen to set the options the way I want it. All in all, I have to go four different places to do this.
IMHO, it should be that you go one place to create a gallery and, if you need to, you can also create categories, sub-categories for it and set custom options on the gallery all from that one place.
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Always include a link to your site when posting a question
There's one thing about linking which always bothered me, because I almost always use traditional view. The links (e.g. http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/gallery/1582255/1/77938696) you got when using smugmug style are not working for a user with traditional/all thumbs! They result in showing the thumbs instead of the one picture someone wants to show me. Therefore I'm never sure what links to give out to people/post in forums. Often I decided using the single view links (http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/gallery/1582255/1/77938696/Medium), but they hide the cool smugmug view for visitors not familiar with smugmug and also force a viewing size.
I just want a redirect to single view when the visitor has traditional/all thumbs set for added conveniance that the user is getting the picture I want him to get.
I think I already posted this in either the feature request/bug thread long ago.
Thanks,
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
edit: you have to paste that link, clicking wont trigger it. this is by design.
I really agree with all these lasts posts on this topic, the control could do with a MAJOR overhaul
...pics..