The people at Zenfolio just released a pretty major update today. Most notably, a new feature called Collections as well as true custom domain names using CNAME. Here is mine! They also got their links in the address bar working now. So, that should help with user confusion, as Don pointed out earlier.
Hmmm, they are looking better & better. I think I might just have to switch permanently & let my Smugmug account go. Im not sure yet, though. I just really REALLY love the way you browse photos with them. Plus, one of the biggest reasons why I got a Pro Smugmug account was so I could use my own custom domain name & thats $150. Its only $40 with Zenfolio. And I dont sell many prints anyways right now. I might later, so they should have their custom print prices feature in place by then anyways.
Wow, Collections sounds like a great feature. It sounds very close to the frequently requested "virtual galleries" that we've discussed here before.
I frequently have a need to display several hundred photos organized several different ways. Organized by event. Organized by person. Organized by teacher. Organized by team. Today I have to tag them all appropriately in Bridge, then upload separate copies to make distinct sets of galleries for each way I need to offer the pictures. This costs me extra prep time, costs me extra upload time and costs Smugmug extra storage space. I'd rather upload them all once to a master gallery and then define virtual galleries that consist of some sort of keyword query based on the master galery. But, to the user I want them to look just like a regular gallery. And, I have to have all the galleries password protected because of child privacy concerns of the parents, school, team or league.
The people at Zenfolio just released a pretty major update today. Most notably, a new feature called Collections as well as true custom domain names using CNAME. Here is mine! They also got their links in the address bar working now. So, that should help with user confusion, as Don pointed out earlier.
Hmmm, they are looking better & better. I think I might just have to switch permanently & let my Smugmug account go. Im not sure yet, though. I just really REALLY love the way you browse photos with them. Plus, one of the biggest reasons why I got a Pro Smugmug account was so I could use my own custom domain name & thats $150. Its only $40 with Zenfolio. And I dont sell many prints anyways right now. I might later, so they should have their custom print prices feature in place by then anyways.
Sorry to see you go, peestandingup, I see on your other site that you've made your decision.
You got that right! It amazes me how fast these guys are working & turning out major updates. Still hard to believe they are only 7 months old.
Like I said in an earlier post, it sure seems like Zenfolio means serious business & are in it for the long haul.
They have to move fast and I like their browsing speed, but I think eventually they'll reach a point where the enormous photo masses and new users slow the them down a bit. Then they might meet similar problems smugmug already experienced.
*And* smugmug probably also has something in the pipe. I mean they haven't had a release for 1.5 months. Sooner or later they'll put out another big release.
Sorry to see you go, peestandingup, I see on your other site that you've made your decision.
Well, its not set in stone. I havent deleted my SM account yet, but I more than likely will soon.
I really love Smugmug A LOT! It just seems like Zenfolio is more of what im looking for right now. Just seems a better fit for me. I love how progressive the site is & they are also promising some pretty exciting features to come. So, dont look too much into it. You guys still rock!
But, I really enjoy posting here on dgrin, so hopefully I will still be welcome even though im a damn dirty traitor, lol.
To be honest: i LOVE their style. Design and buttons are simple but very classy to me. I also like their Lightbox: nothing else to see but the picture, it is centered (i really like that!), on a black background. And it all runs so smooth.
With our lightbox it takes longer for the picture to upload. Sometimes it mentions "uploading" but it doesnt....
The thing I don't like about SM lightbox is the scroll wheel on my mouse does not move the image. Instead it moves the background page. With Zenfolio I can scroll the image with the wheel on my mouse. Much better.
My Pictures : My Gear
I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own - Adam Savage
The thing I don't like about SM lightbox is the scroll wheel on my mouse does not move the image. Instead it moves the background page. With Zenfolio I can scroll the image with the wheel on my mouse. Much better.
Hm. What system, and sort of mouse are you using? I can move the photo just fine, left right, up down.
Hm. What system, and sort of mouse are you using? I can move the photo just fine, left right, up down.
#1 Windows XP Home SP2, Logitech MX500, Firefox Browser.
#2 Windows XP Home SP1, Scroll Touchpad, Firefox Browser
#3 Windows XP Home SP2, Logitech Wireless, Firefox Browser
#4 Windows ME, Generic Wheel Mouse. Firefox Browser
The only constant in all these systems is the Firefox Browser.
When I click on Lightbox and an image actually shows up that is bigger than the screen I instictivly scrol with the wheel. Instead of the image I'm trying to scroll moving, the back ground page goes up and down. This happens on all my systems.
My Pictures : My Gear
I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own - Adam Savage
#1 Windows XP Home SP2, Logitech MX500, Firefox Browser.
#2 Windows XP Home SP1, Scroll Touchpad, Firefox Browser
#3 Windows XP Home SP2, Logitech Wireless, Firefox Browser
#4 Windows ME, Generic Wheel Mouse. Firefox Browser
The only constant in all these systems is the Firefox Browser.
When I click on Lightbox and an image actually shows up that is bigger than the screen I instictivly scrol with the wheel. Instead of the image I'm trying to scroll moving, the back ground page goes up and down. This happens on all my systems.
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/929020/1/42491224/Original
FF 1.5, and IE6 on this image, with my Apple Mightmouse or the trackpad, I can scroll up/down the image. Perhaps theres some setting on your setup we need to find for you.
its all in the presentation ...
Both smugmug and zenfolio (and countless others) offers the same essential features of storing your photos and letting those photos be displayed in attractive ways to your audience. What really separates the various sites is how well the present it to your audience.
I like smugmugs many views and also like zenfolios views.
Smugmug offers more customizations which is nice, but the user interface is a blend of old and new technologies mixed together which sometimes makes for an awkward experience. But they do offer a greater selection of tools.
Zenfolio seems totally web2.0 and everything AJAX since its very new so in general you get a more user friendly and faster experience in managing your photos, but not nearly as many features as smugmug yet.
The challenge is for smugmug to make more changes to make their site more web2.0 and for zenfolio to keep adding new features to match smugmug.
Also, a big feature missing from zenfolio is batch downloading your original photos in case of a crash, smugmug doesn't have it directly, but you can get it through the various scripts/tools that you can download.
One thing that surprises me is why neither has ventured in flash based portfolio presentions!!! For example, on www.solomodels.com (a photo site for fashion models/photographers) I see flash based portfolios that I wish were on smugmug or these other sites.
For the time being, I think I'll stick with smugmug but will be watching zenfolio closely and might sign up for them as well and use both sites.
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/929020/1/42491224/Original
FF 1.5, and IE6 on this image, with my Apple Mightmouse or the trackpad, I can scroll up/down the image. Perhaps theres some setting on your setup we need to find for you.
This is not a "help me" thread. I simply stated what is a fact for me. All my machines behave the same regardless of OS. Lightbox does not scroll properly for me. Zenfolio's version of lightbox does.
I'm going to try Zenfolio. It seems to have and promises to have many of the features I've been requesting during my year with SmugMug.
1. Easier gallery manipulation and sub-gallery depth.
2. Digital Downloads.
3. Easier viewer experience.
Whether or not these pan out... Well I'll see in the next fourteen days.
I do think that you Andy deserve some kind of medal though. You have been quick to respond to my and many other SmugMug users. Even while on vacation! A round of applause for Andy.
I'm not leaving yet. Just checking my options.
My Pictures : My Gear
I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own - Adam Savage
My Smugmug vs Zenfolio comparison-Revised!
Here is my revised review with a more head-2-head comparison between each service.
I have both a "pro-level" ($150) Smugmug account & an "unlimited" ($40) Zenfolio account. I have been with Smugmug well over a year now. I also signed up for the "unlimited" Zenfolio account ($35 after referral code) almost 2 months ago after using the (no credit card) trial version for a few days. I started getting interested in it 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 isn't) as some have. 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, writing captions, rearranging stuff, setting up different page layouts/styles, and all the other options. What did I find out?
Smugmug has more pro features but Zenfolio looks nicer & 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 in a gallery, your browsers page position stays put & doesnt make you scroll each time, which I find SUPER annoying in Smugmug. You can sorta do this using the Lightbox feature in Smugmug, but it doesnt allow you the same freedom as Zenfolio with choosing thumbnails, pages & such. Both services offer unlimited uploads & downloads of original files. Bandwidth is unlimited too.
Zenfolio also allows users to make their breadcrumb as deep as they want, which I find to be VERY useful at times. Smugmug restricts the breadcrumb from going any deeper than 4 times. Everything looks nice & neat on the page in Zenfolio, I like the way you hover your mouse 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 browsing 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. Its almost like viewing photos with a piece of software on your computer's hard drive! Yes, its THAT fast!!
But, like I said, Smugmug (as of now) has more pro features, more users, an awesome forum (dgrin.com) & great customer service. Although, I will say that everytime I have contacted Zenfolio support, they have usually replied within the same hour & were always extremely helpful & very nice too. What about prints? Smugmug all the way, no question. The prints look awesome & the service is the best that comes with a guarantee. 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 do a true comparison.
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 nor do they want to be. Smugmug also has pre-made themes, but I personally like Zenfolio's better, as they look a bit more elegant to me without being overly cheesy.
How about user options? Well, thats a tough one. If I were comparing a pro-level Smugmug account to an unlimited Zenolio account, Smugmug would win because they have TONS of options for pros such as setting your own print prices, ability to upload short videos, watermarking, guest passwords for uploading original files, using your own custom domain name (which Zenfolio now has too), etc. However, if I were comparing Smugmug's other two accounts, Standard ($40) and Power ($60), to Zenfolio's Unlimited account ($40), in my opinion the Zenfolio account takes the cake & is a way better deal for what all you get.
But, back to options. How easy is it to change options with each service? Smugmug's are a little more spread out & you may find yourself looking in 4 different places within your account to accomplish something simple, like just setting up a new gallery with a sub-category, then choosing the options for that gallery in another location & finally adding photos to it. Its not hard, but its not what I would call intuitive either. Thats not the case with Zenfolio. 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 do mean everything!
This sounds like a bad idea at first 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 of that folder appears inside the main area in the center with all the options on the right. You can go deeper in your breadcrumb from there & make changes to any part of it, including the homepage. Then, you can view it as a guest would to see if its to your liking. They also allow descriptions to any part of your breadcrumb, not just galleries. I really like that a lot because sometimes I want to write little descriptions to a group that may contain a bunch of galleries within it that have their own separate descriptions & so on.
How good do the actual photos themselves look on each site after compression? You be the judge. Here is a photo hosted on Smugmug. And here is the same exact photo hosted on Zenfolio at the same size. I notice a lot more compression artifacts on the Smugmug photo, especially around the polka dots on her dress going up towards her neck. Also, look into & around her eyes. Artifacts are more apparent there too in the Smugmug pic. Still can't tell much of a difference?? Here is a closeup of the Smugmug image & here is the same closeup on Zenfolio. The Zenfolio image just looks more pleasing to my eyes & those image artifacts arent as apparent as they are in the Smugmug photo. Originals are the same, of course since there is no compression used with each service on those. My vote goes to Zenfolio here, even if technically the file size of the image is bigger with Zenfolio, I personally think thats irrelevant & when you're dealing with photos, looks should prevail over file size.
So, ultimately, I think both Smugmug & Zenfolio are truly the best photo sharing services out right now & you cant go wrong with either. I think it mostly just comes down to personal preference & what you aim to do with your site. I myself have decided to give up my Smugmug pro account in favor of my Zenfolio unlimited account. It fits me better & just plain does more of the things that I personally want it to do, not to mention is more cost effective to people like me who dont need all those high end features just yet. But, for $40 a year, Zenfolio is an awesome deal for what you get & in my opinion, is a better deal than Smugmug's Standard ($40) & Power ($60) accounts. But, now if your aim is to sell your prints online, you simply must have every pro option imaginable & are good with html/css web design, then a $150 Smugmug pro account is exactly what you're looking for. The service is great & you will be very happy with them! Both services have pretty regular updates, although I will argue that Zenfolio seems to have more meaningful updates as of late with more useful (and requested) features being implemented at an extremely fast rate, but dont count Smugmug out in this department. Im sure they got some tricks up their sleeves ;-) But, there is no denying that Zenfolio is a VERY "Web 2.0" kind of setup & was built that way from the beginning. Whereas, Smugmug seems like over the years have implemented feature after feature without a clear plan of where they all tie in together, mixing old with new, so its a bit more cluttered but still functions quite well. Maybe Smugmug is due for a complete interface overhaul? Regardless, it will be curious to watch as both sites progress in the coming months & years.
I love smugmug. It’s the best thing that has happened to me since I bought my first digital camera. I think their two main functions are: to have a backup of your images accessible from anywhere, and to be able to show some of those pictures to who you want. But to be able to use independently these two functions, you need to upload several times the same photography.
In my case, as an architect, I take many photographies each time I visit a building in progress, because they let me show the evolution of the work, to comment some subjects with my team, and to work on it (you can see an example on http://ganchegui.smugmug.com/gallery/1292009/). And I like to be able to do it from anywhere, even from my house. But I also like that the people interested in our work can follow the evolution. For that purpose I need only some selected photographies. And here is where zenfolio’s collections would be very useful.
Also in familiar events, for example a wedding, some people can become bored to see the photos of people from invited families who they don't know. It would be nice to make a selection for each family.
Those are only two examples, but there are many more. The fact is always the same: one thing is to meke a backup of pictures and the other is how you show them.
The main negative with Zenfolio is that you can't edit the HTML of a gallery description like you can here. That means no empty "HTML only" pages, and no embedding video.
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
Please hurry this up! The original blog post was on June 14th, hopefully we'll be seeing it soon! My renewal date is coming up and browsing speed is a HUGE factor for me in deciding weither or not to stay with Smugmug. Some of my visitors have been complaining that my Smugmug site is slow
After reading through this thread, I decided to kick the tires on a Zenfolio trial account. All the talks about their UI had me pretty interested in what the fuss was about. Below, I'll share some comparative thoughts.
Before I get to that though, let me comment on Smugmug. Today is the first day after Smugmug implemented it's new pro features. Response to customer wishes plus a rock-solid backend (Amazon S3, etc.) are what make Smugmug the best photo sharing/hosting/selling service out there. You dwarf the competition in terms of features, and you allow your customers the flexibility to make their site into anything they desire. You trust your customers to make you look good, which I like.
That being said, there are some very positive things in Zenfolio's UI I'd love to see brought to SM. So, without further ado...
Image prefetching. Zenfolio (ZF) has it, SM doesn't. I know you guys are working on something, and I'm sure it will rock. Just saying...
Dynamic image resizing. I love how ZF does this. I often don't have my browser window maximized, and ZF just "fits," any time, all the time. I know SM has the custom image sizes available, but in terms of a photo filling the available screen area "out of the box" every time, ZF wins hands down.
Keyboard shortcuts. I've already become addicted to "arrowing through" a gallery in ZF. Combined with image prefetching, this makes for a very nice user experience.
Image switching. I'm not sure whether ZF uses AJAX to switch images for the user, but whatever they do, it's awesome. From the user's perspective, not having the browser jump around and force scrolling each time the image changes is wonderful.
I suppose my summary comment is that while SM focuses on its customers, ZF seems to have focused intently on the experience of it's "customer's users." The result, while more restrictive than SM, is an extremely clean, polished, and seamless user interface. I'd love to see the same brought to SM.
So, there are my $0.02 after a week playing with ZF. Kudos again to SM for the new features! Have a good weekend - you all deserve it.
After reading through this thread, I decided to kick the tires on a Zenfolio trial account. All the talks about their UI had me pretty interested in what the fuss was about. Below, I'll share some comparative thoughts.
Before I get to that though, let me comment on Smugmug. Today is the first day after Smugmug implemented it's new pro features. Response to customer wishes plus a rock-solid backend (Amazon S3, etc.) are what make Smugmug the best photo sharing/hosting/selling service out there. You dwarf the competition in terms of features, and you allow your customers the flexibility to make their site into anything they desire. You trust your customers to make you look good, which I like.
That being said, there are some very positive things in Zenfolio's UI I'd love to see brought to SM. So, without further ado...
Image prefetching. Zenfolio (ZF) has it, SM doesn't. I know you guys are working on something, and I'm sure it will rock. Just saying...
Dynamic image resizing. I love how ZF does this. I often don't have my browser window maximized, and ZF just "fits," any time, all the time. I know SM has the custom image sizes available, but in terms of a photo filling the available screen area "out of the box" every time, ZF wins hands down.
Keyboard shortcuts. I've already become addicted to "arrowing through" a gallery in ZF. Combined with image prefetching, this makes for a very nice user experience.
Image switching. I'm not sure whether ZF uses AJAX to switch images for the user, but whatever they do, it's awesome. From the user's perspective, not having the browser jump around and force scrolling each time the image changes is wonderful.
I suppose my summary comment is that while SM focuses on its customers, ZF seems to have focused intently on the experience of it's "customer's users." The result, while more restrictive than SM, is an extremely clean, polished, and seamless user interface. I'd love to see the same brought to SM.
So, there are my $0.02 after a week playing with ZF. Kudos again to SM for the new features! Have a good weekend - you all deserve it.
-Greg
I agree Greg, like someone said ,Zenfolio is 'WEB2' Smugmug 'Web1'. I have been running both Smugmug and Zenfolio. With Zenfolio a higher proportion of my clients are actually viewing the image in medium or larger size, whereas with smugmug people are just looking at thumbnails. The difference I think is speed: Blinding fast speed of Zenfolio vs the snail pace of Smugmug, - people just can't be bothered waiting for the smugmug images to download, hence the high proportion of people who just 'thumbnail' thru the gallery.
No doubt Zenfolio's got some cool stuff, but it's been a long time that SmugMug has had Web 2.0 stuff like Keywords Tags, AJAX, GeoMapping, User Customization to the max, themes, RSS Feeds, PhotoRank, our open-since-forever API and more
No doubt Zenfolio's got some cool stuff, but it's been a long time that SmugMug has had Web 2.0 stuff like Keywords Tags, AJAX, GeoMapping, User Customization to the max, themes, RSS Feeds, PhotoRank, our open-since-forever API and more
Andy, those are indeed some great web 2.0 features SM has, but I think people are mostly referring to Zenfolio's browsing, UI & overall look.
You gotta admit, after browsing Zenfolio for a while & then coming back to browse photos on Smugmug, its a much less fulfilling experience overall.
As a frequent participant in the "which photo sharing service is the best" threads in other online forums, I've just recently started to see a bunch of fairly positive references to Zenfolio, http://www.zenfolio.com.
With the usual suspects like pbase or flickr or imageshack, I know how to explain why many users would rather choose smugmug. I don't really know zenfolio and it seems to be gaining some attention and users. I was wondering if anyone else (in the dgrin community or at Smugmug) corporate has any pithy set of reasons why Smugmug is better than zenfolio? I'm not trying to challenge Smugmug, just looking for ammo on how to explain why Smugmug is better.
Anyone have anything on Zenfolio vs. Smugmug?
One thing I noticed while browsing a few galleries on their site is that it feels really, really fast when browsing. As best I can tell, they must be prefetching images that you are likely to go to. Costs them bandwidth (if you don't go to that image), but it seems to be pretty effective in enhancing browsing speed.
In the spirit of making sure the Smugmug folks see their competitive challenges, here's some info from a thread over in dgrin.
For pro users, Smugmug is still a slam dunk, especially with the latest round of new features for pros.
But, for basic users, it's definitely more challenging than it used to be to convince someone that Smugmug is the best choice. And power users seem to be getting squeezed as some other services are including much of that functionality in their basic package. Here are some snippets from some folks who chose Zenfolio. These snippets are from this dpreview thread.
I've just let my smugmug account expire and opened a Zenfolio account instead. Why? Mainly because its soooooo much easier to organise galleries in Zenfolio. Everything is in one place. You can create a directory structure thats as deep as you want. You don't have to go to 2 different places to edit categories and then sub-categories and finally a 3rd place to set gallery options. Its all done from one place. Its much more intuitive than smugmugs split page approach.
I will miss the myriad of upload options smugmug had courtesy of an open API (especially the uploader than integratd into the windows shell) but the Zenfolio uploader isn't too bad.
Don't get me wrong. I've been with smugmug for a year and I didn't really have any specific problems with them (infact I liked the service enough that I recommedned it to everyone I could). Its just that until I saw and tried Zenfolio I didn't know what I was missing. In summary my reasons for switching to Zenfolio were:
1 - Much easier organistion of galleries
2 - Faster browsing
3 - More "attractive" interface
4 - More customisation options at the $40 level than Smugmug
And a second message:
When I read something like this I start thinking I'm a martian that has just landed and for humans it is normal to have tentacles and three eyes on the back of the head.
When I opened my Smugmug account I was literally spending minutes trying to find how to accomplish simplest tasks such as deleting a gallery. With Zenfolio all the controls are right in front of you and the upload process is so straightforward so I cannot understand how can Smugmug can be easier to use than Zenfolio. -- photo newbie
And a third message: I actually went with the $25 Zenfolio option which gives you an extra 1GB of space each year you subscribe. It didn't actually cost me $25 as while I was on my free 14 day trial period I received a 10$ discount coupon! Since paying up I have had 2 referrals worth $10 (no idea who from) so up to now it's really only cost me $5.
I find the service great; no downtime since I started and no probems to report.
As others have pointed out Smugmug does offer more features and if you want to spend time doing lots of customization then Smugmug is probably for you. Howeevr, what I wanted was a simple to use hosted gallery service and I can say I have not been disappointed with Zenfolio. -- Phil L
And a fourth message:
What Zenfolio managed to address with their service is the core of what photographers care about: the best online presentation with fast high quality navigation and beautifully designed themes (ok, there are not 38 of them but the 7 themes they provide are top notch and very unique). They gave users a modern user interface so you can easily fly through the tasks instead of learning where things are and spend hours on forums figuring out how to do things.
I'd have to say that I agree with some of the comments. I'm not thinking of leaving Smugmug myself, but would like to see it improve/catch-up in some of these areas.
This one just happened to me yesterday (and I've been a customer for 2+ years with hundreds of galleries). I wanted to create a new gallery in a new sub-category in an existing category. I went to the category I wanted the new sub-category and gallery in. I clicked on the New Gallery button. I got to a screen that gave me absolutely no idea how to create a new sub-category. Eventually I remembered I had to start over and go to control panel and find the new sub-category page. After that, I had to then go back to where I was to create the gallery. Why wouldn't you be allowed to create a category and sub-category right from the New Gallery screen? Isn't that ALWAYS where you want to do it? This is just one trivial example, but it's an example where Smugmug is getting beat now.
This one just happened to me yesterday (and I've been a customer for 2+ years with hundreds of galleries). I wanted to create a new gallery in a new sub-category in an existing category. I went to the category I wanted the new sub-category and gallery in. I clicked on the New Gallery button. I got to a screen that gave me absolutely no idea how to create a new sub-category. Eventually I remembered I had to start over and go to control panel and find the new sub-category page. After that, I had to then go back to where I was to create the gallery. Why wouldn't you be allowed to create a category and sub-category right from the New Gallery screen? Isn't that ALWAYS where you want to do it? This is just one trivial example, but it's an example where Smugmug is getting beat now.
We do have the option to create a category and subcategory right on the create a new gallery page.. It's a feature we added pretty recently, so everyone might not be aware of it. In the category and subcategory list, you'll find a "Create new category/subcategory" choice. A box will come up right underneath where you can title your new creation. Is this what you were asking for?
-Anne
EDIT: Should add here that we are always looking to improve the site... but you just happened to give an example of something we recently added. Our release motto: "Release early, release often. Keep our customers on their toes."
We do have the option to create a category and subcategory right on the create a new gallery page.. It's a feature we added pretty recently, so everyone might not be aware of it. In the category and subcategory list, you'll find a "Create new category/subcategory" choice. A box will come up right underneath where you can title your new creation. Is this what you were asking for?
-Anne
I see it there now.
But, to tell you the blunt truth, before I posted my previous message I went and looked in that screen to make absolutely sure that this feature wasn't there (so I wouldn't have egg on my face). I even glanced at the drop-down list and I did NOT see it. Using myself as a sample of one, the point is that users don't seem to know it's there, even people who are looking for it.
This feature would be a WHOLE lot more obvious and more discoverable if there was a "New Category" button next to the category listing drop-down and "New Sub-Category" button next to the sub-category drop-down instead of putting them in the drop-down.
As it is today, you don't see it in the screen and you don't think of looking in a list of categories for a new category action. There are no other actions in that drop-down and the category list is really, really long.
But, to tell you the blunt truth, before I posted my previous message I went and looked in that screen to make absolutely sure that this feature wasn't there (so I wouldn't have egg on my face). I even glanced at the drop-down list and I did NOT see it. Using myself as a sample of one, the point is that users don't seem to know it's there, even people who are looking for it.
This feature would be a WHOLE lot more obvious and more discoverable if there was a "New Category" button next to the category listing drop-down and "New Sub-Category" button next to the sub-category drop-down instead of putting them in the drop-down.
As it is today, you don't see it in the screen and you don't think of looking in a list of categories for a new category action. There are no other actions in that drop-down and the category list is really, really long.
Thanks for the feedback! We are constantly searching for a happy medium between ease-of-use and options.
Personally, I find that extra buttons tend to clutter a page and separating the "new category" from the drop down where you choose a category is less-intuitive to me.
The way I see it is that new users tend to discover that they can create their own category when they open the dropdown (it's first on the list), and existing users have an easier way to create categories. They can still go to the control panel if they want, or if they don't notice the feature right away.
I do think we could be better about notifying customers about new features, especially subtle (but helpful!) changes like this one. We do an ok job of this through release notes, but understand the majority of our customers don't read them (and don't care about all the little things we are doing constantly). The help pages on creating a gallery and on creating categories and subcategories have been updated to reflect this new feature.
Again, we love the feedback and I'm glad this is a feature you'll use... now that you know where to find it!
Thanks for the feedback! We are constantly searching for a happy medium between ease-of-use and options.
Personally, I find that extra buttons tend to clutter a page and separating the "new category" from the drop down where you choose a category is less-intuitive to me.
The way I see it is that new users tend to discover that they can create their own category when they open the dropdown (it's first on the list), and existing users have an easier way to create categories. They can still go to the control panel if they want, or if they don't notice the feature right away.
I do think we could be better about notifying customers about new features, especially subtle (but helpful!) changes like this one. We do an ok job of this through release notes, but understand the majority of our customers don't read them (and don't care about all the little things we are doing constantly). The help pages on creating a gallery and on creating categories and subcategories have been updated to reflect this new feature.
Again, we love the feedback and I'm glad this is a feature you'll use... now that you know where to find it!
-Anne
I'm glad you're trying to get this feature into this screen, but I think it could be more discoverable and could be presented in a more consistent and expected user interface.
The thing about this feature is you shouldn't have to tell people about it for them to discover it and one shouldn't have to read a help screen to know it's there and/or how to use it. A great user interface makes the important features discoverable so people using it will naturally find what's important to them and then know how to use it.
That's my beef with putting this feature in the drop-down list. When you look at the screen and realize that you need to create a new category, a logical mind will think that the drop-down list is a list of existing categories because that's how it's labelled and that's what it's always been before and will not think to look there for an action like creating a new category. Intuition won't tell them that the drop-down list has both nouns and commands in it and generally a user interface shouldn't mix those in the same list. So, they will scan the screen for some other clue as to how to create a category and they will see nothing. I specifically looked in this screen for this feature and did not see it and I'm a pretty advanced user with a lot of experience with user interfaces.
If there was a button to the right of the category list that said "New Category" or "Create New Category", nobody would have a chance to miss it. It would be a lot more discoverable. You wouldn't be mixing nouns with actions in the same drop-down list. And, there's tons of room in this screen so it's not like anything gets crowded.
When they are using this screen to assign an existing category, they might get lucky and see the new category feature and it might stick in their head for future reference, but even that's not for sure.
Now, I've probably spent more time on this issue than it warrants, but I thought I'd take a stab at explaining my logic.
I noticed it and it looks like it's probably cool, but I don't use themes hardly at all so it didn't register much with me.
Overall, the create gallery page has improved a lot as you can now set up a lot more stuff at creation time. You used to have to create the gallery and then set almost everything afterwards. You now can set more things at create time which is good.
I noticed it and it looks like it's probably cool, but I don't use themes hardly at all so it didn't register much with me.
Overall, the create gallery page has improved a lot as you can now set up a lot more stuff at creation time. You used to have to create the gallery and then set almost everything afterwards. You now can set more things at create time which is good.
Overall I'm definitely liking the subtle improvements to the UI that have been going on the past few weeks. There is definitely room for improvement but things are getting better.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
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Wow, Collections sounds like a great feature. It sounds very close to the frequently requested "virtual galleries" that we've discussed here before.
I frequently have a need to display several hundred photos organized several different ways. Organized by event. Organized by person. Organized by teacher. Organized by team. Today I have to tag them all appropriately in Bridge, then upload separate copies to make distinct sets of galleries for each way I need to offer the pictures. This costs me extra prep time, costs me extra upload time and costs Smugmug extra storage space. I'd rather upload them all once to a master gallery and then define virtual galleries that consist of some sort of keyword query based on the master galery. But, to the user I want them to look just like a regular gallery. And, I have to have all the galleries password protected because of child privacy concerns of the parents, school, team or league.
Zenfolio sure is moving fast.
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Like I said in an earlier post, it sure seems like Zenfolio means serious business & are in it for the long haul.
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*And* smugmug probably also has something in the pipe. I mean they haven't had a release for 1.5 months. Sooner or later they'll put out another big release.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
I really love Smugmug A LOT! It just seems like Zenfolio is more of what im looking for right now. Just seems a better fit for me. I love how progressive the site is & they are also promising some pretty exciting features to come. So, dont look too much into it. You guys still rock!
But, I really enjoy posting here on dgrin, so hopefully I will still be welcome even though im a damn dirty traitor, lol.
Me too, I think these "virtual galleries" (they call them Collections in zenfolio, Sets in flickr) are essential for several purposes.
Thanks!
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The thing I don't like about SM lightbox is the scroll wheel on my mouse does not move the image. Instead it moves the background page. With Zenfolio I can scroll the image with the wheel on my mouse. Much better.
I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own - Adam Savage
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#1 Windows XP Home SP2, Logitech MX500, Firefox Browser.
#2 Windows XP Home SP1, Scroll Touchpad, Firefox Browser
#3 Windows XP Home SP2, Logitech Wireless, Firefox Browser
#4 Windows ME, Generic Wheel Mouse. Firefox Browser
The only constant in all these systems is the Firefox Browser.
When I click on Lightbox and an image actually shows up that is bigger than the screen I instictivly scrol with the wheel. Instead of the image I'm trying to scroll moving, the back ground page goes up and down. This happens on all my systems.
I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own - Adam Savage
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/929020/1/42491224/Original
FF 1.5, and IE6 on this image, with my Apple Mightmouse or the trackpad, I can scroll up/down the image. Perhaps theres some setting on your setup we need to find for you.
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Both smugmug and zenfolio (and countless others) offers the same essential features of storing your photos and letting those photos be displayed in attractive ways to your audience. What really separates the various sites is how well the present it to your audience.
I like smugmugs many views and also like zenfolios views.
Smugmug offers more customizations which is nice, but the user interface is a blend of old and new technologies mixed together which sometimes makes for an awkward experience. But they do offer a greater selection of tools.
Zenfolio seems totally web2.0 and everything AJAX since its very new so in general you get a more user friendly and faster experience in managing your photos, but not nearly as many features as smugmug yet.
The challenge is for smugmug to make more changes to make their site more web2.0 and for zenfolio to keep adding new features to match smugmug.
Also, a big feature missing from zenfolio is batch downloading your original photos in case of a crash, smugmug doesn't have it directly, but you can get it through the various scripts/tools that you can download.
One thing that surprises me is why neither has ventured in flash based portfolio presentions!!! For example, on www.solomodels.com (a photo site for fashion models/photographers) I see flash based portfolios that I wish were on smugmug or these other sites.
For the time being, I think I'll stick with smugmug but will be watching zenfolio closely and might sign up for them as well and use both sites.
This is not a "help me" thread. I simply stated what is a fact for me. All my machines behave the same regardless of OS. Lightbox does not scroll properly for me. Zenfolio's version of lightbox does.
I'm going to try Zenfolio. It seems to have and promises to have many of the features I've been requesting during my year with SmugMug.
1. Easier gallery manipulation and sub-gallery depth.
2. Digital Downloads.
3. Easier viewer experience.
Whether or not these pan out... Well I'll see in the next fourteen days.
I do think that you Andy deserve some kind of medal though. You have been quick to respond to my and many other SmugMug users. Even while on vacation! A round of applause for Andy.
I'm not leaving yet. Just checking my options.
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Here is my revised review with a more head-2-head comparison between each service.
I have both a "pro-level" ($150) Smugmug account & an "unlimited" ($40) Zenfolio account. I have been with Smugmug well over a year now. I also signed up for the "unlimited" Zenfolio account ($35 after referral code) almost 2 months ago after using the (no credit card) trial version for a few days. I started getting interested in it 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 isn't) as some have. 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, writing captions, rearranging stuff, setting up different page layouts/styles, and all the other options. What did I find out?
Smugmug has more pro features but Zenfolio looks nicer & 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 in a gallery, your browsers page position stays put & doesnt make you scroll each time, which I find SUPER annoying in Smugmug. You can sorta do this using the Lightbox feature in Smugmug, but it doesnt allow you the same freedom as Zenfolio with choosing thumbnails, pages & such. Both services offer unlimited uploads & downloads of original files. Bandwidth is unlimited too.
Zenfolio also allows users to make their breadcrumb as deep as they want, which I find to be VERY useful at times. Smugmug restricts the breadcrumb from going any deeper than 4 times. Everything looks nice & neat on the page in Zenfolio, I like the way you hover your mouse 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 browsing 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. Its almost like viewing photos with a piece of software on your computer's hard drive! Yes, its THAT fast!!
But, like I said, Smugmug (as of now) has more pro features, more users, an awesome forum (dgrin.com) & great customer service. Although, I will say that everytime I have contacted Zenfolio support, they have usually replied within the same hour & were always extremely helpful & very nice too. What about prints? Smugmug all the way, no question. The prints look awesome & the service is the best that comes with a guarantee. 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 do a true comparison.
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 nor do they want to be. Smugmug also has pre-made themes, but I personally like Zenfolio's better, as they look a bit more elegant to me without being overly cheesy.
How about user options? Well, thats a tough one. If I were comparing a pro-level Smugmug account to an unlimited Zenolio account, Smugmug would win because they have TONS of options for pros such as setting your own print prices, ability to upload short videos, watermarking, guest passwords for uploading original files, using your own custom domain name (which Zenfolio now has too), etc. However, if I were comparing Smugmug's other two accounts, Standard ($40) and Power ($60), to Zenfolio's Unlimited account ($40), in my opinion the Zenfolio account takes the cake & is a way better deal for what all you get.
But, back to options. How easy is it to change options with each service? Smugmug's are a little more spread out & you may find yourself looking in 4 different places within your account to accomplish something simple, like just setting up a new gallery with a sub-category, then choosing the options for that gallery in another location & finally adding photos to it. Its not hard, but its not what I would call intuitive either. Thats not the case with Zenfolio. 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 do mean everything!
This sounds like a bad idea at first 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 of that folder appears inside the main area in the center with all the options on the right. You can go deeper in your breadcrumb from there & make changes to any part of it, including the homepage. Then, you can view it as a guest would to see if its to your liking. They also allow descriptions to any part of your breadcrumb, not just galleries. I really like that a lot because sometimes I want to write little descriptions to a group that may contain a bunch of galleries within it that have their own separate descriptions & so on.
How good do the actual photos themselves look on each site after compression? You be the judge. Here is a photo hosted on Smugmug. And here is the same exact photo hosted on Zenfolio at the same size. I notice a lot more compression artifacts on the Smugmug photo, especially around the polka dots on her dress going up towards her neck. Also, look into & around her eyes. Artifacts are more apparent there too in the Smugmug pic. Still can't tell much of a difference?? Here is a closeup of the Smugmug image & here is the same closeup on Zenfolio. The Zenfolio image just looks more pleasing to my eyes & those image artifacts arent as apparent as they are in the Smugmug photo. Originals are the same, of course since there is no compression used with each service on those. My vote goes to Zenfolio here, even if technically the file size of the image is bigger with Zenfolio, I personally think thats irrelevant & when you're dealing with photos, looks should prevail over file size.
So, ultimately, I think both Smugmug & Zenfolio are truly the best photo sharing services out right now & you cant go wrong with either. I think it mostly just comes down to personal preference & what you aim to do with your site. I myself have decided to give up my Smugmug pro account in favor of my Zenfolio unlimited account. It fits me better & just plain does more of the things that I personally want it to do, not to mention is more cost effective to people like me who dont need all those high end features just yet. But, for $40 a year, Zenfolio is an awesome deal for what you get & in my opinion, is a better deal than Smugmug's Standard ($40) & Power ($60) accounts. But, now if your aim is to sell your prints online, you simply must have every pro option imaginable & are good with html/css web design, then a $150 Smugmug pro account is exactly what you're looking for. The service is great & you will be very happy with them! Both services have pretty regular updates, although I will argue that Zenfolio seems to have more meaningful updates as of late with more useful (and requested) features being implemented at an extremely fast rate, but dont count Smugmug out in this department. Im sure they got some tricks up their sleeves ;-) But, there is no denying that Zenfolio is a VERY "Web 2.0" kind of setup & was built that way from the beginning. Whereas, Smugmug seems like over the years have implemented feature after feature without a clear plan of where they all tie in together, mixing old with new, so its a bit more cluttered but still functions quite well. Maybe Smugmug is due for a complete interface overhaul? Regardless, it will be curious to watch as both sites progress in the coming months & years.
I hope my little "review" helps. Cheers...Kerry
In my case, as an architect, I take many photographies each time I visit a building in progress, because they let me show the evolution of the work, to comment some subjects with my team, and to work on it (you can see an example on http://ganchegui.smugmug.com/gallery/1292009/). And I like to be able to do it from anywhere, even from my house. But I also like that the people interested in our work can follow the evolution. For that purpose I need only some selected photographies. And here is where zenfolio’s collections would be very useful.
Also in familiar events, for example a wedding, some people can become bored to see the photos of people from invited families who they don't know. It would be nice to make a selection for each family.
Those are only two examples, but there are many more. The fact is always the same: one thing is to meke a backup of pictures and the other is how you show them.
mario
ganchegui.smugmug.com
Please hurry this up! The original blog post was on June 14th, hopefully we'll be seeing it soon! My renewal date is coming up and browsing speed is a HUGE factor for me in deciding weither or not to stay with Smugmug. Some of my visitors have been complaining that my Smugmug site is slow
Before I get to that though, let me comment on Smugmug. Today is the first day after Smugmug implemented it's new pro features. Response to customer wishes plus a rock-solid backend (Amazon S3, etc.) are what make Smugmug the best photo sharing/hosting/selling service out there. You dwarf the competition in terms of features, and you allow your customers the flexibility to make their site into anything they desire. You trust your customers to make you look good, which I like.
That being said, there are some very positive things in Zenfolio's UI I'd love to see brought to SM. So, without further ado...
- Image prefetching. Zenfolio (ZF) has it, SM doesn't. I know you guys are working on something, and I'm sure it will rock. Just saying...
- Dynamic image resizing. I love how ZF does this. I often don't have my browser window maximized, and ZF just "fits," any time, all the time. I know SM has the custom image sizes available, but in terms of a photo filling the available screen area "out of the box" every time, ZF wins hands down.
- Keyboard shortcuts. I've already become addicted to "arrowing through" a gallery in ZF. Combined with image prefetching, this makes for a very nice user experience.
- Image switching. I'm not sure whether ZF uses AJAX to switch images for the user, but whatever they do, it's awesome. From the user's perspective, not having the browser jump around and force scrolling each time the image changes is wonderful.
I suppose my summary comment is that while SM focuses on its customers, ZF seems to have focused intently on the experience of it's "customer's users." The result, while more restrictive than SM, is an extremely clean, polished, and seamless user interface. I'd love to see the same brought to SM.So, there are my $0.02 after a week playing with ZF. Kudos again to SM for the new features! Have a good weekend - you all deserve it.
-Greg
Swim for Them | WellmanHouse.net | AlbumFetcher | SmugShowBuilder
I agree Greg, like someone said ,Zenfolio is 'WEB2' Smugmug 'Web1'. I have been running both Smugmug and Zenfolio. With Zenfolio a higher proportion of my clients are actually viewing the image in medium or larger size, whereas with smugmug people are just looking at thumbnails. The difference I think is speed: Blinding fast speed of Zenfolio vs the snail pace of Smugmug, - people just can't be bothered waiting for the smugmug images to download, hence the high proportion of people who just 'thumbnail' thru the gallery.
www.razorsharp.smugmug.com
http://maxhr.zenfolio.com/
No doubt Zenfolio's got some cool stuff, but it's been a long time that SmugMug has had Web 2.0 stuff like Keywords Tags, AJAX, GeoMapping, User Customization to the max, themes, RSS Feeds, PhotoRank, our open-since-forever API and more
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You gotta admit, after browsing Zenfolio for a while & then coming back to browse photos on Smugmug, its a much less fulfilling experience overall.
In the spirit of making sure the Smugmug folks see their competitive challenges, here's some info from a thread over in dgrin.
For pro users, Smugmug is still a slam dunk, especially with the latest round of new features for pros.
But, for basic users, it's definitely more challenging than it used to be to convince someone that Smugmug is the best choice. And power users seem to be getting squeezed as some other services are including much of that functionality in their basic package. Here are some snippets from some folks who chose Zenfolio. These snippets are from this dpreview thread.
Joss Delage wrote:
> Well, I've created one account of each. I'll see which one I like
> best. For now, Smugmug is the clear winner in ease of upload and
> edit, but I need to experiment some more.
>
> http://jdelage.smugmug.com/gallery/1803880
> and
> http://jdelage.zenfolio.com/p60541475/
I've just let my smugmug account expire and opened a Zenfolio account instead. Why? Mainly because its soooooo much easier to organise galleries in Zenfolio. Everything is in one place. You can create a directory structure thats as deep as you want. You don't have to go to 2 different places to edit categories and then sub-categories and finally a 3rd place to set gallery options. Its all done from one place. Its much more intuitive than smugmugs split page approach.
I will miss the myriad of upload options smugmug had courtesy of an open API (especially the uploader than integratd into the windows shell) but the Zenfolio uploader isn't too bad.
Don't get me wrong. I've been with smugmug for a year and I didn't really have any specific problems with them (infact I liked the service enough that I recommedned it to everyone I could). Its just that until I saw and tried Zenfolio I didn't know what I was missing. In summary my reasons for switching to Zenfolio were:
1 - Much easier organistion of galleries
2 - Faster browsing
3 - More "attractive" interface
4 - More customisation options at the $40 level than Smugmug
And a second message:
When I read something like this I start thinking I'm a martian that has just landed and for humans it is normal to have tentacles and three eyes on the back of the head.
When I opened my Smugmug account I was literally spending minutes trying to find how to accomplish simplest tasks such as deleting a gallery. With Zenfolio all the controls are right in front of you and the upload process is so straightforward so I cannot understand how can Smugmug can be easier to use than Zenfolio.
-- photo newbie
And a third message:
I actually went with the $25 Zenfolio option which gives you an extra 1GB of space each year you subscribe. It didn't actually cost me $25 as while I was on my free 14 day trial period I received a 10$ discount coupon! Since paying up I have had 2 referrals worth $10 (no idea who from) so up to now it's really only cost me $5.
I find the service great; no downtime since I started and no probems to report.
As others have pointed out Smugmug does offer more features and if you want to spend time doing lots of customization then Smugmug is probably for you. Howeevr, what I wanted was a simple to use hosted gallery service and I can say I have not been disappointed with Zenfolio.
-- Phil L
And a fourth message:
What Zenfolio managed to address with their service is the core of what photographers care about: the best online presentation with fast high quality navigation and beautifully designed themes (ok, there are not 38 of them but the 7 themes they provide are top notch and very unique). They gave users a modern user interface so you can easily fly through the tasks instead of learning where things are and spend hours on forums figuring out how to do things.
I'd have to say that I agree with some of the comments. I'm not thinking of leaving Smugmug myself, but would like to see it improve/catch-up in some of these areas.
This one just happened to me yesterday (and I've been a customer for 2+ years with hundreds of galleries). I wanted to create a new gallery in a new sub-category in an existing category. I went to the category I wanted the new sub-category and gallery in. I clicked on the New Gallery button. I got to a screen that gave me absolutely no idea how to create a new sub-category. Eventually I remembered I had to start over and go to control panel and find the new sub-category page. After that, I had to then go back to where I was to create the gallery. Why wouldn't you be allowed to create a category and sub-category right from the New Gallery screen? Isn't that ALWAYS where you want to do it? This is just one trivial example, but it's an example where Smugmug is getting beat now.
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EDIT: Should add here that we are always looking to improve the site... but you just happened to give an example of something we recently added. Our release motto: "Release early, release often. Keep our customers on their toes."
I see it there now.
But, to tell you the blunt truth, before I posted my previous message I went and looked in that screen to make absolutely sure that this feature wasn't there (so I wouldn't have egg on my face). I even glanced at the drop-down list and I did NOT see it. Using myself as a sample of one, the point is that users don't seem to know it's there, even people who are looking for it.
This feature would be a WHOLE lot more obvious and more discoverable if there was a "New Category" button next to the category listing drop-down and "New Sub-Category" button next to the sub-category drop-down instead of putting them in the drop-down.
As it is today, you don't see it in the screen and you don't think of looking in a list of categories for a new category action. There are no other actions in that drop-down and the category list is really, really long.
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Thanks for the feedback! We are constantly searching for a happy medium between ease-of-use and options.
Personally, I find that extra buttons tend to clutter a page and separating the "new category" from the drop down where you choose a category is less-intuitive to me.
The way I see it is that new users tend to discover that they can create their own category when they open the dropdown (it's first on the list), and existing users have an easier way to create categories. They can still go to the control panel if they want, or if they don't notice the feature right away.
I do think we could be better about notifying customers about new features, especially subtle (but helpful!) changes like this one. We do an ok job of this through release notes, but understand the majority of our customers don't read them (and don't care about all the little things we are doing constantly). The help pages on creating a gallery and on creating categories and subcategories have been updated to reflect this new feature.
Again, we love the feedback and I'm glad this is a feature you'll use... now that you know where to find it!
-Anne
No comment on the theme thumbnail previewer
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I'm glad you're trying to get this feature into this screen, but I think it could be more discoverable and could be presented in a more consistent and expected user interface.
The thing about this feature is you shouldn't have to tell people about it for them to discover it and one shouldn't have to read a help screen to know it's there and/or how to use it. A great user interface makes the important features discoverable so people using it will naturally find what's important to them and then know how to use it.
That's my beef with putting this feature in the drop-down list. When you look at the screen and realize that you need to create a new category, a logical mind will think that the drop-down list is a list of existing categories because that's how it's labelled and that's what it's always been before and will not think to look there for an action like creating a new category. Intuition won't tell them that the drop-down list has both nouns and commands in it and generally a user interface shouldn't mix those in the same list. So, they will scan the screen for some other clue as to how to create a category and they will see nothing. I specifically looked in this screen for this feature and did not see it and I'm a pretty advanced user with a lot of experience with user interfaces.
If there was a button to the right of the category list that said "New Category" or "Create New Category", nobody would have a chance to miss it. It would be a lot more discoverable. You wouldn't be mixing nouns with actions in the same drop-down list. And, there's tons of room in this screen so it's not like anything gets crowded.
When they are using this screen to assign an existing category, they might get lucky and see the new category feature and it might stick in their head for future reference, but even that's not for sure.
Now, I've probably spent more time on this issue than it warrants, but I thought I'd take a stab at explaining my logic.
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I noticed it and it looks like it's probably cool, but I don't use themes hardly at all so it didn't register much with me.
Overall, the create gallery page has improved a lot as you can now set up a lot more stuff at creation time. You used to have to create the gallery and then set almost everything afterwards. You now can set more things at create time which is good.
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