The alternative is that users can create their own feeds on their own accounts. But teaching them to do that is not going to be easy and actually defeats why I spent so much time working on this.
And you have done a STUNNINGLY good job of it too!!!! I have a little idea re: customised feeds but was wondering - the one I just subscribed to (http://www.smugmug.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=flower&searchType=UserImage&NickName=docwalker) - will I get an update when you add a flower photo?, will it show all the flower photos you added in the update email? will it just point me to a gallery?
I am looking forward to seeing how this works - I can envisage someone emailing how they would like their custom feed and you could add it for them by emailing them back....
Was wondering one this though and I think I already know the answer but thought I would check - I assume anyone who subscribes won't be notified if I add a private gallery or a password gallery?
Private galleries should not show in your feeds. Passworded ones will show but they will need a password to access as usual. The feed simply pulls the thumbnail and description from your homepage or one of the gallery pages. Feedblitz is seeing it as a person would that is not logged in. Therefore the same rules should apply?
I just took a look at the feed I am using and it is only showing public photos and galleries.
Yep, I signed up. I just had not confirmed the email yet. Check again in a few minutes.
Also, can you post the code you used to set up the form. For some reason I cannot get the email box to work correctly. I can get the text into a block but the email field will not show up.
I fixed the other link. You have to be careful when adding the new feed as it is so loing you cannot tell if it is entered correctly. I clicked twice and screwed it up. It is easy to fix.
Also, can you post the code you used to set up the form. For some reason I cannot get the email box to work correctly. I can get the text into a block but the email field will not show up. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/headscratch.gif" border="0" alt="" >
<html><form Method="POST" action="[URL="http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?AddNewUserDirect"]http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?AddNewUserDirect[/URL]">
Enter your Email and click Subscribe Me - <input name="EMAIL" maxlength="255" type="text" size="30" value=""><br><br>
<input name="FEEDID" type="hidden" value="82743">
<input type="submit" value="Subscribe me!">
<br><br></form></html>
Yep, I signed up. I just had not confirmed the email yet. Check again in a few minutes.
Also, can you post the code you used to set up the form. For some reason I cannot get the email box to work correctly. I can get the text into a block but the email field will not show up.
Can anyone spot my crappy code? Looks nice in ie but crapola in FF.
<br><br>
<html><p align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="666666">
Would you like to be notified by email when Cameron updates his galleries?<br>Simply follow the instructions and you will receive an update email once daily if Cameron has updated any of his galleries or added a new gallery.<br><br><form Method="POST" action="[URL="http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?AddNewUserDirect"]http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?AddNewUserDirect[/URL]">
Enter your Email and click Subscribe Me - <input name="EMAIL" maxlength="255" type="text" size="30" value=""><br><br>
<input name="FEEDID" type="hidden" value="82743">
<input type="submit" value="Subscribe me!">
<br><br></form></html>
According to Tidy... It says that you have not closed the tag before starting the form. You might want to grab tidy and the developer toolbar. It is pointing out several errors. Some of them are not truly errors but it might help.
According to Tidy... It says that you have not closed the <font> tag before starting the form. You might want to grab tidy and the developer toolbar. It is pointing out several errors. Some of them are not truly errors but it might help.
Got the Dev toolbar - fixed up the <font> but still no luck. This is where I am at now - any other takers?
<html><br><br>
<p align="center"><font face="Verdana" color="666666">
Would you like to be notified by email when Cameron updates his galleries?<br>Simply follow the instructions and you will receive an update email once daily if Cameron has updated any of his galleries or added a new gallery.<br><br><form Method="POST" action="[URL="http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?AddNewUserDirect"]http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?AddNewUserDirect[/URL]">
Enter your Email and click Subscribe - <input name="EMAIL" maxlength="255" type="text" size="30" value=""><br><br>
<input name="FEEDID" type="hidden" value="82743">
<input type="submit" value="Subscribe">
<br><br></form></font></p></html>
It is all centered now which is what I am after but the font color in FF is white rather than 666666
Setting this up is really simple. (even with it taking me several months to figure it out and get it working)
1. register with Feedblitz
2. click create new feed
3. go to your SM site and copy the Atom Recent Galleries feed URL
4. paste this URL into the new feed dialog on Feedblitz (do not set an id or password)
5. once the feed is created you need to get the subscription dialog on your page. Click the <> button to view the source code.
6. Copy the source code.
7. Go to your SM customization page.
8. Paste the Feedblitz code into an HTML section of your page. I put it in my footer. It could easily be placed in your Bio, the header, or even a seperate album discription if you want it on another page.
9. I also copied the code for the chiklet showing the number of people subscribed to your feed.
10. Subscribe yourself to the feed.
11. give things a day to stabilize and for feedblitz to get a baseline of your feed.
12. add a gallery and new photos.
13. wait 24 hours to see if the feed is working. You should get an email showing just the new gallery.
This could possibly be used for new photos feed and the popular photos feeds. I saw 2 problems with this. I add a lot of new photos and this could get overwhelming to some. The popular photos are cool but there would be repeats.
Bingo... now you have an AUTOMATED subscription service on your SM page. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/clap.gif" border="0" alt="" >
I have 8 people watching my site now and I am seeing an increase in traffic from it. Some of them signed up months ago when the feed was not working. Now they are coming back after getting the emails.
Thanks to those of you that halped with testing. I am going to do destroy the other accounts at squeet, feedburner, yutter and such as they are not needed now.
Hey Doc,
Hope this isn't too big of a problem but I am a bit worried that we have a problem. I haven't got any update emails about my site or your site in any way, neither have any of my subscribers - I have updated my site however. I am still getting your feedburner updates however....
That is wierd. I am getting updates. I have one from yesterday and one from this morning. Check your spam filter. I found some of mine in the filter box.
I will keep an eye on it. Feedburner has sent me nothing for several days.
That is wierd. I am getting updates. I have one from yesterday and one from this morning. Check your spam filter. I found some of mine in the filter box.
I will keep an eye on it. Feedburner has sent me nothing for several days.
Did you get one from when you subscribed to my site?? If sos can you forward it to my email? Nothing in the spam filter that I can see....
As far as updates go, I syndicated my smugmug on livejournal. I also syndicated my friends smugmug sites... and then what's fun is I just added them all to my friends list, so I'll get a "post" whenever someone updates or creates a new gallery. It's a really nifty tool in my opinion, and I prefer it over getting emails.
Neat concept and I will take a further look at it.
You have a good grasp on the feed concept. But, 90% of my customers do not. Email is the only viable option at this point. It is the only thing that they look at on a regular basis.
As you probably noticed I got my first update email and I am assuming you did too! Tis working well - now just to see if it keeps it up to date daily as it promises. Still not sure about the customized feeds - a couple of problems with them, for example - a space or a ' symbol can't be in the feed url. Make it hard to search for either of these examples "matt bowen" or "o'donnell"
Yes, I got the update as well. Hopefully it will continue. I think it is a great add-on with a lot of potential.
As for the special characters... Who knows. I understand the problem. The web is a funny thing. Special characters are just that, special. Early on programers used the available character map to trigger functions. Finally, in the last few years they have started creating unique characters for functions and releasing the language related ones for use. I used to hate not being able to use $&%*# signs when working with certain databases.
I am not sure that this is something that you will be able to fix. I suggest tyring to find an old work around. Some characters can be created in a URL by doing things like %20 for a space. Check out http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/topics/urlencoding.htm for some ideas.
Yes, I got the update as well. Hopefully it will continue. I think it is a great add-on with a lot of potential.
As for the special characters... Who knows. I understand the problem. The web is a funny thing. Special characters are just that, special. Early on programers used the available character map to trigger functions. Finally, in the last few years they have started creating unique characters for functions and releasing the language related ones for use. I used to hate not being able to use $&%*# signs when working with certain databases.
I am not sure that this is something that you will be able to fix. I suggest tyring to find an old work around. Some characters can be created in a URL by doing things like %20 for a space. Check out http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/topics/urlencoding.htm for some ideas.
Thanks for the tips Doc! Hey, is there a way someone can subscribe to just this gallery - http://www.cameronlaird.com/gallery/1173658 - so that they get notified when only that gallery is updated (like I have set up now for all galleries) rather than get a copy of every photo added to the gallery?
I believe that you can take the Atom feed for that one gallery and syndicate it in Feedblitz. Then take the subcription code for that syndication and paste it in your gallery discription.
It should only update when new photos are added. It will look at the dates of each photo and when new ones are found it will send those.
I am speculating as I have not had time to test it myself. But theoretically that is what should happen with the Atom feed. I am seeing it work with my all galleries subscription. Only when new photos are added to the galleries are people being notified.
Comments
Doc,
Implementing it now - give this a shot...
http://www.cameronlaird.com/gallery/1727460
Cammo
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
And you have done a STUNNINGLY good job of it too!!!! I have a little idea re: customised feeds but was wondering - the one I just subscribed to (http://www.smugmug.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=flower&searchType=UserImage&NickName=docwalker) - will I get an update when you add a flower photo?, will it show all the flower photos you added in the update email? will it just point me to a gallery?
I am looking forward to seeing how this works - I can envisage someone emailing how they would like their custom feed and you could add it for them by emailing them back....
Cammo
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
And yes. You will get notified when I add a flower photo. I plan on doing that tonight if I find a good flower to test with.
You are right that this has a lot of potential. You can actually stack keywords to narrow searches if needed. ie. (Flower +butterflies)
The possibilities are endless.
http://help.smugmug.com
I just took a look at the feed I am using and it is only showing public photos and galleries.
http://help.smugmug.com
Bit wacky - has turned the feed into this link http://www.docwalkersphotography.com/hack/feed.mg?Typehttp://www.smugmug.com/search/index.mg?searchWords=flower&searchType=UserImage&NickName=docwalker
No wonder it is paused......
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
Did you subscribe to mine? I am not seeing an extra subscriber at all?
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
Also, can you post the code you used to set up the form. For some reason I cannot get the email box to work correctly. I can get the text into a block but the email field will not show up.
http://help.smugmug.com
http://help.smugmug.com
Hope this helps...
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
Did you wrap html tags around the code?
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
http://help.smugmug.com
Thanks!
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
According to Tidy... It says that you have not closed the tag before starting the form. You might want to grab tidy and the developer toolbar. It is pointing out several errors. Some of them are not truly errors but it might help.
http://help.smugmug.com
Got the Dev toolbar - fixed up the <font> but still no luck. This is where I am at now - any other takers?
It is all centered now which is what I am after but the font color in FF is white rather than 666666
Anyone?
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
Hey Doc,
Hope this isn't too big of a problem but I am a bit worried that we have a problem. I haven't got any update emails about my site or your site in any way, neither have any of my subscribers - I have updated my site however. I am still getting your feedburner updates however....
I hope this feedblitz subscription isn't a dud! <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/eek7.gif" border="0" alt="" >
Cammo
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
That is wierd. I am getting updates. I have one from yesterday and one from this morning. Check your spam filter. I found some of mine in the filter box.
I will keep an eye on it. Feedburner has sent me nothing for several days.
http://help.smugmug.com
Did you get one from when you subscribed to my site?? If sos can you forward it to my email? Nothing in the spam filter that I can see....
Cammo
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
http://help.smugmug.com
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/shima_smugmug/
note: it has a better appearance when viewed on a friends page of livejournal, since then it displays a picture from the new gallery.
For example:
http://shima-mizu.livejournal.com/friends/Photos
Facebook: Friend / Fan || Twitter: @shimamizu || Google Plus
Neat concept and I will take a further look at it.
You have a good grasp on the feed concept. But, 90% of my customers do not. Email is the only viable option at this point. It is the only thing that they look at on a regular basis.
http://help.smugmug.com
As you probably noticed I got my first update email and I am assuming you did too! Tis working well - now just to see if it keeps it up to date daily as it promises. Still not sure about the customized feeds - a couple of problems with them, for example - a space or a ' symbol can't be in the feed url. Make it hard to search for either of these examples "matt bowen" or "o'donnell"
Any ideas?
Cammo
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
As for the special characters... Who knows. I understand the problem. The web is a funny thing. Special characters are just that, special. Early on programers used the available character map to trigger functions. Finally, in the last few years they have started creating unique characters for functions and releasing the language related ones for use. I used to hate not being able to use $&%*# signs when working with certain databases.
I am not sure that this is something that you will be able to fix. I suggest tyring to find an old work around. Some characters can be created in a URL by doing things like %20 for a space. Check out http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/topics/urlencoding.htm for some ideas.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_14143
Let me know what you find.
http://help.smugmug.com
Thanks for the tips Doc! Hey, is there a way someone can subscribe to just this gallery - http://www.cameronlaird.com/gallery/1173658 - so that they get notified when only that gallery is updated (like I have set up now for all galleries) rather than get a copy of every photo added to the gallery?
Any idea?
Smugmug address - http://camlaird.smugmug.com
It should only update when new photos are added. It will look at the dates of each photo and when new ones are found it will send those.
I am speculating as I have not had time to test it myself. But theoretically that is what should happen with the Atom feed. I am seeing it work with my all galleries subscription. Only when new photos are added to the galleries are people being notified.
Try it and let me know if it works.
http://help.smugmug.com
Thanks for any help you can give
Josh
http://www.smugmug.com/help/rss-atom-feeds
but not one for categories.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Thanks Andy... Do you know if there are any plans for any kind of email on update kind of functionality.
Josh