Making galleries private?

chet79

Hi,

I have a few galleries on my smugmug acct that I don't wish to be public accessable. I believe I have 2 options:

- make them private
- put a password on them

If I were to put a password on said galleries, people are still going to know the galleries exist when visiting my smugmug page, right?

If I were to make them private, is there any way of giving my friends access?

Andy

chet79 wrote:

Hi,

I have a few galleries on my smugmug acct that I don't wish to be public accessable. I believe I have 2 options:

- make them private
- put a password on them

If I were to put a password on said galleries, people are still going to know the galleries exist when visiting my smugmug page, right?

If I were to make them private, is there any way of giving my friends access?

Hi, it's really well explained here:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-albums

I'll quote it:

In your home, privacy comes from drawing the drapes. Security comes from locking the door.

On SmugMug, you can set any gallery to private and it will not show up on your SmugMug homepage or in searches. It's like closing the drapes on your windows at home - no one can see what's going on inside, but that doesn't necessarily mean you've locked the door and set the alarm. They could just walk right in.

You can also set a password for any gallery, or your entire SmugMug site. By setting a 'password' on a gallery, you've now locked the door. Anyone visiting that gallery will be required to enter a password to see the photos, otherwise, they'll be blocked access.

These options can be mixed and matched. You can have a password set, for example, so everyone needs to authenticate, but you can have 'privacy' turned off. So people can easily find the gallery, they just can't easily get in. If you flip the scenario, people can't easily find the gallery, but they can easily get in. Only by using both together can you make it difficult to find and difficult to get in.

Does this help?

chet79

Andy, you rock - thanks, that explains it very well

Now - how can people "find" my private galleries?
- can I still send friends a URL for parricular galleries?

I'm off to experiment now.

Andy

chet79 wrote:

Andy, you rock - thanks, that explains it very well

Now - how can people "find" my private galleries?
- can I still send friends a URL for parricular galleries?

I'm off to experiment now.

Sure, just give them a link... here's an example:

http://www.moonriverphotography.com/gallery/78316

chet79

cheers!

jfriend

Three options

chet79 wrote:

Hi,

I have a few galleries on my smugmug acct that I don't wish to be public accessable. I believe I have 2 options:

- make them private
- put a password on them

If I were to put a password on said galleries, people are still going to know the galleries exist when visiting my smugmug page, right?

If I were to make them private, is there any way of giving my friends access?

If you go into "Customize Gallery" and go to the Security and Privacy section, you can change the "public" setting to "No". This will remove the gallery from your Smugmug home page or Smugmug category. Users who do not know it exists will not see it in your Smugmug site. It kind of works like an unlisted phone number. It's not in the directory, but anybody who knows it can still use it.

You, on the other hand, will still see this gallery in your Smugmug site when you are logged in. So, if you email your friends a link to the non-public gallery, they will be able to follow that link and see the gallery. They won't see it in your Smugmug web-site, but if they follow the link directly to the non-public gallery, they can see it.

Notice, I didn't called this a "private" gallery. That term is used commonly here and I don't really know why because the Smugmug UI doesn't call it private and I don't call it private because it's not really private. Anybody who knows the link can view it. It's just like an unlisted phone number. It isn't offered in the directory, but anyone who knows it can use it.

So, making a gallery non-public doesn't really secure it. It hides it from the public's view, but anyone who finds the URL can view it.

Passwords, on the other hand, do prevent access to the gallery unless you know the password. So, if you really want security and want to make absolutely sure that nobody except those you explicitly want can view the gallery, you probably should use a gallery password.

In your situation, you actually have three options:

1) You can make it non-public and then send the gallery link to your friends. They will be able to view it normally, but it will not appear in your Smugmug site for others to find. It isn't really private because others could accidentally find it and view it.

2) You can put a password on it and leave it public. This will show it in your Smugmug web site, but when users try to open it, they will be required to enter a password before they can get in to view the images.

3) You can make it non-publc and put a password on it. This will both remove it from the public's view and require a password (combination of options 1 and 2).

dcyphert

Password Protected galleries
Has anyone else had problems lately getting the galleries to stay locked down with a password, I have galleries that have passwords applied to them (and it displays a LOCK icon) but I or anyone else don't get the password prompt page...is there a problem with the UI?

Allen

dcyphert wrote:

Has anyone else had problems lately getting the galleries to stay locked down with a password, I have galleries that have passwords applied to them (and it displays a LOCK icon) but I or anyone else don't get the password prompt page...is there a problem with the UI?

I get the password prompt. If you visited the gallery resently it will remember
the PW for a while and you'll get right in.
AL

dcyphert

Allen wrote:

I get the password prompt. If you visited the gallery resently it will remember
the PW for a while and you'll get right in.
AL

Al,

Are using FF or IE...I am using IE at the moment.

Allen

dcyphert wrote:

Al,

Are using FF or IE...I am using IE at the moment.

I get the PW prompt page in both FF & IE6.

Andy

dcyphert wrote:

Has anyone else had problems lately getting the galleries to stay locked down with a password, I have galleries that have passwords applied to them (and it displays a LOCK icon) but I or anyone else don't get the password prompt page...is there a problem with the UI?

Give us a link - and how you are arriving at that page pls.