New BETA release

onethumb

We listened closely to the feedback everyone provided in the last beta thread, and we've got a new release out the door.

There were lots of little changes, but the big ones are a much better, faster page picker, improved comments, and better keyboard navigation.

The goal here is to make sure that this release improves on SmugMug as it is today, and doesn't crash or break browsers. I think we're probably there, which is great, because it means we can finish up v2 that much faster, but let us know.

Please use this new thread to talk about problems with this release rather than the old thread. Feature requests should be made in the feature requests thread or on the wiki - not here please.

aktse

I think I'm doing something wrong. I can't seem to figure out how to upload photos.

-- New Beta (three buttons -- no "new gallery" button)



-- Smugmug (four buttons -- "new gallery" button)



What am I missing? At first, I thought I wasn't logged in, but I seem to have access to the control panel, etc.

****
idiot. me.

I figured it out; my beta account expired. I somehow competely missed the "sign up" button!

Allen

Ah, I see file names been added to the exif popup. At least they're available now.
Thanks
Al

onethumb

aktse wrote:

idiot. me.

I figured it out; my beta account expired. I somehow competely missed the "sign up" button!

Actually, we're the idiots. You shouldn't have to pay for a beta account.

I think I fixed this. Thanks for the heads-up, and holler if anyone else finds their accounts locked out.

Don

aktse

onethumb wrote:

Actually, we're the idiots. You shouldn't have to pay for a beta account.

I think I fixed this. Thanks for the heads-up, and holler if anyone else finds their accounts locked out.

Don

I was just in the process of writing to help. I got the e-mail saying that I was actually charged! Shall I continue the e-mail and ask help to reverse the charges?

Andy

aktse wrote:

I was just in the process of writing to help. I got the e-mail saying that I was actually charged! Shall I continue the e-mail and ask help to reverse the charges?

yes please, and we're sorry about that. No worries, we'll reverse it.

jfriend

First impressions on the new beta
Some buglets I've noticed in the first pass in playing around with the new release:

• Captions aren't properly aligned under vertical shots
• Switching from a vertical shot to a horizontal shot causes the whole screen to move a bit as everything re-lays out in a slightly different place
• When you mouseover the main photo, it moves slightly to the right, then slightly back to the left when the popup window pops up
• I'm worried that my novice viewers won't find the sizes and save photo functions in the flyout window. Once you know how to get the flyout window, it's nice and clean and easy, but it's not discoverable at all (except by accident). Should there be some sort of icon that you can click to get the flyout window? Or some other way of making it more discoverable?
• When I did Save Photo, I didn't get offered the same filename as I uploaded it as. It had a prefix of "4880_" on the original file name.
• The photo info screen would be alot more readable if it had horizontal divider lines between the various types of info like this.
• When I open the Info window and try to position it so that I can leave it open and not have it interfere with the main photo or the thumbs, I find that is pretty difficult because when I drag my window wider, the content centers itself in the window, not letting me have more room on the right to park the info window.
• The info window location appears to be global for a user. If you open two windows, each with the photo info window open and in different places, then as soon as you navigate in either window, the photo info window will jump to the location of the info window in the other window. It seems like the info window location should be local to the window, not a global thing that is the same everywhere.
• If I have two Smugmug windows open in Firefox tabs and I switch to one tab, I find that the keyboard navigation doesn't work until I click somewhere in the window. This is not 100% reproducible, but I've definitely seen it 4 or 5 times.
• When I'm using keyboard navigation, I find myself expecting that I can use the up/down arrow keys to navigate up and down in the thumb grid.

blurpy

1. I still have to mask Opera as Firefox to see the new stuff
2. The buttons are still thin lines (see screenshot)
3. The comments box is a bit misaligned (see screenshot)

ivar

blurpy wrote:

1. I still have to mask Opera as Firefox to see the new stuff
2. The buttons are still thin lines (see screenshot)
3. The comments box is a bit misaligned (see screenshot)

Opera is not one of our supported browsers. We try to get it right in Opera too, but some things don't work properly. See the bottom of this page. I'm sorry.

blurpy

ivar wrote:

Opera is not one of our supported browsers. We try to get it right in Opera too, but some things don't work properly. See the bottom of this page. I'm sorry.

I know, but can't you fix the buttons? Please? It's so annoying that I can't see what the buttons do, and that it's almost impossible to press them. Most of the functionality works in Opera, and that's great! But the buttons are really ruining the experience.

gblotter

I previously created an account with the "old" beta release - but it seems to be gone now. Do I need to create another new account for the "new" beta release?

Update: Dooh! My goof - everything is OK.

Andy

blurpy wrote:

I know, but can't you fix the buttons? Please? It's so annoying that I can't see what the buttons do, and that it's almost impossible to press them. Most of the functionality works in Opera, and that's great! But the buttons are really ruining the experience.

It's possible in the future, but as Ivar said, we fully support FF, Safari and IE.

DJKennedy

onethumb wrote:

Actually, we're the idiots. You shouldn't have to pay for a beta account.

I think I fixed this. Thanks for the heads-up, and holler if anyone else finds their accounts locked out.

Don

Don (or anyone else):

Not really seeing any changes - am *I* missing something? (referring to my regular SM account)..no apparent changes when viewing my site when logged in or not.

Derek


EDIT: yeah, never mind - I have to read the darn post properly...new BETA !

Too hopped up on suger from all the treats.

DJKennedy

I'm noticing some of my mods are not working on the beta site.

On thing tho - even tho I have it set not to (far as I know) show keywords, I'm still seeing keywords in the gallery (even tho I have it set to hide the photo as the gallery is for a guestbook). It appears to be taking the photo file name as the key words.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but maybe not.


EDIT: My slideshow for the main page (in bio box)...works great as I set it up - but it shows someone elses photos...yes, I made sure the link was to my beta slideshow gallery - I'm looking in the original thread for this issue/fix but there are a lot of pages in that thread! (and Im at work)

bwg

DJKennedy wrote:

I'm noticing some of my mods are not working on the beta site.

On thing tho - even tho I have it set not to (far as I know) show keywords, I'm still seeing keywords in the gallery (even tho I have it set to hide the photo as the gallery is for a guestbook). It appears to be taking the photo file name as the key words.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but maybe not.


EDIT: My slideshow for the main page (in bio box)...works great as I set it up - but it shows someone elses photos...yes, I made sure the link was to my beta slideshow gallery - I'm looking in the original thread for this issue/fix but there are a lot of pages in that thread! (and Im at work)

you'll need to hack the slideshow code on the beta server to get it to work. Look in the code for "upload.smugmug.com" and change it to "beta.smugmug.net"

Also on the beta server, slideshows from keywords and popular galleries wont work, you have to use a normal gallery.

dbooth80

Blog links?
I'm noticing that the beta version doesn't seem to have the link below the picture that gives you the URLs for various image sizes (tiny, thumbnail, medium, large, original).

I use this feature quite regularly. Is it going to be in the new version? Or is it already there and I'm just not seeing it?

I haven't changed any CSS, of course.

-D

DJKennedy

bigwebguy wrote:

you'll need to hack the slideshow code on the beta server to get it to work. Look in the code for "upload.smugmug.com" and change it to "beta.smugmug.net"

Also on the beta server, slideshows from keywords and popular galleries wont work, you have to use a normal gallery.

Ah - thanks...I had just finished reading: Slideshow has not been updated - it will be, but not with this beta test

But that will work too.. Thanks!

EDIT: that worked - of course I had to remember to change the .com to.net a couple times (like for the spacer.gif)

richW

dbooth80 wrote:

I'm noticing that the beta version doesn't seem to have the link below the picture that gives you the URLs for various image sizes (tiny, thumbnail, medium, large, original).

If you have easy sharing enabled, the button is located above the main image in the breadcrumbNav area. The slideshow, themes, add photos buttons are up there also.

onethumb

jfriend wrote:

Some buglets I've noticed in the first pass in playing around with the new release:

• Captions aren't properly aligned under vertical shots
• Switching from a vertical shot to a horizontal shot causes the whole screen to move a bit as everything re-lays out in a slightly different place
• When you mouseover the main photo, it moves slightly to the right, then slightly back to the left when the popup window pops up

What browser is this? Can you send some example links?

jfriend wrote:

• I'm worried that my novice viewers won't find the sizes and save photo functions in the flyout window. Once you know how to get the flyout window, it's nice and clean and easy, but it's not discoverable at all (except by accident). Should there be some sort of icon that you can click to get the flyout window? Or some other way of making it more discoverable?

We're thinking about and working on this, and will watch it like a hawk, but our initial research shows that most people, novices included, mouse over the larger photo automatically when they're looking at it, so we hope it'll be obvious. This seems to be a combination of natural behavior and the fact that IE has popped stuff over the image for years. But we are still thinking about it and will watch behavior like a hawk.

jfriend wrote:

• When I did Save Photo, I didn't get offered the same filename as I uploaded it as. It had a prefix of "4880_" on the original file name.

This is by design. People had asked that the ImageID be included in the filename so they can re-correlate their image libraries using the API, SmugDAV, and/or the CD/DVD backups.

Maybe we should stick it on the end though? Any thoughts?

jfriend wrote:

• The photo info screen would be alot more readable if it had horizontal divider lines between the various types of info like this.

I agree.

jfriend wrote:

• When I open the Info window and try to position it so that I can leave it open and not have it interfere with the main photo or the thumbs, I find that is pretty difficult because when I drag my window wider, the content centers itself in the window, not letting me have more room on the right to park the info window.
• The info window location appears to be global for a user. If you open two windows, each with the photo info window open and in different places, then as soon as you navigate in either window, the photo info window will jump to the location of the info window in the other window. It seems like the info window location should be local to the window, not a global thing that is the same everywhere.
• If I have two Smugmug windows open in Firefox tabs and I switch to one tab, I find that the keyboard navigation doesn't work until I click somewhere in the window. This is not 100% reproducible, but I've definitely seen it 4 or 5 times.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm not sure what we can do with the info window, since we save that setting for future use so you don't always have to re-position, but I'll make sure BigWebGuy and GreenJimmy see it.

jfriend wrote:

• When I'm using keyboard navigation, I find myself expecting that I can use the up/down arrow keys to navigate up and down in the thumb grid.

Turns out that up/down arrows are used significantly by lots of people to simply scroll the page, especially on laptops and for people with disabilities, so we can't use them or it breaks their experience. Sorry.

Don

jfriend

Thanks for responding.

onethumb wrote:

What browser is this? Can you send some example links?

Both Firefox 2.0 and IE 6. Just look at any of the vertical images in this gallery that have captions: http://jfriend.beta.smugmug.net/gallery/165/1/4942#4790.

And here's a screen shot:

onethumb wrote:

We're thinking about and working on this, and will watch it like a hawk, but our initial research shows that most people, novices included, mouse over the larger photo automatically when they're looking at it, so we hope it'll be obvious. This seems to be a combination of natural behavior and the fact that IE has popped stuff over the image for years. But we are still thinking about it and will watch behavior like a hawk.

I worry that the mouse is over the thumbs as users navigate among the thumbs and it will take quite awhile before they accidentally discover the fly-out. Wouldn't some sort of glyph or icon near the photo that looks like something you should click on for more options add to the discoverability.

I personally don't even like the auto-flyout because it pops up when I'm just moving the mouse around the screen and it's quite visually disruptive. I'd rather have an option to not auto-popup and just have my users click on a glyph to access the additional options. After all, these aren't options that you are going to do on a high percentage of the ones you view.

onethumb wrote:

This is by design. People had asked that the ImageID be included in the filename so they can re-correlate their image libraries using the API, SmugDAV, and/or the CD/DVD backups.

Maybe we should stick it on the end though? Any thoughts?

Hmmm. The end would be a lot better than the beginning. If somebody goes to the trouble of making descriptive filenames, sticking a numeric code on the front kind of ruins the whole idea. I'd be OK with putting them on the end. I'm still not sure I understand why this has to be in the user visible filename at all. It sounds like the reasons people wanted this had to do with API stuff, not end-user stuff. Can those problems be solved without obscuring the filename that an end user sees in the save photo UI.

onethumb wrote:

Thanks for the feedback! I'm not sure what we can do with the info window, since we save that setting for future use so you don't always have to re-position, but I'll make sure BigWebGuy and GreenJimmy see it.

I guess the bigger issue is that I just don't find the floating window very useful. On my laptop screen, there's no place to put it that won't obscure something so I'm always having to move it around. This is made worse by the fact that the Smugmug content is centered in the window so I have to twice as much extra room on the sides in order to have a place to put it that doesn't obscure anything. I haven't thought this one through, but did you consider having the data integrated into the layout of the page (probably below the main image) and have it be a mode you can turn on or off quickly and easily. In this way, it wouldn't obscure anything and could be easily turned on or off.

onethumb wrote:

Turns out that up/down arrows are used significantly by lots of people to simply scroll the page, especially on laptops and for people with disabilities, so we can't use them or it breaks their experience. Sorry.

Don

Yeah, I figured. I'm just sharing the feedback that once you start thinking about navigating the grid of thumbs with the arrows and start getting in the web 2.0 world where you aren't just in a browser, the brain starts expecting that the up/down arrow key will work there too (similar to what you do in the arrange photos interface). A challenge of web 2.0 design is that you'd like to break free from the previous contraints of a browser-based design and do it like you would have done it if it was a native interface (e.g. Adobe Bridge browser, Photo mechanic, Photoshop Elements or Windows Explorer when browsing photos), but of course, there still are some issues with being in a browser.

DavidTO

I wish I could move the floaty info window out of the main browser window.

onethumb

DavidTO wrote:

I wish I could move the floaty info window out of the main browser window.

That's not possible because it's not actually a window...

But what about if we had a "new window" link or something that caused it to open a new window, put itself there, and close the hover thing?

Don

DavidTO

onethumb wrote:

That's not possible because it's not actually a window...

But what about if we had a "new window" link or something that caused it to open a new window, put itself there, and close the hover thing?

Don

That would be a cool option.


I'd also like to see a mode where the thumbnails are imagewells, so you could replace multiple photos via drag/drop, like the universal uploader, but many at once, specifying which image replaces which photo just by drag/drop.

jfriend

Some examples of nicely integrated exposure info...

onethumb wrote:

That's not possible because it's not actually a window...

But what about if we had a "new window" link or something that caused it to open a new window, put itself there, and close the hover thing?

Don

I don't really want it in a new window. That might be better than what there is now because it would release it from the constraints of the current window, but that just makes you manage another window position and the z-order so you can see what you want. I most just want a toggle option that integrates the basic exposure info (ISO, shutter, aperture, camera make, focal length) into the main screen so I can leave it on if I want as I browse. The additional info (which is not used very much) can be available on a pop-up palette of some sort, but I have NO need to leave that open as I browse, just to consult it quickly and then get rid of it.

If you play with these galleries you can see some nice options for integrating the photo info into the screen (ideally on a toggle) and quickly consulting the additional info without making another window to manage.

Here's a nice way to keep it onscreen, without overlapping anything and no floating windows, but still let you navigate through the gallery:
http://rapidzap.zenfolio.com/p284095718/?photo=h109912C1#89399154

Here's a nice way to see basic exposure info only integrated into the screen:
http://rapidzap.zenfolio.com/p142184262/?photo=h23DD7536#601716022

Another view with basic exposure info integrated into the screen:
http://boyd.zenfolio.com/p75250138/?photo=h2E4DB941#827282398

I Simonius

can't log in to beta site
Tried the user name and apssword given, carefully but ti won't let me in , saying that either password or user name are wrong.. love to test it but.........

Andy

Simon King wrote:

Tried the user name and apssword given, carefully but ti won't let me in , saying that either password or user name are wrong.. love to test it but.........

We actually don't publish the password, but after reading the beta page on the wiki you should easily get it -

http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/Beta

see the instructions at the bottom.

I Simonius

Andy wrote:

We actually don't publish the password, but after reading the beta page on the wiki you should easily get it -

http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/Beta

see the instructions at the bottom.

That's exactly what I did and saw the user name there and the password, put then in and , as I said, it didn't work.....

Allen

Simon King wrote:

That's exactly what I did and saw the user name there and the password, put then in and , as I said, it didn't work.....

Don't use your user name and PW in the popup. Use the ones on the wiki
page. Yours will only be used after your site comes up and you need to log
in.
Al

I Simonius

Allen wrote:

Don't use your user name and PW in the popup. Use the ones on the wiki
page. Yours will only be used after your site comes up and you need to log
in.
Al

Thanks Al yeah I got that already - use the user name and password on the wiki page - It's those that I can't get to work

DJKennedy

Simon King wrote:

Thanks Al yeah I got that already - use the user name and password on the wiki page - It's those that I can't get to work

You didn't input them in the wrong places (reversed them), or have your caps lock on do you?

I Simonius

DJKennedy wrote:

You didn't input them in the wrong places (reversed them), or have your caps lock on do you?

not reversed, no caps lock, tried different browsers......even typed really slowly as I know I have fat fingers.....