there has been a lot of feedback on the photobar, some people love it, some people hate it.
Sorry to mention the competition here, but it doesn t seem like there is as much feelings expressed regarding the zenfolio photobar.
I was thinking maybe there is something good to take away from their site.
I myself like the concept of the photobar, but I am also a little 'annoyed' having it take so much space on top of the picture.
I am a standard user so no customization for me.
The idea of having it popping up outside the pic is not bad.
But I was also thinking that a redesign of the bar to make it considerably smaller (while maybe changing the display style to have our pics larger) will make the photobar less distracting.
Thanks
Thanks so much for the feedback. I moved your post to this thread, so we can have it with the other feedback.
Interesting idea. One question I have is how effective placing it on the right side will be as we come out with XL and XXL image sizes and the browser automatically fills the available space when it sees it has more room. It's an extension of what we do with smugmug small and smugmug styles now when you resize your browser. I think you're seeing space on the right because we don't have an XL size yet, but wouldn't you rather step up to a larger size image and nuke that extra space if there's room?
I'm all for filling up the screen with more thumbs and larger main images. I still think it's a better design to pop up the toolbar to the right of the image "if there's room". If you're going to improve the layout so there is room for it less often, that's goodness for the layout, but I still think it's better to keep it off the image if there's room. Given the depth of feedback here from some on not having the photobar overlap the main photo, you might even want to entertain a layout option that reserves enough space for the photobar to always come up to the right of the photo (except in extremely small window sizes).
Today's layout design is incredibly conservative and switches to the smugmug-small-sized main image in places where I don't want it to do that. IMO, it should only switch to the smugmug-small-sized main image when the height of the medium image won't fit or when two rows of thumbs won't fit with the medium-sized main image. As it is today, it's way, way more conservative than that and goes to the small sized main image in places where I don't want it to.
When you go to larger sized main images, I hope the algorithm allows them to be used more often without having to have a giant screen.
Andy, my site is nwgeogirl.smugmug.com. It's a standard account.
If you have to separate features between Standard and Power accounts, would it be logical to give the Standard users the boring old 'save photo' text below the photo, and give the Power users the option of the fancy schmancy flying popup window?
I like the text! It's less explaining for me to have to do to visitors to my site.
IMO, one thing that would please most people would be the ability to have the photobar visible at all times with no hover required.
Ideally, there should be an option in the gallery to have the floating one, or a fixed one that shows at the bottom of the photos. It should be sized to match the width of the large photos, or make it tansparent with no border, so that the background color shows through.
-Scott
I will follow up my own post with a picture that I posted during the beta comments. This is what I want. A fixed photobar with a subset of the exif info.
Even the flyout should have an option to include the basic exposure info, IMO.
SM.PhotoBar.config.position = 'none'; It sort of worked. It didn't pop up on the photo but the text of the photobar ended up popping up in the lower left hand side of my screen.
SM.PhotoBar.config.position = 'none'; It sort of worked. It didn't pop up on the photo but the text of the photobar ended up popping up in the lower left hand side of my screen.
To complete this thought, this has to go in your JavaScript section of the customization page. This is not a CSS directive like you were trying previously.
To complete this thought, this has to go in your JavaScript section of the customization page. This is not a CSS directive like you were trying previously.
I was trying JS previously-- it was an altered version of the script to change the position of the photobar. I am aware of which section this goes in. Thanks.
Method #1 is a lot easier to copy and paste if you want to set new ones up from time to time.
Cheers,
David
Thanks David!! That's just what I need.
I'd like to cast my vote here for a checkbox in the gallery settings menu. I know, I know, there are too many boxes there already, but I can still vote. ;-)
showPhotoBar = false; is JavaScript code, not CSS. You must add it to the JavaScript customization section, not your CSS section. I looked at your page and you definitely put it in the CSS section. If you looked at the error console for your page, you would see two CSS errors.
showPhotoBar = false; is JavaScript code, not CSS. You must add it to the JavaScript customization section, not your CSS section. I looked at your page and you definitely put it in the CSS section. If you looked at the error console for your page, you would see two CSS errors.
What is "the error console"? And where do I see it for my page?
In Firefox, it's in the menu as Tools/Error Console. It opens a new window that spews errors/warnings on every web page you browse to. I typically hit the Clear button, then load the page I'm interested in and examine what it says. Note that many CSS work-arounds for the different browsers will show up as CSS errors/warnings in the other browsers. Unfortunately, that's how CSS tricks are used to fix something in one specific browser.
I don't know if IE6 or IE7 has similar functionality.
For what it's worth, I'm with moving the photobar out of the image.
If there is space on the right (e.g. photo in portrait dimensions), use that:
If not, put the photobar above the photo in the upper right section, where there is always space:
If it has to be one or the other, always, I would elect above the photo. There might not always be space on the right side of the photo.
That's my vote, if it's up for debate at all.
It's possible to do with JavaScript, albeit not easily. SmugMug seems up to the challenge!
We have the ability to move it below the photo, so why not add the ability to move it to these locations as well?
Ben
Note, these photos are mocked up, it's not how my site looks (I wish!).
We have the ability to move it below the photo, so why not add the ability to move it to these locations as well?
Ben
Hi Ben Many thanks for the great suggestions... I believe that's bigwebguy's intent, eventually - to offer more choices... but for now, you can make it come down below the photo - I notice that you've not done that- is there a reason?
Hi Ben Many thanks for the great suggestions... I believe that's bigwebguy's intent, eventually - to offer more choices... but for now, you can make it come down below the photo - I notice that you've not done that- is there a reason?
Oh great, glad to hear it's still being worked on. Go bigwebguy!
The reason I don't put the Photobar below the photo is because I almost always add captions to my photos, which is the second thing people look at on my pages (after the photo). The bottom photobar hides the caption, unfortunately, so it's not feasible for me.
Oh great, glad to hear it's still being worked on. Go bigwebguy!
The reason I don't put the Photobar below the photo is because I almost always add captions to my photos, which is the second thing people look at on my pages (after the photo). The bottom photobar hides the caption, unfortunately, so it's not feasible for me.
Ben
I did the hack to put the popup on the left... I like it. it does appear over the thumbnails but dissappears when you move off the pic and try to select another pic....
Oh great, glad to hear it's still being worked on. Go bigwebguy!
The reason I don't put the Photobar below the photo is because I almost always add captions to my photos, which is the second thing people look at on my pages (after the photo). The bottom photobar hides the caption, unfortunately, so it's not feasible for me.
Ben
Sounds like a great eye director to me. Now they can't miss seeing the caption.
Sounds like a great eye director to me. Now they can't miss seeing the caption.
ummm... they'll miss the caption if the photobar is over the top of it! If the photobar was somehow above or beside the caption, then that would be a great eye director.
I did the hack to put the popup on the left... I like it. it does appear over the thumbnails but dissappears when you move off the pic and try to select another pic....
pop over / roll over
There have been some excellent changes to smugmug recently to improve the look and feel. However, I must say, as other have in this thread that I find the roll-over things that obscure the picture to be really annoying. What's worse is that my clients have told me that THEY find it very annoying.
I finally figured out how to get rid of that thumbs up / thumbs down roll-over but the picture size one still remains. ughh! Ideally, I'd like to turn off any sort of roll-over material anywhere on the screen but I'd settle for something that at least doesn't obscure the picture.
Thanks for the reply but I'm not sure if you were serious or joking.
If you were serious, then I'd have to say that I only require site with convenient picture hosting and some nice templates. When I first signed on a couple years back, the ease of features, and my account level, were perfect. With things popping up all over the pictures now, I'd have to reconsider my account subscription.
Also, I just don't have the time, nor am I smart enough with scripting, to effectively customize a site. Another reason why I initially chose smugmug.
Honestly, if I really wanted to get into site customization then I would just host one myself.
I hope this message doesn't sound confrontational because I don't intend it to be. I've been very happy overall with the service. I hope the feedback helps to provide some input into the different types of customers you could come across and their needs vs your subscription offerings.
Regards,
Sushant
P.S. - another post might be coming up about why I can't change or save my template customizations anymore...
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I'm all for filling up the screen with more thumbs and larger main images. I still think it's a better design to pop up the toolbar to the right of the image "if there's room". If you're going to improve the layout so there is room for it less often, that's goodness for the layout, but I still think it's better to keep it off the image if there's room. Given the depth of feedback here from some on not having the photobar overlap the main photo, you might even want to entertain a layout option that reserves enough space for the photobar to always come up to the right of the photo (except in extremely small window sizes).
Today's layout design is incredibly conservative and switches to the smugmug-small-sized main image in places where I don't want it to do that. IMO, it should only switch to the smugmug-small-sized main image when the height of the medium image won't fit or when two rows of thumbs won't fit with the medium-sized main image. As it is today, it's way, way more conservative than that and goes to the small sized main image in places where I don't want it to.
When you go to larger sized main images, I hope the algorithm allows them to be used more often without having to have a giant screen.
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Andy, my site is nwgeogirl.smugmug.com. It's a standard account.
If you have to separate features between Standard and Power accounts, would it be logical to give the Standard users the boring old 'save photo' text below the photo, and give the Power users the option of the fancy schmancy flying popup window?
I like the text! It's less explaining for me to have to do to visitors to my site.
Thanks for being good listeners on these issues!
I will follow up my own post with a picture that I posted during the beta comments. This is what I want. A fixed photobar with a subset of the exif info.
Even the flyout should have an option to include the basic exposure info, IMO.
scwalter.smugmug.com
What's the code for hiding the photobar? I tried
SM.PhotoBar.config.position = 'none'; It sort of worked. It didn't pop up on the photo but the text of the photobar ended up popping up in the lower left hand side of my screen.
http://clients.beyondthewell.com
showPhotoBar = false;
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
To complete this thought, this has to go in your JavaScript section of the customization page. This is not a CSS directive like you were trying previously.
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I was trying JS previously-- it was an altered version of the script to change the position of the photobar. I am aware of which section this goes in. Thanks.
i like the photo bar for galleries where i'm sending someone images to download. it's great for that.
but i'd like to turn it off for almost all galleries.
so can i use : showPhotoBar = false; to turn all photobars off
and tnen add "some other line of code" for each of the 3 galleries i want to turn it on.
and if so, what's that line of code?
thanks!
trish
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Trish,
There is a couple of ways to do this depending on how comfortable you are with coding..
Method #1
Method #2
Method #1 is a lot easier to copy and paste if you want to set new ones up from time to time.
Cheers,
David
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
Thanks David!! That's just what I need.
I'd like to cast my vote here for a checkbox in the gallery settings menu. I know, I know, there are too many boxes there already, but I can still vote. ;-)
-Trish
Why is my photo bar still showing up? I added "showPhotoBar = false;" to my css code?
Was that the wrong place?
http://www.trishtunney.com/gallery/741058#41977822
-Trish
showPhotoBar = false; is JavaScript code, not CSS. You must add it to the JavaScript customization section, not your CSS section. I looked at your page and you definitely put it in the CSS section. If you looked at the error console for your page, you would see two CSS errors.
The first one is on this line:
.gallery_ 384080 .caption {
font-weight: normal;
}
where I think you have an extra space after the underscore.
The second error is on the JavaScript line that you put in your CSS instead of in the JavaScript section.
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What is "the error console"? And where do I see it for my page?
thanks!
Trish
In Firefox, it's in the menu as Tools/Error Console. It opens a new window that spews errors/warnings on every web page you browse to. I typically hit the Clear button, then load the page I'm interested in and examine what it says. Note that many CSS work-arounds for the different browsers will show up as CSS errors/warnings in the other browsers. Unfortunately, that's how CSS tricks are used to fix something in one specific browser.
I don't know if IE6 or IE7 has similar functionality.
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This is not working for me. showPhotoBar = false; is hiding the photobar. But the unhide javascript code is not un-hiding.
e.g. no bar here: http://trishtunney.smugmug.com/gallery/2470718
Also, when I checked Internet Explorer, I noticed I have this error on my page that does not seem related to the new code, but it may offer a clue:
/* sorry, you can not hide these elements on the page */ #footer_wrapper,#footer,#cobrand_footer,#themeCredit { visibility: visible; display: block; }
Thanks,
Trish
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If there is space on the right (e.g. photo in portrait dimensions), use that:
If not, put the photobar above the photo in the upper right section, where there is always space:
If it has to be one or the other, always, I would elect above the photo. There might not always be space on the right side of the photo.
That's my vote, if it's up for debate at all.
It's possible to do with JavaScript, albeit not easily. SmugMug seems up to the challenge!
We have the ability to move it below the photo, so why not add the ability to move it to these locations as well?
Ben
Note, these photos are mocked up, it's not how my site looks (I wish!).
Portfolio: http://www.wanderaround.com
Hi Ben
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The error looks like this. Only on internet explorer, though. Not firefox.
thanks,
Trish
Oh great, glad to hear it's still being worked on. Go bigwebguy!
The reason I don't put the Photobar below the photo is because I almost always add captions to my photos, which is the second thing people look at on my pages (after the photo). The bottom photobar hides the caption, unfortunately, so it's not feasible for me.
Ben
Portfolio: http://www.wanderaround.com
I did the hack to put the popup on the left... I like it. it does appear over the thumbnails but dissappears when you move off the pic and try to select another pic....
you can try it here
My Website index | My Blog
ummm... they'll miss the caption if the photobar is over the top of it! If the photobar was somehow above or beside the caption, then that would be a great eye director.
Portfolio: http://www.wanderaround.com
I've looked and searched but can't seem to find this hack. Can someone direct me to it or supply the code?
Tickled Pixels
Tickled Pixels Blog: "A walk in Gamla stan, the old town of Stockholm"
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=52378
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There have been some excellent changes to smugmug recently to improve the look and feel. However, I must say, as other have in this thread that I find the roll-over things that obscure the picture to be really annoying. What's worse is that my clients have told me that THEY find it very annoying.
I finally figured out how to get rid of that thumbs up / thumbs down roll-over but the picture size one still remains. ughh! Ideally, I'd like to turn off any sort of roll-over material anywhere on the screen but I'd settle for something that at least doesn't obscure the picture.
I'm a standard user
site:
sushant.smugmug.com
thanks for listening,
Sushant
http://sushant.smugmug.com
sony dsc-v3, p200, toshiba pdr-3300, canon xt-350d
Seems to me, if you have clients, you should have a Pro Site, where you can customize everything
Or at the very least, a Power level account, and you can still customize.
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Thanks for the reply but I'm not sure if you were serious or joking.
If you were serious, then I'd have to say that I only require site with convenient picture hosting and some nice templates. When I first signed on a couple years back, the ease of features, and my account level, were perfect. With things popping up all over the pictures now, I'd have to reconsider my account subscription.
Also, I just don't have the time, nor am I smart enough with scripting, to effectively customize a site. Another reason why I initially chose smugmug.
Honestly, if I really wanted to get into site customization then I would just host one myself.
I hope this message doesn't sound confrontational because I don't intend it to be. I've been very happy overall with the service. I hope the feedback helps to provide some input into the different types of customers you could come across and their needs vs your subscription offerings.
Regards,
Sushant
P.S. - another post might be coming up about why I can't change or save my template customizations anymore...
http://sushant.smugmug.com
sony dsc-v3, p200, toshiba pdr-3300, canon xt-350d