I LOVE the new SmugMug Changes. I'm all for new features. Hope you enjoy your new hosting company. We'll continue to enjoy and love SmugMug.
I'd expect that you'll be back soon!
Well, lets not send him packing just yet, eh?? Sorry, but your comment did come off a bit smugish & probably isnt helping the guy with his decision to stay or leave. Its great that you love the new features/look but that doesn't mean everyone else feels the same way.
We had a public beta for 7 weeks. Customizers could see exactly what their site would look like. We announced this in our release notes, and here on the forum, and then closer to launch (10 days advance?) by system message to all subscribers. There was plenty of time for folks to see it.
That's all well and good, but if I had spent dozens of hours customizing my site to fit on the engine you had previously deployed, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be good enough for me.
Forcing people through an upgrade of that customization does *not*, no matter how you try to spin it, strike me as subscriber-friendly.
If your deployment structure is such that it does not permit you to make upgrades like this -- and I didn't see anything *structural* in this, just UI -- opt-in or opt-out, then I'd seriously consider spending my next chunk of developer time on modifying that deployment structure so that it does.
Nothing quiet about it, I'm afraid. It's been like that for years. "your photos" shows when you are logged in, and always has. We didn't change that at all.
Except that, alas, the comment you're replying to (seen above, since vBull won't quote it here) concerns the link that shows to *non-logged-in* users, which quite certainly used to be 'Home' and not 'Your Photos'...
And, as I say, "Your Photos" is still a misnomer; they're not the photos of the non-logged-in user, they're *mine*.
And, frankly, "well, you can customize your site to make that link say something else", which is the next response I expect to get, isn't really good enough either. Providing me with the capability of customizing my site is great stuff, no less than I'd expect.
But it doesn't relieve you of the requirement to get the default site design elements 'right'.
And I think we can all agree that while 'Your Photos' (ie: *My* Photos") is a better choice than "(SmugMug's) Home", the naming is still a bit off...
image, I fixed one of your quotes in that last post, you had a space before the closing "/".
You can quote anything in vbulletin with a copy/paste and putting the quote tags on eaither side.
Thanks. Yeah; I assumed that... but it's still a bit annoying that it doesn't automatically quote more than one level, when I want it to. :-) Not really a big deal here; people can read back.
Even more oddly: viewing my pages un-logged-in, the 'Home' link is *back* today, replacing the 'Your Photos' that I'd preferred, even if I didn't like it's name. :-)
Even more oddly: viewing my pages un-logged-in, the 'Home' link is *back* today, replacing the 'Your Photos' that I'd preferred, even if I didn't like it's name. :-)
Imaginc- let' me state it clearly:
When LOGGED IN: you will see "your photos" at the top of your pages (if you haven't customized the header away).
When LOGGED OUT: you will see "home" at the top of your pages.
That's all well and good, but if I had spent dozens of hours customizing my site to fit on the engine you had previously deployed, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be good enough for me.
Forcing people through an upgrade of that customization does *not*, no matter how you try to spin it, strike me as subscriber-friendly.
We don't force anything and anyone who needs help gets it. This release, there was *very little* re-working of customization required.
And, frankly, "well, you can customize your site to make that link say something else", which is the next response I expect to get, isn't really good enough either.
I don't understand why us allowing COMPLETE and total customization of the site is a bad thing. But, to each his / her own. If you wish to have some help, guidance, heck, have us do stuff for you, all you need do is ask. And, as you see, we're working to make it even easier, self service as much as possible. BUT WE KNOW you are photographers, NOT web desingers. So that's why we have a team of Support Heroes on hand who help ANYONE who wants it. AND the great Dgrin community
Somehow everytime this happens the SM staff seem to miss the fact the we the cutomer do NOT want to have to waste a day learning stuff we have no use for just to keep our site as we liked it. You want to make changes, fine but make them a option not the default. What would have been so hard about leave people's sites alone and adding a new style that people could go to if they wanted?
James.
Ouch, James, I feel your pain. Unfortunately, I've lived the pain and inflicted it many times because I chose to work for Steve Jobs and use Macintosh computers. The change from OS 9 to OS X, among many others, alienated a lot of Mac users and inflicted pain.
There are very successful photo sharing sites like PBase who don't change as much or as dramatically as we do and yet PBase has a thriving customer base. The same is true of Microsoft; they're many times the profitability of Apple and yet their OS changes less frequently and dramatically.
The honest answer is we're committed to Apple-like change and, like at Apple, full backwards compatibility isn't always possible for us without making our software so complex and hard to debug that it throws sand in the gears.
We know that makes some people happy and others infuriated, but the honest answer is it's the path we've chosen.
That's no excuse for inflicting green on everyone and only later coming out with a smugmug classic theme. That was our mistake. But honestly we plan to keep changing the site often when we perceive the majority of our customers want us to and we won't always be able to insure 100% backwards compatibility.
We don't force anything and anyone who needs help gets it. This release, there was *very little* re-working of customization required.
Perhaps, but "We don't force anything" is simply factually inaccurate. I speak as someone whose stat counter no longer works properly, and who wasn't permitted to opt-out of the core code upgrade.
I don't understand why us allowing COMPLETE and total customization of the site is a bad thing. But, to each his / her own.
Ok, Andy. That's just a *wilful* mischaracterization of what I said, which is clearly laid out, up-thread. Stop that.
What I Said Was: It should not be *necessary* for people to customize the site in order for their visitors to be able to get *help useful to them*, and have a "Home" link which sends said users to *the subscriber's home page*, instead of hijacking them to Smug's home page (to which there's *already* a link in the same place, under your logo).
If you wish to have some help, guidance, heck, have us do stuff for you, all you need do is ask. And, as you see, we're working to make it even easier, self service as much as possible. BUT WE KNOW you are photographers, NOT web desingers. So that's why we have a team of Support Heroes on hand who help ANYONE who wants it. AND the great Dgrin community
Well, yeah. Which is precisely why the fact that the uncustomized defaults are ... less than useful cranks me off so much. Home and Help are both broken, plain and simple. They don't serve the audience they need to serve... the audience *I*, the paying subscriber, need for them to serve.
And I've been trying to be polite about expresing that opinion, but I'm tired of being handwaved. Perhaps I *have* misspent my $150.
It doesn't matter -- to me -- how great you are, or how helpful you're being -- if you're not fixing the things *I* need fixed.
Back in 1985 or so, Jerry Pournelle described the Vulcan dabatase system -- you might know it better as dBase I -- as "infuriatingly excellent". That's Smug. If you weren't enough better than anyone else, we wouldn't give a crap; we'd switch.
It doesn't matter -- to me -- how great you are, or how helpful you're being -- if you're not fixing the things *I* need fixed.
Hi again, imageinc- I can see you are upset. But I want you to know that this is really valuable feedback, and we really, really appreciate it!
If you are unhappy and don't feel you are getting the value of your new pro account, a full and complete refund awaits you. Just let me know.
If I am not being helpful to you, I am sorry. I don't know how much more clear I can be: things have been changed. You don't like it. We understand that. Please read Baldy's post above If you wish, I will happily fix you up in ANY way you want. Totally customize your site, I've offered this a few times now. We know you are upset - and we are processing your input - it's hugely valuable to us. Beating us up further doesn't help you or us, so if you'd like help, great - I and our team are here to give it. If you don't, and you want a refund, let me know that, too.
The home link hasn't changed in a long long time, I'm sorry that I'm not able to explain that better for you.
If I am not being helpful to you, I am sorry. I don't know how much more clear I can be: things have been changed. You don't like it. We understand that.
Well, frankly, Andy, your responses don't at all make it clear to me that you *do* understand the level on which my complaints are composed.
I've been an application designer, developer, and systems analyst for over 20 years -- photography is a sideline for me.
So, when I say "I don't think you people are approaching this thing in the right way", I like to think I'm not talking out my ass.
But the answers I've been getting are "soothe the pissy customer" not "hmmm... maybe this guy's got something; we should sit and talk about this before we do another upgrade".
Since I put a fair amount of effort into trying to be crystal clear about the level my complaints were pitched at, this troubles me.
Very clearly, there are people who are not happy with the structure of your recent rollout -- and if you apply Girard's Law of 250, there are a lot of them. And while I, too, can dismiss some of them, some of them were indeed well-thought out complaints, on topics which I feel (as someone who's gotten paid to worry about it) are things which should have been considered before forcing -- yes, I'm going to repeat that term; it's on-point -- an engine upgrade on paying customers, not all of whom can be expected to have considered their impacts.
And all the notices, messages, and beta participation in the world do *not* ameliorate that responsibility that we're paying you to undertake. It could have been done as opt-in (or at least opt-out), and therefore it should have been.
Please read Baldy's post above If you wish, I will happily fix you up in ANY way you want. Totally customize your site, I've offered this a few times now. We know you are upset - and we are processing your input - it's hugely valuable to us. Beating us up further doesn't help you or us, so if you'd like help, great - I and our team are here to give it. If you don't, and you want a refund, let me know that, too.
I appreciate that. But as I noted, that's not what I want. I Just Want It To Work Right. :-)
The home link hasn't changed in a long long time, I'm sorry that I'm not able to explain that better for you.
The Home Link had been replaced by a Your Photos link, on my site, with a Login link right next to it, right before I edited that post to add my footnote. I don't know why I got it, and I don't know why it's gone now. But I'm quite clear that a) it was there and b) it worked -- I clicked through it, and was abashed that I'd complained about something you'd 'fixed' without checking first.
I promise, I wouldn't have been aplogizing otherwise. :-)
There are very successful photo sharing sites like PBase who don't change as much or as dramatically as we do and yet PBase has a thriving customer base. The same is true of Microsoft; they're many times the profitability of Apple and yet their OS changes less frequently and dramatically.
And both of those facts *support* James' and my arguments, not yours. Sorry. ;-)
The honest answer is we're committed to Apple-like change and, like at Apple, full backwards compatibility isn't always possible for us without making our software so complex and hard to debug that it throws sand in the gears.
Then I assert that you're using the wrong tools.
And, honestly: you're working on a *website by website* basis. That's really not that fine a granularity that you ought to have this problem.
The Home Link had been replaced by a Your Photos link, on my site, with a Login link right next to it, right before I edited that post to add my footnote. I don't know why I got it, and I don't know why it's gone now. But I'm quite clear that a) it was there and b) it worked -- I clicked through it, and was abashed that I'd complained about something you'd 'fixed' without checking first.
I promise, I wouldn't have been aplogizing otherwise. :-)
Imageinc, "home" and "your photos" links have not changed. It says your photos when you are logged in. It says home when you are logged out.
But the answers I've been getting are "soothe the pissy customer"
Talk to some customers who've been around SmugMug for a while - that's not what we do, how we act. You'll believe it when we see it. We crave this input and we talk about it - a lot. And every word you've said here matters a ton.
Now - for the moment, would you like to move on and get your site going? We're ready to help if you are ready to receive it. If not, no worries - just holler any time. Thanks again for posting!
You still completly miss the point, change is not a bad thing, being forced to waste a day fixing the awful looking colors etc is the issue. Have you stopped to think about how many people don't have the time or ability to get thier site back to the clean look that it once had? How you can call that puke green color and pop-ups over the photos clean I do not understand. You say that most people like it, why is it then that when I ask non-smugmug people to take a look at the default SM vs a cleaned up customized site without the nasty green color crap (usually others in addtion to mine), that NONE of them like the SM style, many even comment (unpromted) about the green being so unpleasant. Last time around that you'll screwed around with stuff like this I got this same line from your staff and took a secound thought about it to see if you were right. That was when I decided to do an informal poll of end-users (not SM account holders) about the look and feel of the default SM sites to see if I was really out in left field as was implied by your staff. I found the opposite, most did not like the default SM look at all. Fyi several of the SM account holders that I know in person have told me flat out that they are too intimidated by certain people to express thier feelings about the changes to the default SM look and feel on DGrin, and they do NOT like those changes. Have you polled your account holders in a setting outside of dgrin about things like this? maybe I've missed it but I have yet to see you request input in a place that they don't have to be subjected to arrogant people on dgrin telling them how wrong they are. Also take a look at what people change when they customize thier site, how many keep the aweful green color?
James.
James, I LOVE the new changes. By the way, I did wonder about the so-called "puke" green--certainly never thought I would use it. But, guess what--I just created a new galllery, and the green works PERFECTLY! It's a gallery showing off my two-year-old nephew, and somehow I can't imagine using any theme but this. It's delightful on this particular gallery. Give things a chance. Some softer "Color" shades would be nice--in time, I'll bet we get them.
As far as learning, look at it this way, it's wonderful exercise for the brain.:ivar
Civility
Wow, what a thread! Some heated discussion that certainly has taken up a lot of time and energy for a few folks. I'm not going to express an opinion on the changes, but I do have a couple of thoughts after reading the thread.
The word "hate" is a tough one for people to respond to favorably. There just isn't a good way to say hate and have the target of your ire agree with you. So, I am guessing the thread got off to a bad start with HATE being front and center.
That being said, a customer in an open forum should be able to express a negative opinion in a reasonable manner without having anyone from smugmug suggest maybe he would be better off somewhere else. That strikes me as incredibly bold and arrogant, and as you can see from the thread, it resulted in a deteriorating conversation.
Lastly, it is always helpful to stick to the subject at hand (features you like, don't like, needing a fix, etc.) and take out inflammatory or personal remarks. I just don't know anyone who responds well to high voltage criticism.
The honest answer is we're committed to Apple-like change and, like at Apple, full backwards compatibility isn't always possible for us without making our software so complex and hard to debug that it throws sand in the gears.
We know that makes some people happy and others infuriated, but the honest answer is it's the path we've chosen.
Even though I'm a diehard PC user , I'm glad SM has chosen this path. I love technology and want my website looking as slick as possible for the best price possible. It's a little like shopping around for a portrait photographer-- sure you can get a Sears portrait in the mall, but wouldn't you rather something cool from someone who is willing to take chances to nail a unique shot that really reflects you?
I mean, David Bailey and Nick Knight didn't get to where they are now by doing the same thing as Richard Avedon. And hopefully SM won't just rest on it's heels copying Yahoo/Flickr.
And really-- in all seriousness-- photography has gone through an amazing revolution in just the last five years. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had to learn seven or eight cameras, three or four printers, four different versions of PS, various downloading/sorting software, operating systems, html, css, js, how to build a computer, four or five different cell phones, etc etc-- and that's just in the last five years. I just consider SM upgrades part of my continuing education in my pursuit of photography. Photography ain't gonna stand still and luckily, SM ain't gonna either. Least that's my two-cents.
Even though I'm a diehard PC user , I'm glad SM has chosen this path. I love technology and want my website looking as slick as possible for the best price possible. It's a little like shopping around for a portrait photographer-- sure you can get a Sears portrait in the mall, but wouldn't you rather something cool from someone who is willing to take chances to nail a unique shot that really reflects you?
I mean, David Bailey and Nick Knight didn't get to where they are now by doing the same thing as Richard Avedon. And hopefully SM won't just rest on it's heels copying Yahoo/Flickr.
And really-- in all seriousness-- photography has gone through an amazing revolution in just the last five years. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had to learn seven or eight cameras, three or four printers, four different versions of PS, various downloading/sorting software, operating systems, html, css, js, how to build a computer, four or five different cell phones, etc etc-- and that's just in the last five years. I just consider SM upgrades part of my continuing education in my pursuit of photography. Photography ain't gonna stand still and luckily, SM ain't gonna either. Least that's my two-cents.
Pete, I love this quote, for two reason: ok so you are praising SmugMug, duh, of course I like that.
BUT YOU remind us that it's about the photography, too
BUT YOU remind us that it's about the photography, too
It is. However, it often feels like Smugmug is more about CSS and JavaScript than photography. If you do a post count on these forums, what fraction of them is about web programming? Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that we can customize our sites, but I was a bit shocked to find out how difficult it is to do seemingly simple things.
I will say this though: not one single person that has asked for help, has been disappointed - has not gotten customized - we have tons of help here and we really try hard to get you all done fast and well
Can we do better? You bet. And we're constantly trying to improve.
Hang in there, and help us out, too, with your ideas for improvement in the first linked thread I made here.
not one single person that has asked for help, has been disappointed
I am.
Can *anyone* look at the SiteMeter javascript on my site, and figure out whether there's a way to hook it like the Stats and Google-Analytics code were?
Can *anyone* look at the SiteMeter javascript on my site, and figure out whether there's a way to hook it like the Stats and Google-Analytics code were?
I'm sorry you are disappointed.
I was talking about things that are within our realm of control. We've focused on Statcounter and GA - sorry, I'm not familiar with Sitemeter, only because most folks (nearly all here) who are using 3rd part stats, are using them.
I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you. Maybe we'll be able to work on something with Sitemeter in the future, or maybe one of our fantastic community will come up with this something.
Can *anyone* look at the SiteMeter javascript on my site, and figure out whether there's a way to hook it like the Stats and Google-Analytics code were?
Jay,
Try this code...
onPhotoShow.subscribe(
function() {
var sm = 'http://s29.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s29imageinc';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script');
for (i = 0; i < s.length; i++) {
if (s[i].src == sm) {
var newEl = document.createElement('script');
newEl.src = s[i].src;
s[i].parentNode.replaceChild(newEl, s[i]);
break;
}
}
}
);
I haven't tested it, but i have just rewritten bwg's statcounter code.
Where do I *put* it? :-) Javascript section, right?
Putting it there appears to hang retrieval; IE6 and FF1.5.0.9 never return.
(disregard; there appears to have been a 30-second outage; by the time I tested it on another PC, the first browser on my laptop had returned also, and it's now returning properly with the JS installed.)
Let me go hammer it with an uncookied browser and see what happens.
Oddly, on both machines, Ctrl-F5 in Firefox reloads the page, but it doesn't contain the Javascript. Could you or Andy take a look at where I pasted it, and see if it's coming out where you expected it to?
James -- to quote a bit more from the article you referenced (just to perhaps provide a bit of balance) regarding:
From the first (overview) paragraph
Overall, a color-related emotion was highly dependent on personal preference and one’s past experience with that particular color.
Later:
Based on the results obtained from the students’ responses, the color green attained the highest number of positive emotions (95.9%), including the feelings of relaxation, followed by happiness, comfort, peace, and hope. Green was associated with nature and trees, and thus creating feelings of comfort and soothing emotions.
I may not be the biggest fan of the green letters (I don't mind them, but they aren't my favorite), but I really do think that all the relevant sections of the article should be quoted. Also, this study consisted of only 98 college age students in Georgia, so I don't know whether or not you can statistically apply their findings to all internet viewers -- especially when not everyone's monitors are calibrated, so the relative color is probably somewhat different for each viewer.
As for SmugMug not taking their user's input into account, I have found that, by and large they are quite receptive to input, but obviously cannot implement every suggestion. In this specific instance they have, in the face of rather strong and emotional criticism, responded in a gracious and measured way. Personally, I find the pop up bar to be nifty technology, but I don't really care for it. I've provided feedback to that effect -- but I see no need to berate the folk at SmugMug for not implementing my suggestions. I will continue to provide feedback and, if I find that I no longer find their services or support adequate, I will vote with my dollars.
Where do I *put* it? :-) Javascript section, right?
Putting it there appears to hang retrieval; IE6 and FF1.5.0.9 never return.
(disregard; there appears to have been a 30-second outage; by the time I tested it on another PC, the first browser on my laptop had returned also, and it's now returning properly with the JS installed.)
Let me go hammer it with an uncookied browser and see what happens.
Oddly, on both machines, Ctrl-F5 in Firefox reloads the page, but it doesn't contain the Javascript. Could you or Andy take a look at where I pasted it, and see if it's coming out where you expected it to?
Jay, I've got sitemeter working internally. Hopefully it will be out shortly.
Comments
I'd expect that you'll be back soon! Take it from someone who left and came crawling back.... That would be Me!
Love you SmugMug
This I'd like to see..
And here: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=52629 is where we're soliciting YOUR input right now for the next round of improving and organizing our customizing stuff
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That's all well and good, but if I had spent dozens of hours customizing my site to fit on the engine you had previously deployed, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be good enough for me.
Forcing people through an upgrade of that customization does *not*, no matter how you try to spin it, strike me as subscriber-friendly.
If your deployment structure is such that it does not permit you to make upgrades like this -- and I didn't see anything *structural* in this, just UI -- opt-in or opt-out, then I'd seriously consider spending my next chunk of developer time on modifying that deployment structure so that it does.
Except that, alas, the comment you're replying to (seen above, since vBull won't quote it here) concerns the link that shows to *non-logged-in* users, which quite certainly used to be 'Home' and not 'Your Photos'...
And, as I say, "Your Photos" is still a misnomer; they're not the photos of the non-logged-in user, they're *mine*.
And, frankly, "well, you can customize your site to make that link say something else", which is the next response I expect to get, isn't really good enough either. Providing me with the capability of customizing my site is great stuff, no less than I'd expect.
But it doesn't relieve you of the requirement to get the default site design elements 'right'.
And I think we can all agree that while 'Your Photos' (ie: *My* Photos") is a better choice than "(SmugMug's) Home", the naming is still a bit off...
You can quote anything in vbulletin with a copy/paste and putting the quote tags on eaither side.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Thanks. Yeah; I assumed that... but it's still a bit annoying that it doesn't automatically quote more than one level, when I want it to. :-) Not really a big deal here; people can read back.
When LOGGED IN: you will see "your photos" at the top of your pages (if you haven't customized the header away).
When LOGGED OUT: you will see "home" at the top of your pages.
It's the same, at http://www.smugmug.com or any SmugMug page.
Try it
We have not changed this at all, not for a long time.
If you still have questions, holler - I'll be here for you!
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I don't understand why us allowing COMPLETE and total customization of the site is a bad thing. But, to each his / her own. If you wish to have some help, guidance, heck, have us do stuff for you, all you need do is ask. And, as you see, we're working to make it even easier, self service as much as possible. BUT WE KNOW you are photographers, NOT web desingers. So that's why we have a team of Support Heroes on hand who help ANYONE who wants it. AND the great Dgrin community
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There are very successful photo sharing sites like PBase who don't change as much or as dramatically as we do and yet PBase has a thriving customer base. The same is true of Microsoft; they're many times the profitability of Apple and yet their OS changes less frequently and dramatically.
The honest answer is we're committed to Apple-like change and, like at Apple, full backwards compatibility isn't always possible for us without making our software so complex and hard to debug that it throws sand in the gears.
We know that makes some people happy and others infuriated, but the honest answer is it's the path we've chosen.
That's no excuse for inflicting green on everyone and only later coming out with a smugmug classic theme. That was our mistake. But honestly we plan to keep changing the site often when we perceive the majority of our customers want us to and we won't always be able to insure 100% backwards compatibility.
I wish I had a better answer for you.
Ok, Andy. That's just a *wilful* mischaracterization of what I said, which is clearly laid out, up-thread. Stop that.
What I Said Was: It should not be *necessary* for people to customize the site in order for their visitors to be able to get *help useful to them*, and have a "Home" link which sends said users to *the subscriber's home page*, instead of hijacking them to Smug's home page (to which there's *already* a link in the same place, under your logo).
Well, yeah. Which is precisely why the fact that the uncustomized defaults are ... less than useful cranks me off so much. Home and Help are both broken, plain and simple. They don't serve the audience they need to serve... the audience *I*, the paying subscriber, need for them to serve.
And I've been trying to be polite about expresing that opinion, but I'm tired of being handwaved. Perhaps I *have* misspent my $150.
It doesn't matter -- to me -- how great you are, or how helpful you're being -- if you're not fixing the things *I* need fixed.
Back in 1985 or so, Jerry Pournelle described the Vulcan dabatase system -- you might know it better as dBase I -- as "infuriatingly excellent". That's Smug. If you weren't enough better than anyone else, we wouldn't give a crap; we'd switch.
If you are unhappy and don't feel you are getting the value of your new pro account, a full and complete refund awaits you. Just let me know.
If I am not being helpful to you, I am sorry. I don't know how much more clear I can be: things have been changed. You don't like it. We understand that. Please read Baldy's post above
The home link hasn't changed in a long long time, I'm sorry that I'm not able to explain that better for you.
I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you.
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Well, frankly, Andy, your responses don't at all make it clear to me that you *do* understand the level on which my complaints are composed.
I've been an application designer, developer, and systems analyst for over 20 years -- photography is a sideline for me.
So, when I say "I don't think you people are approaching this thing in the right way", I like to think I'm not talking out my ass.
But the answers I've been getting are "soothe the pissy customer" not "hmmm... maybe this guy's got something; we should sit and talk about this before we do another upgrade".
Since I put a fair amount of effort into trying to be crystal clear about the level my complaints were pitched at, this troubles me.
Very clearly, there are people who are not happy with the structure of your recent rollout -- and if you apply Girard's Law of 250, there are a lot of them. And while I, too, can dismiss some of them, some of them were indeed well-thought out complaints, on topics which I feel (as someone who's gotten paid to worry about it) are things which should have been considered before forcing -- yes, I'm going to repeat that term; it's on-point -- an engine upgrade on paying customers, not all of whom can be expected to have considered their impacts.
And all the notices, messages, and beta participation in the world do *not* ameliorate that responsibility that we're paying you to undertake. It could have been done as opt-in (or at least opt-out), and therefore it should have been.
I appreciate that. But as I noted, that's not what I want. I Just Want It To Work Right. :-)
The Home Link had been replaced by a Your Photos link, on my site, with a Login link right next to it, right before I edited that post to add my footnote. I don't know why I got it, and I don't know why it's gone now. But I'm quite clear that a) it was there and b) it worked -- I clicked through it, and was abashed that I'd complained about something you'd 'fixed' without checking first.
I promise, I wouldn't have been aplogizing otherwise. :-)
And both of those facts *support* James' and my arguments, not yours. Sorry. ;-)
Then I assert that you're using the wrong tools.
And, honestly: you're working on a *website by website* basis. That's really not that fine a granularity that you ought to have this problem.
So do we, Baldy. So do we.
Now - for the moment, would you like to move on and get your site going? We're ready to help if you are ready to receive it. If not, no worries - just holler any time. Thanks again for posting!
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Actually, as someone who wrote apps for OS9 I understand part of your point fairly well, but since I am majorly PUI, I'll reply in more detail later.
James.
http://www.jamesjweg.com
James, I LOVE the new changes. By the way, I did wonder about the so-called "puke" green--certainly never thought I would use it. But, guess what--I just created a new galllery, and the green works PERFECTLY! It's a gallery showing off my two-year-old nephew, and somehow I can't imagine using any theme but this. It's delightful on this particular gallery. Give things a chance. Some softer "Color" shades would be nice--in time, I'll bet we get them.
As far as learning, look at it this way, it's wonderful exercise for the brain.:ivar
Wow, what a thread! Some heated discussion that certainly has taken up a lot of time and energy for a few folks. I'm not going to express an opinion on the changes, but I do have a couple of thoughts after reading the thread.
The word "hate" is a tough one for people to respond to favorably. There just isn't a good way to say hate and have the target of your ire agree with you. So, I am guessing the thread got off to a bad start with HATE being front and center.
That being said, a customer in an open forum should be able to express a negative opinion in a reasonable manner without having anyone from smugmug suggest maybe he would be better off somewhere else. That strikes me as incredibly bold and arrogant, and as you can see from the thread, it resulted in a deteriorating conversation.
Lastly, it is always helpful to stick to the subject at hand (features you like, don't like, needing a fix, etc.) and take out inflammatory or personal remarks. I just don't know anyone who responds well to high voltage criticism.
Even though I'm a diehard PC user
I mean, David Bailey and Nick Knight didn't get to where they are now by doing the same thing as Richard Avedon. And hopefully SM won't just rest on it's heels copying Yahoo/Flickr.
And really-- in all seriousness-- photography has gone through an amazing revolution in just the last five years. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had to learn seven or eight cameras, three or four printers, four different versions of PS, various downloading/sorting software, operating systems, html, css, js, how to build a computer, four or five different cell phones, etc etc-- and that's just in the last five years. I just consider SM upgrades part of my continuing education in my pursuit of photography. Photography ain't gonna stand still and luckily, SM ain't gonna either. Least that's my two-cents.
Portland, Oregon Photographer Pete Springer
website blog instagram facebook g+
BUT YOU remind us that it's about the photography, too
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It is. However, it often feels like Smugmug is more about CSS and JavaScript than photography. If you do a post count on these forums, what fraction of them is about web programming? Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that we can customize our sites, but I was a bit shocked to find out how difficult it is to do seemingly simple things.
I will say this though: not one single person that has asked for help, has been disappointed - has not gotten customized - we have tons of help here and we really try hard to get you all done fast and well
Can we do better? You bet. And we're constantly trying to improve.
Hang in there, and help us out, too, with your ideas for improvement in the first linked thread I made here.
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I am.
Can *anyone* look at the SiteMeter javascript on my site, and figure out whether there's a way to hook it like the Stats and Google-Analytics code were?
I was talking about things that are within our realm of control. We've focused on Statcounter and GA - sorry, I'm not familiar with Sitemeter, only because most folks (nearly all here) who are using 3rd part stats, are using them.
I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you. Maybe we'll be able to work on something with Sitemeter in the future, or maybe one of our fantastic community will come up with this something.
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Jay,
Try this code...
onPhotoShow.subscribe( function() { var sm = 'http://s29.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s29imageinc'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script'); for (i = 0; i < s.length; i++) { if (s[i].src == sm) { var newEl = document.createElement('script'); newEl.src = s[i].src; s[i].parentNode.replaceChild(newEl, s[i]); break; } } } );I haven't tested it, but i have just rewritten bwg's statcounter code.
Cheers,
David
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
Where do I *put* it? :-) Javascript section, right?
Putting it there appears to hang retrieval; IE6 and FF1.5.0.9 never return.
(disregard; there appears to have been a 30-second outage; by the time I tested it on another PC, the first browser on my laptop had returned also, and it's now returning properly with the JS installed.)
Let me go hammer it with an uncookied browser and see what happens.
Oddly, on both machines, Ctrl-F5 in Firefox reloads the page, but it doesn't contain the Javascript. Could you or Andy take a look at where I pasted it, and see if it's coming out where you expected it to?
From the first (overview) paragraph Later:
I may not be the biggest fan of the green letters (I don't mind them, but they aren't my favorite), but I really do think that all the relevant sections of the article should be quoted. Also, this study consisted of only 98 college age students in Georgia, so I don't know whether or not you can statistically apply their findings to all internet viewers -- especially when not everyone's monitors are calibrated, so the relative color is probably somewhat different for each viewer.
As for SmugMug not taking their user's input into account, I have found that, by and large they are quite receptive to input, but obviously cannot implement every suggestion. In this specific instance they have, in the face of rather strong and emotional criticism, responded in a gracious and measured way. Personally, I find the pop up bar to be nifty technology, but I don't really care for it. I've provided feedback to that effect -- but I see no need to berate the folk at SmugMug for not implementing my suggestions. I will continue to provide feedback and, if I find that I no longer find their services or support adequate, I will vote with my dollars.
Kind Regards,
http://mkress65.zenfolio.com
http://mkress65.smugmug.com
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