Feature Request: BlogThis

shahineo

It would be nice if there was a feature similar to FlickR where you could configure a picture to be posted to your blog using the MetaWeblog or Blogger APIs.

GREAPER

I have seen several requests and discussions of Blogs wiithout totaly understanding what they are.

As I understand it, it is a sort of periodic journal with photographs?

If this is correct, why couldn't you get a free geocities account, hots the images on smugmug, use a nice premade template and create the ever expanding blog that way?

Andy

shahineo wrote:

It would be nice if there was a feature similar to FlickR where you could configure a picture to be posted to your blog using the MetaWeblog or Blogger APIs.

hi shahineo welcome to dgrin

try the search, there's loads of talk on this. here's one thread that may be of interest to you

dkapp

I was one pushing for a Smugmug blog a long time ago. I tried using the Journal style template & that pretty much sucked for blogging.

Right now I use Expressions. It does a great job, but not free.

My blog is listed in my signature below.

If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to help.

Dave

T4Tots

blogging
I blog on xanga.com and just link my photos there. It's fairly pain free.

http://xanga.com/t4tots

philip

Is it possible to blog videos?

dkapp wrote:

>SNIP<
Right now I use Expressions. It does a great job, but not free.

My blog is listed in my signature below.

If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to help.

Can you post videos to your blog?

jkhasson

Seamless integration is needed for bloggin
My first post on Smugmug's forum. Thanks for all the input.

After searching high and low for an easy way to integrate a flikr-style sidebar "preview" feed into Typepad (my blogging tool of choice), I have finally realized that Smugmug is missing out on a traffic-increasing tool. If I could easily link folks from my blog back to the Smugmug site without having to include a specific image reference in a specific blog posting, life would be golden (and Smugmug would get more traffic from potential users)!

Currently, I am using the RSS feed function, but this, in Typepad, only allows text in the feed. I tried an "RSS to Java Script" function, but the Smugmug feed posts images in too large of a size.

If you check out Typepad's easy internal photo gallery function, you'll see that Smugmug needs to get with it!

Thanks for the outstanding site and service, but let's get some easy photo blogging and flickr-style sidebar programming.

Thanks.

Mike Lane

philip wrote:

Can you post videos to your blog?

A blog is simply a web page. If you know how to post videos to a web page, you can post them to your blog.

Mike Lane

jkhasson wrote:

My first post on Smugmug's forum. Thanks for all the input.

After searching high and low for an easy way to integrate a flikr-style sidebar "preview" feed into Typepad (my blogging tool of choice), I have finally realized that Smugmug is missing out on a traffic-increasing tool. If I could easily link folks from my blog back to the Smugmug site without having to include a specific image reference in a specific blog posting, life would be golden (and Smugmug would get more traffic from potential users)!

Currently, I am using the RSS feed function, but this, in Typepad, only allows text in the feed. I tried an "RSS to Java Script" function, but the Smugmug feed posts images in too large of a size.

If you check out Typepad's easy internal photo gallery function, you'll see that Smugmug needs to get with it!

Thanks for the outstanding site and service, but let's get some easy photo blogging and flickr-style sidebar programming.

Thanks.

All good things come in time. Rest assured the Smugmug engineers are well aware of the various flikr features

Thanks for the great suggestion!

Mike Lane

GREAPER wrote:

I have seen several requests and discussions of Blogs wiithout totaly understanding what they are.

As I understand it, it is a sort of periodic journal with photographs?

If this is correct, why couldn't you get a free geocities account, hots the images on smugmug, use a nice premade template and create the ever expanding blog that way?

You could use geocities if you wanted to. The idea behind blogging software (including those found on sites like www.blogger.com and those that you can download and install on your own site like www.typepad.com and www.wordpress.com) is that they allow you to update your site pain-free. Instead of reconstructing the site or part of the site every time you want to make a blog entry you simply type into an included form element and it automatically gets posted with things like date and time. You can then use templates to make your blog look exactly like you want it to look.

But you're right, a blog (short for web log) is simply an online journal.

garyjwood

Blogging with Smugmug and Blogger.com

GREAPER wrote:

I have seen several requests and discussions of Blogs wiithout totaly understanding what they are.

As I understand it, it is a sort of periodic journal with photographs?

If this is correct, why couldn't you get a free geocities account, hots the images on smugmug, use a nice premade template and create the ever expanding blog that way?

With a bit of HTML, you can do some cool stuff with the free service at www.blogger.com. You can set up a template that forms the basis of each new post. I started about 6 months ago with a simple template, and pasted the smugmug link into it.

Since then, I've expanded the template to add calls to smugmug's EXIF window and the Google Maps API. It requires a bit more cut-and-paste, so I wrote myself a C# interface to automatically generate the HTML. Check it out -- the link is in my sig.

(NOTE: As with any website, you can copy the source and modify it for your own use. However, the Google Maps API key will only work with my blog's URL.)

Mike Lane

garyjwood wrote:

Since then, I've expanded the template to add calls to smugmug's EXIF window and the Google Maps API. It requires a bit more cut-and-paste, so I wrote myself a C# interface to automatically generate the HTML. Check it out -- the link is in my sig.

Is that C# program something that resides on your computer or is it a function you built into your blogger template? Care to make a tutorial about it? eh eh???

I've left my blogger blog and moved on to a new blog using wordpress. I have no idea if I'll like wordpress or not but I'm thinking it'll be nice to be able to use PHP. There were plenty of times when I'd come across PHP snippets that sounded awesome only to realize that I couldn't use them in blogger.

I have no idea how to modify my wordpress template yet. Someday I'll learn / have the time maybe:)

jkhasson

Good to hear that the engineers are at work!

Mike Lane wrote:

All good things come in time. Rest assured the Smugmug engineers are well aware of the various flikr features

Thanks for the great suggestion!

Excellent! That is good to hear. The more professional and "seamless" websites can be, the better!

dkapp

I'm useing PixelPost for my blog now. It really is awesome software for photoblogging, but isn't good for just regular blogs. It requires a picture to be uploaded with every post...perfect for what I do.

It's easy to install/modify/manage, and I was an old pro with it in minutes.

Dave

garyjwood

Mike Lane wrote:

Is that C# program something that resides on your computer or is it a function you built into your blogger template? Care to make a tutorial about it? eh eh???

...snip...

The C# code is a simple desktop application. It isn't perfect; I still have to enter the smugmug URL and geographic coordinates manually. I wrote it in a couple of hours to save myself some typing and thereby, some typos.

I'd like to investigate the Smugmug API to see if I can get the image URL and EXIF but I haven't had the time. At that point, I'll be willing to share the code and perhaps offer a tutorial.

BTW, the app also outputs a KML file. Someday, the Google Earth client will be available in your browser:

http://www.allpointsblog.com/archives/718-Quote-of-the-Week.html

luke_church

garyjwood wrote:

I'd like to investigate the Smugmug API to see if I can get the image URL and EXIF but I haven't had the time. At that point, I'll be willing to share the code and perhaps offer a tutorial.

I have Smumug's API encapsuated into a .NET library that would save you all the work, and it's perhaps more than you might think :-)

It's waiting on Smugmug to do some bug fixing and then it'll be be up for release...

Free for non-commercial use :-)

Luke

garyjwood

luke_church wrote:

I have Smumug's API encapsuated into a .NET library that would save you all the work, and it's perhaps more than you might think :-)

It's waiting on Smugmug to do some bug fixing and then it'll be be up for release...

Free for non-commercial use :-)

Luke

Sweet! I look forward to it.

I've been messing about with .NET for a couple of years now doing desktop applications (it's my day job), so I appreciate the work that goes into such a project.

And because I have a day job, my blog is definitely non-commercial. :heh

SueMc

I am just now searching these forums for blogging information and have a quick (& dumb) question. Since the purpose of blogging for me would be to share with friends and family, are there "password protect" features assoc. with blog sites, or is the whole point of blogging to share with the entire internet? I would like to have access to a good journaling site which would include my photos.
Thank you.

garyjwood

SueMc wrote:

... are there "password protect" features assoc. with blog sites, or is the whole point of blogging to share with the entire internet? ...

Blogs are shared with the entire internet. Anyone can read them. (For this reason, I don't post pictures of identifiable children in my blog.) Typically there are user-account and password features that limit who can post to a blog, and there are also a number of ways to handle comments -- e.g., no commenting, sign in to comment, approved comments only, etc.

jkhasson

Typepad allows password protection of blogs

SueMc wrote:

Since the purpose of blogging for me would be to share with friends and family, are there "password protect" features assoc. with blog sites, or is the whole point of blogging to share with the entire internet?

Welcome to blogging! I really enjoy it as a way to share with friends and family. I use Typepad for our blogging, and it does allow password protection of its features. Typepad says:
<as-html></as-html>

With TypePad, you can choose to password protect either your entire web site or individual weblogs or photo albums.
If you choose to password protect your entire site, visitors will be prompted to enter a username and password combination to access any page off your main site (this includes your about page, all weblogs and photo albums, and any of your feeds).
If you choose to password protect a particular weblog or photo album, your visitors will be prompted to enter a username and password combination for only that particular area of your site.

I'm not sure how this protection affects blog search engines, but it seems to be secure.

Enjoy.
Jonathan

SueMc

Thank you both for your responses. I guess I have to decide if I need anything more than smugmug's journal feature. I just wish it had some basic options.

jkhasson

I agree!

SueMc wrote:

I guess I have to decide if I need anything more than smugmug's journal feature. I just wish it had some basic options.

I agree, more options would be quite nice.

Malte

I second this feature request. I mean the original "BlogThis" idea, not the SmugBlogs one. I don't mean that I think SmugMug wouldn't be able to pull off a really good blogging service, I'm just the type who likes his eggs in separate baskets. I'm using (er, well I have an account on) TypePad, which seems to be a fine blogging service but I would love to see some cool integration between these two favourite services. How about a TypePad widget for SmugMugs excellent slideshow hack?

Malte

jkhasson

TypePad Widgets may be the solution

Malte wrote:

I don't mean that I think SmugMug wouldn't be able to pull off a really good blogging service, I'm just the type who likes his eggs in separate baskets.

I agree, and I don't think SmugMug wants to jump into the blogging arena.

I'm using (er, well I have an account on) TypePad, which seems to be a fine blogging service but I would love to see some cool integration between these two favourite services. How about a TypePad widget for SmugMugs excellent slideshow hack?

Malte

Reading your post, I was thinking that same thing. The new Typepad Widget API may be just the solution. I wish I knew how to program!

Malte

jkhasson wrote:

I agree, and I don't think SmugMug wants to jump into the blogging arena.


Reading your post, I was thinking that same thing. The new Typepad Widget API may be just the solution. I wish I knew how to program!

Yeah me neither. About that TypePad Widget API, do you think that's something that would be used by the official SmugMug coders or could anyone use it? (With SmugMugs blessings ofcourse) Maybe we should start one of those internet bounties?

About the slideshow though, I think it would have to become an official SmugMug customization option first of all, and not a "hack" that could be broken at any time. I can also imagine that the slideshow puts enough strain on the SmugMug servers as it is, without also serving it to everyone's blogs. Again, I don't know this stuff so that's me speculating.

Here are some other ideas for TypePad widgets:

"Picture of the day" could display any random picture from one's SmugMug account, or the last uploaded one.

"Featured pictures" could display the display picture (or random picture) from each of the 1-4 featured galleries.

"Stats of the month" could display stats on picture views or sales, like bragging rights for the blogging pro photographer.


Malte