Stop Already!!!
Seymore
Banned Posts: 1,539 Major grins
.
0
Seymore
Banned Posts: 1,539 Major grins
Comments
I went to your site and it's all normal to me. I get no such message box, logged in, or out.
Crazy things have happened at times, I can only suspect a browser hiccup. We're not doing anything right now, I assure you, to your site, or any sites.
Could you try clearing your cookies for your IE6 browser?
http://www.smugmug.com/help/cookies has instructions on how to do this.
FYI this is what I saw on your site, it's looking quite normal here to me?
EDIT: Don't clear your cookies - it's a bug in our system ... and I've reported it and it will be fixed. Sorry for the hassle.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Seems that if you view yournickname.smugmug.com/UNUSED CATEGORY then you get that newbie welcome message:
http://moorefoto.smugmug.com/Friends
as opposed to a legit category on your site:
http://moorefoto.smugmug.com/Texas
It's our mistake, and we're very sorry about this. We'll get it fixed Seymore, thanks again for bringing it to our attention, and I'm very sorry that it's upset you.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
IE6 (your browser, according to the info I see on our admin system) doesn't allow individual cookie deletion. I suspect there's a way, to get the cookies one by one... Firefox, on the other hand, does and makes it real easy
Every one of us here at SmugMug is a "power to be". Are you saying you'd like us to stop innovating? I'm sure you don't mean that!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
I don't mind progress or innovation, but I honestly can't see that in the latest changes. Fly out boxes, I find them a huge pain in the rear, they pop out when you don't want them to, and my customer feedback has not been great on them either.
I need a site that I don't have to worry about every couple of weeks not working the way it should. I like to take photos and sell photos, not fix web sites. I have been around since 2005, and there have been more changes in the last six months than the year and a half before that. It has become bloated with features that don't help me do my job effectively.
I have seen responses the past few days from Andy, Mike Lane, JT and others that say "lets not blow this out of proportion", we are not, we are expressing our dissatisfaction to changes many of use don't find benefit us. You want to know, we are letting you know. I get frustrated by all the tweaking that causes me to spend time on something I frankly don't like to do.
I believe that I have seen more people the last few months that are also not pleased than all of my other time around Smugmug. I hope that is being noticed. Thanks for listening to at least two customers who are not exactly happy.
Canon Gear
Can someone [lease tell me exactly what this "NEW FEATURE" is ?
I've been away for a few days and have just checked into the forum. I can see a lot of dissatisfaction, I have found a pop up for adding galleries but is there anything else ?
Do I have to scour every message here to try and find what is causing this angst ?
Caroline
www.carolineshipsey.co.uk - Follow me on G+
[/URL]
SmugIslands feature: http://www.smugmug.com/help/private-search-island
Check out the new add photo button. I gives you the ability to make a new gallery or add photo to any of your galleries from one place. If you need any help...yell. Cheers:)
I think whats going on here is a bug...
KISS indeed. KISS is cool.
Look through my eyes on Cultural Surfaces! - customizing... currently in a state between limbo and chaos
I would never, ever say that regarding him, you, or anyone expressing their feelings about a feature or change we made.
We value this feedback, it's like gold to us.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
I am seeing times waitning on the smuggy mouth to get loaded, that takes as much as 3-5 minutes and I am on dsl......
One thing you can try if a pages doesn't seem to finish loading when everythings already seems to be in place is to tell the browser to stop loading. Usually on PC you can do this by hitting the ESC-key.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
The fly out box I am referring to is the photo fly out which my customers can't seem to find or gets in the way when they don't want it to. And I just want to be clear on that. Just another change I wasn't happy with, nor it would seem are my customers. I also value feedback...from my customers and what they like or dislike about their experience on my site. I am trying to make browsing my site as easy as I can.
Lets work on changing the pricing mess that seems to not make much sense to many users, the ability to add packages, the ability to add other printing vendors, better shipping options, things that I work with on a daily basis and directly affect my sales capabilities.
Canon Gear
I'm with you on this one. When I'm in Gallery A and click Add Photo, it only makes sense that I want photos added Gallery A. I don't understand how this was a problem to anyone. On the other hand, it is only one click. For me, it's not a real issue because I use SmugBrowser to add photos.
However, I really like seeing the list of all my galleries and categories when I click on Add Photo. I would like to see this same type of list available on my home page or in the control panel.
And it would be really nice if the Release Notes were kept current.
Gallery Tools / Add Photo still works fine.
Personally, I'm happy to have two options when viewing a gallery - one of which adds photos to the current gallery, the other of which gives me the option to create a new gallery.
That being said, I use "Send to Smugmgu" so don't this use functionality anyway.
the new drop downs are pretty nifty... don't recall that being on the feature request thread though....
The brand new menu's are not sorted either... this has been a long standing issue on on other dropdown selection screens....
Also, why not fix some really easy stuff that has been an issue forever like
- save original if logged in (regardless of settings)
- allow right click save when logged in (regardless of settings)
- sort all the drop down lists
- display original filename when attempting "Replace Photo"
- option to put back the camera info, the "links" link, the "save photo" link, etc
- and lots of other little things that I see here brought up over and over
btw, the Smug Island appears to be working! my statcounter is not showing hits from all over the world anymore, yeahKeep up the excellent work, and I applaud the innovation. Speed is important too, so always please keep that in the back of your minds as you develop.
Stephen Skoutas
http://stephenskoutas.com
sskoutas@gmail.com Certe, toto, sentio nos in kansate non iam adesse
Please feel free to retouch and repost my images. Critique, Suggestions, and Technique tips always welcomed.
Now these suggestions seem like good ideas.
Just chiming in on this thread-- I actually appreciate the upgrades and willingness of SM to try new stuff. One option for folks who hate the constant upgrades-- myspace! Seriously, I don't think they've upgraded code or anything else there since 1999 and I don't think they have any updates planned. You can't even leave comments in your CSS (which oddly, operates within HTML
Anyway, in the interest of full disclosure, I did just get my fattest check yet from SM today. It was for print/digital download sales over the past two months. So my customers seem to be navigating my site okay. So yeah, I've had my share of frustrations with SM, but compared to say myspace or pbase or the vastly more expensive livebooks, there ain't no contest.
But... I should say I don't mind being a beta tester either and happily embraced the beta CS3 even though it was a MAJOR pain in the a$$ when the commercial version was released. Yes, the beta CS3 was voluntary, but in a way, so is SM. There are other services out there and at least for me, I still haven't found one as decent for the price.
Okay, now where's the "blab blab blab blab" smilie?
Portland, Oregon Photographer Pete Springer
website blog instagram facebook g+
Hi,
That is always a tough decision we have to make when we add a new feature. Do we add yet another button to the interface? In this case, we thought it would be simpler to just make the "new gallery" button more powerful.
You can now use that button to add photos to any gallery on your whole SmugMug site. For many users, that saves clicks. Instead of navigating through the category and subcategory to get to the gallery and click "add photos", you can stay right on whatever page you're on and quickly add photos to any gallery. For many users, that makes a lot more sense. We found lots of people wanted to "add photos" and didn't get the hang of needing a gallery to add the photos to, and they didn't realize they actually had to be IN that gallery to find and "add photos" button.
Not everyone is happy with every change, but please don't think we're adding features on a whim. We felt this made the site more powerful without complicating the interface. It's a lot easier for most people with lots of categories/subcategories/galleries to get their photos on SmugMug. And that's how we like it.
Of course, we appreciate the feedback. In this case "one click away" was less important to us than the struggle people have with extra buttons. It's one extra click in some cases, but it's a lot more power
-Anne
So there are sometimes really pressing features that don't affect customers here that much, but are killing a HUGE number of our customers and our potential customers. This was one of them. Figuring out how to add photos to their account from their homepage was confusing a lot of casual customers. If you go away and don't come back to visit your SmugMug account for 3 months (pretty common behavior for a lot of our customers), you probably don't remember that you first need to create a gallery and then go into the uploaders.
The type of people who get stuck on that aren't the type (for the most part) who are going to come running to Dgrin to suggest a change. But that doesn't mean we don't hear it over and over again on the help desk, asking us how on earth they add photos to their account.
Dgrin is an amazing resource for us, and we probably skew our dev time towards features that we hear here (SmugIslands is a good recent example of that), but we do have to keep the rest of the SmugMug family in mind too.
Hi Art,
Your logic is based on the way SmugMug has always functioned in the past. You can absolutely still navigate around to the correct gallery before attempting to add photos (just as you always have). It'll take you one more click to add those photos once you're in the gallery. Or, the same amount of clicks if you typically select "add photos" from the gallery tools menu. However, you no longer have to navigate to a different gallery if you don't want to!
Instead of backing out of one gallery, and clicking on the appropriate category, subcategory, and gallery and waiting for each page to load in order to locate the next place you'd like to add photos, (and quite possibly get lost on your SmugMug site in the process if you're anything like me), you can just do that from any page on your SmugMug site. No page loads, no fuss. Just select the gallery and get photos added!
Again, obviously some people will still want to manually cruise around their SmugMug site to locate that next gallery they'd like to add a photo to, and they are more than welcome to do that. However, for those of us who'd like to save time and zip through the process of uploading lots of photos to different galleries, this is a great addition.
-Anne
Not to stir the pot too much, but I think it's worth noting that:
a) pro users pay SM a higher annual fee than the "more casual users"
b) pro users also earn SM money on print/download sales
Just pointing this out. I realize SM makes every effort to treat every user with equal importance and I completely understand your point.
Portland, Oregon Photographer Pete Springer
website blog instagram facebook g+
Also, just a reminder that what may seem like "really easy stuff" to you may in fact be very tricky to implement. As evidenced by this feature, we put a lot of thought and planning into things we release, because we're bound to hear mixed reviews. With some of the features you mentioned, there are permissions issues to be thoroughly sorted out, with others, we may currently feel that adding them will over-complicate the interface.
We constantly listen to feedback and feature requests, but what is most important to one customer is often not important to the majority of customers and we have to weigh the impact adding it will have on the whole SmugMug community, not just a few vocal dgrinners (no matter how fond we are of you guys
-Anne
This is very true, and not something we have forgotten, but we have a lot more Standard users than Pro users... so I couldn't say for certain off the top of my head which section actually brings in more money if you want to look at it from a purely spreadsheet sort of thing. We also sell an obscene number of prints to Standard accounts and their families. Margins are lower, but volume is higher.
Not that it matters though. Even if we had more Pro users than Standard, and even if we had more print volume from Pros than Standard... we wouldn't stop developing for Standard accounts.
We support all account levels, and develop features for them all.
And lastly, this feature definitely was added to address the confusion of casual users, but it was built to make it easier to add photos to any gallery for all types of users. For someone who has lots of galleries, and lots of categories, it should be MUCH easier and quicker to add photos to existing galleries from their homepage now.
Thanks for clarifying. It sounds like you're referring to the photobar. This is another interface change that made things a lot easier for lots and lots of people, yet harder for other people at the same time. We make some hard choices, but after lots and lots of feedback, both here on dgrin and from hundreds of customers emailing our Help Desk, we're confident that our new, cleaner interface is helping the vast majority of customers.
Did you know you can have that photobar pop out underneath the photo instead of over the top? Your customers may find it less obtrusive that way. It's #21 on our Customization FAQ: http://smugmug.com/help/customize-faq.mg .
Again, it's a bit more complicated. We're glad to hear what your top feature requests are, of course. But just as an example, changing "the pricing mess" will have a huge (and possibly negative) impact on our pros that understand and use the current pricing method. Just look at what happened when we changed the "new gallery" button? And it's far less complicated.
Adding packages, other vendors, shipping options, etc. are definitely things many of our pros work with on a daily basis, but they are also a whole lot of work to implement. Please know that just because the latest feature request didn't include these features, that doesn't mean we're not hard at work on them!
-Anne
Another example about how you could please more people: here's a copy of a post I made about the photobar.
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=473000&postcount=35
scwalter.smugmug.com
but....
creating a new gallery and adding photos
is not only demanding that I make coffee but drink the whole pot too.
I am still waiting for a new gallery to produce results
and it took a good 5 minutes to actually show up.
hopefully this is just a temporary glitch
posting to inform more than complain.
thanks
EDIT: Slow but it did finally work.
Kristi
http://www.simplykristi.smugmug.com/
My SM site: http://www.simplykristi.smugmug.com/
My photo bar IS underneath the photo, I changed it within a week of implementation. Many of my customers don't care for it or are confused it even exists. Ultimately I have to listen to the feedback from MY customers and they will drive me toward other options when it negatively impacts my sales.
The "vocal grinner's" you refer to are in many cases people like me who spend time on their site everyday. Last Friday is a good example, I was unable to access my site the majority of the day due to the latest "feature upgrade". A few "vocal grinner's" pointed out that there was an issue. The casual user you mentioned will have no idea there ever was a problem, they then have no reason to post here or write the help desk.
In effect many of the "vocal grinner's" become beta testers and end up dealing with web site issues when we all would much prefer taking photos, which I believe is the reason we are all here. That is why threads like this pop up, the "vocal grinner's" end up trying get a site up and running with no bugs and one that requires virtually no input once it is up and running. Instead we spend time posting here and to the help desk to get our site operable after large amounts of time spent getting it where we want.
How long has package pricing been brought up? I did a quick search and this is not the oldest post but...http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=13042&highlight=photo+packages
This was over two years ago! We are still it would seem not any closer to that request. This is where the frustration starts to build, we work on photo bars, and add photo buttons but little progress seems to made on issues that have been around for years. This is only one example.
Please don't misunderstand, change and progress is inevitable in order to stay competitive. But a stable, fast, site that is easy for users and customers alike to use is the ultimate goal. I just wonder sometimes if Smugmug is headed that direction. As I said at the top my customers and my ability to deal with these improvements will tell me when and if Smugmug achieves that goal.
Canon Gear
I decided to try uploading just 1 photo and got the same problems. Stuck it in as the 2nd photo, and all I see is the icon stating Processing Image. Never did see any of the photos I uploaded.
http://backwardglances.smugmug.com/gallery/2594268#139372172
Our queues have been backed up a little...it appears that the image you linked to is being displayed now.
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos