What is the Smugmug equivalent to Zenfolio Collections?

jemaerca

Hello all. I'm looking for a way to have one photo (the same photo) displayed in more than one gallery. Similar to the "Collections" feature of Zenfolio where LINKS to a particular photograph are what is displayed in the gallery. Currently, I upload the same photo to different galleries and this gets pretty confusing for visitors, divides comments and views and photo popularity, etc.

So, does anyone know if there a Smugmug equivalent to Zenfolio's collections?

And if not, any suggestions on having a photo show up in multiple galleries without having to upload the same photo multiple times? Thanks in advance.

Cameron

Sorry, no equivalent feature at the moment... it's one I'd LOVE to have and others have suggested it in the past. Maybe in the future... ?

Allen

CSwinton wrote:

Sorry, no equivalent feature at the moment... it's one I'd LOVE to have and others have suggested it in the past. Maybe in the future... ?

You could use keywords. Use a different keyword for each "collection" err keyword gallery.
Assign keywords like "collection1" and "collection2".

Each keyword gallery could have photos from anywhere. If a photo goes in
two "collections" put both keywords on that photo.

papajay

Allen wrote:

You could use keywords. Use a different keyword for each "collection" err keyword gallery.
Assign keywords like "collection1" and "collection2".

Each keyword gallery could have photos from anywhere. If a photo goes in
two "collections" put both keywords on that photo.

This is a way to get a "virtual gallery" (or "collection") of sorts TODAY with currently existing SmugMug capability.

"One Small Step for Man...One Huge Leap (for me, anyway!)". Allen, thanks for this. It might fall into the "Duh!!" category for many, but with the help of your suggestion, how to actually do it just hit me like a ton of bricks!

Creating a "Collection1" gallery using a single keyword (or even a multi-keyword combination) is not terribly complex...even for me!

1. Create a "new gallery" and put a single photo in it as a "placeholder".
2. Then, edit the caption to include a link* that launches the keyword search.
3. Voila!!!....a "Virtual Gallery" appears when a visitor clicks on the link.

*I used the "/linking.htm" format in the caption that somebody showed me way back when:
http://smugnick.smugmug.com/keyword/kw1-kw2-kw"n"/linking.htm

Not elegant...but it seems to work. One "downside" to using this approach is that the "collection" will have the same captions as the "original" images, which could be a bit confusing in context since the images can come from many unrelated galleries.

So pulling a "virtual gallery" (collection) together appears to be do-able without having to copy/move the entire content. Once accomplished, you can even access the shopping cart to order prints, etc.

egor

papajay wrote:

One "downside" to using this approach is that the "collection" will have the same captions as the "original" images, which could be a bit confusing in context since the images can come from many unrelated galleries.

Another problem is that keyword results pages don't (apparently) have any sort order parameters. They always display the most recently uploaded photos first. Unfortunately, I'm slowly adding photos in reverse-chronological order (loading newest photos first), which means all my keyword results pages are in exactly the reverse order I desire.

I wish there was some way to "force" a sort order on a keyword results gallery. There are some photos, for example, that I *always* want to be at the top -- whether they're new or old... but I can't figure out a way to do that.

So, basically, while you have complete control over display order in your original gallery, you lose all control when displaying images from a keyword search.

-egor (http://ultrasomething.smugmug.com)

jemaerca

Thanks for the responses folks. I've read a LOT of posts in the last 24 hours and I get how keywords can be used to do a virtual gallery (like what papajay has described above). If I understand this right, this method would require one click from a category to the gallery that holds the link to the keyword, and then another click within that gallery to get to the photos with the keyword. The two-click process plus not clicking on a thumbnail doesn't excite me too much (no offense, Papajay).

Here are a couple of follow-up questions:
- Is there a way to do this so that a click on the thumbnail while in a category view gets the photos of the virutal gallery?
- Any other workarounds?

Thanks again.

egor

You can click anything and have it trigger the keyword results page.

For example, on my site (http://ultrasomething.smugmug.com), I have all the photos stored in galleries according to year. So, in the nav bar, everything in the "Subject" drop down list is simply a little script that looks for all images tagged with a certain keyword.

In this way, I can simply select "Subject>Vegetable>Landscapes" and all my photos that are tagged with the keyword, "Landscapes" appear.

I just used some basic HTML, like this:

<a href="http://<yoursite>.smugmug.com/homepage/templatechange.mg?TemplateID=3&origin=http://<yoursite>.smugmug.com/keyword/<yourkeyword">Architecture</a>

-egor

jemaerca

Thanks Egor.

Not sure I get the html code you've provided (I'm not an html expert). As far as I can tell, you've got it set up so that anyone using the drop-down menu on your site (cool pics, by the way) trigger the keyword search. What I was trying to do was to go to a virtual gallery (like what you have) but triggered by a click on a thumbnail (just like a real gallery).

Any help from anyone would be appreciated. Thanks.

papajay

jemaerca wrote:

The two-click process plus not clicking on a thumbnail doesn't excite me too much (no offense, Papajay).

.

None taken...I'm not wild about a two-click process either! Like you, I'd much prefer something "designed-in" over having to create work-arounds using tools I'm not proficient with (like html, css, etc)...but even as hokey as the work-around is, at least it "gets you there" (sort-of).

It appears to me that Egor's solution (with the NavBar drop-downs, etc) is much better, but I've yet to build up my courage or take the time to tackle the NavBar customization stuff...a bit too intimidating still for me.

jemaerca

Folks,

Please check out this thread:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=47386&highlight=Virtual

Clear instructions. Very easy to setup virtual galleries where you click on a thumbnail to trigger the keyword virtual gallery...