Look at the code uses in the sub-gallery technique for adding an extra level to the breadcrumb. A very similar technique can be used to delete levels from the breadcrumb. It's very hacky, so I leave it as an exercise for the reader.
Hello PBolchover,
Thanks a lot for hints and pointers ... yes, of course I have looked through this forum. And I have seen some of your coding hints.
I am just asking for some items to be added to SM itself to make life easier for all us not-so-technical ones, to let us concentrate on photos rather than coding. But I do appreciate your work and suggestions so keep the good hints coming.
Regards, HaraldE
==================
My focus is on digitizing memories
Heya Brandon, your post gave me a lot of food for thought!
Re: Quick settings
YEAH! I was going to write that the Bulk Settings feature for Quick Settings that will do what you want, albeit annoyingly because you have to 1) Save your setting as a new name, because just overwriting it with the old name actually doesn't work, and 2) You'd have to go through and Bulk Set all 200 of your "Family" galleries. That sucks, and you're absolutely right -- galleries should maintain an association with their assigned Quick Setting.
Re: Unique Gallery Names, you wrote:
(yeah, yeah, I can try to combine our pics but this is a nightmare for us because of filenames, etc)
If you're talking about duplicate filenames, I think that since SmugMug creates their own unique ImageID, that shouldn't be a problem. You should ust be able to do two uploads (which it sounds like you're already doing), but to the same gallery. Then sort by timestamp, and assuming your cameras have their date/time synced, you should have a nice combined gallery.
Re: virtual galleries
Yah, I think in Flickr they're called "Sets". ;-}
Re: Show/hide within a Gallery
Yeah, Phanfare offers this and it is *great* for trimming down my galleries that have waaaay too many shots of my precious son at his preschool. The shots of him are still stored there for posterity, but other parents don't have to page through multiple shots of him just to see a picture of their kid. It'd be great if SmugMug offered this.
But ugh, that would mean another "bulk UI" page. Phanfare's desktop client (OS X and Windows) makes these kinds of operations super-easy to accomplish. OTOH, Flickr's Organizer interface offers many of the same multiple operations. SmugMug's UI, on the other hand is a bit too modal (is that right term?) Bulk Rotate Interface. Bulk Caption/Keywords Interface. Bulk Delete Interface. Bleh. It's so very 90s. :-}
(link to Virtual Galleries hack involving keywords, and Javascript coding to essentially emulate something like Flickr sets)
> Sub-Sub-Galleries
(link to a scary complicated hack to kind of sort of offer subfolders, whereas even a crappy site like Fotki has real, unlimited subfolders)
> Hiding part of a breadcrumb
Look at the code uses in the sub-gallery technique for adding an extra level to the breadcrumb. A very similar technique can be used to delete levels from the breadcrumb. It's very hacky, so I leave it as an exercise for the reader.
Has anybody noticed how much hacking we sometimes have to do to SmugMug? Hey, sure, I'm glad we *can* do it. I'm just sometimes kind of bummed that we *have* to do it.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm impressed and in awe of the coding and customization skills of everybody here, both volunteers and SmugMug employees alike. But sometimes... you don't want to have to write a freaking Perl script just to have a automated "newest galleries" section at the top of your page.
But yeah, I can't think of ANYBODY who offers the amount of customization that SmugMug does w/ CSS/JavaScript/Footer/Header mods. I mean, you can't rewrite your home page on Flickr, Phanfare, Fotki (hahaha, I'm so sorry), or any of the sites out there.
On the other hand, what a pain to have to implement virtual galleries or subfolders using what really are (IMHO) hacks.
Thought of another We need need NEED to be able to proof digital downloads. I use proof delay so none of my images are in their final form. I was horrified the first time a client purchased a download and I found that there was no replacing the image. That proofing lets me make sure my client gets the best quality image possible and to me it doesnt really make sense that my client will get the best quality on an inexpensive 4x6 print, but not on a high dollar download for reproduction. JMHO
(link to Virtual Galleries hack involving keywords, and Javascript coding to essentially emulate something like Flickr sets)
> Sub-Sub-Galleries
(link to a scary complicated hack to kind of sort of offer subfolders, whereas even a crappy site like Fotki has real, unlimited subfolders)
> Hiding part of a breadcrumb
Has anybody noticed how much hacking we sometimes have to do to SmugMug? Hey, sure, I'm glad we *can* do it. I'm just sometimes kind of bummed that we *have* to do it.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm impressed and in awe of the coding and customization skills of everybody here, both volunteers and SmugMug employees alike. But sometimes... you don't want to have to write a freaking Perl script just to have a automated "newest galleries" section at the top of your page.
But yeah, I can't think of ANYBODY who offers the amount of customization that SmugMug does w/ CSS/JavaScript/Footer/Header mods. I mean, you can't rewrite your home page on Flickr, Phanfare, Fotki (hahaha, I'm so sorry), or any of the sites out there.
On the other hand, what a pain to have to implement virtual galleries or subfolders using what really are (IMHO) hacks.
Yes, I have noticed...
As a software professional, I think its cool that you can have this level of control. As a user, I am disappointed that some of these seemingly straightforward features are either not implemented or are implemented the way they are. I am also *very* disappointed to see that there are entire areas of this forum dedicated to what amount to brutal, brutal hacks and that there are smugmug insiders encouraging our use of them. I mean no offense when I say this but I feel that these people should be focusing on how to make the product better based on the HUGE amount of feedback we have here instead of showing us the circuitous and frankly, brittle way to get the functionality today. More and more photo sharing/storage sites are going up all of the time - this is a highly competitive market. I like smugmug and I am committed to making smugmug work for me and everyone in my circle of influence but it seems like there is a fundamental disconnect here... There doesn't seem to be a recognition of the fact that while its true that smugmug has *functional* gaps (who doesn't?), smugmug has clear *architectural* issues that are limiting their ability to roll these features (or resource issues) (or both), no matter how many times we ask for them. Wouldn't it be more productive to have a frank conversation about what is possible/what is not esp. given that we have the attention of the insiders in this forum?
Is there a product roadmap for Smugmug out there? An architecture diagram?
Quick sets part 2 Quickset option
I love the idea of linked quicksets but I would also like quicksets where I set all except description and password but when I create the gallery and choose the quickset it asks for those 2 entires - allows me to create one quickset for many different teams without forgetting to change the password by team.
Pricing quickset
Would like to see pricing quicksets that are identified by name not gallery applied so I if I have different ones I do not have to remember which is on which gallery (I understand that I can create an empty gallery and do it that way - but seems a waste). It would allow a separate interface for setting pricing without having to go into a gallery.
Also - why in the drop box for custom pricing is there no option to go back to portfolio pricing? I applied the wrong set once and had to find a gallery that was portfolio priced and use that to apply it. Simpler to just add it to the apply these settings dialog box.
Customization vs feature
I love the fact that we can customize so much but I gave up being a coder many years ago and some things should be just features. I don't mean Navbars and the like but more like nested categories (would like more than 2 deep without having to read and figure the code).
Vanity URLS
Would like to see Vanity URLs as part of a quickset (possibly based upon sub-category assuming we can go deeper than sub category) so that I do not have to remember to do the coding (which I currently do). I can tell a person a link without having to write it down or email it with Vanity URLs but it seems a simple for SM to add and another box on Quicksets would be perfect.
Dual Sub-categories
I know this can be done by keywords but I would like to be able to have 2 sub-categories so since I do sport pictures I can do galleries by town (which I currently do) and by month and/or year. Once you have more than a few galleries it would be nice to go by date or by name. Allows me to present in 2 different styles - one my traditional and two by date.
Hi, well now, so that might create a different sort of model than we have now, eh? We're unlimited, for jpgs. And we mean it.
I recommend S3 and Jungledisk, and there are similar offerings out there. All of my RAWs are backed up to Amazon S3, and I pay about $10 a month. Much cheaper than local storage for me
Well - if I am paying Smugmug $12.50 a month for unlimited space - is it logical to pay someone else $10 a month for the same thing? I don't mind paying for unlimited space - once. I have never bought a DASD that restricted the file extensions.
On the website when you click on the link for the word "unlimited" it reads:
What does "unlimited storage" mean?
Your SmugMug account lets you store all the photos you wish. Shoot the world.
It doesn't mention only JPGs. Even when defining the word "unlimited".
Maybe you can call the pro level semi-pro and come out with a new PRO level that accomodates the file types that pros use? Just a suggestion.
Better Flash Support
I know Flash is a controversial technology but the fact is many very good professional photographers use it to display their photos because many clients are impressed with sites that use Flash. I'm not suggesting that Smugmug allow full Flash sites, only that they put up some better tutorials for how to integrate it and that they allow hosting of flash files and javascript so our pages load quickly. There is a wealth of cheap or free flash code out there (Fore example: http://www.flashden.net/category/flash) that we could use to improve our sites appeal but the fact that all the code must be hosted externally means that people many times have to know how to change actionscript in order to change XML paths etc. If we could host the files on our sites local directory it would be easier for us to just cut and paste the flash code we like. Flash and photographic sites go together. If you don't believe me, Digital Photo Magazine just did a long article on it (NOV 2007). I know that Flash won't make up for crappy photos and that Flash may not impress other photographers but the fact is that it impresses potential clients and that is what we want to do with our Pro accounts.
I know Flash is a controversial technology but the fact is many very good professional photographers use it to display their photos because many clients are impressed with sites that use Flash. I'm not suggesting that Smugmug allow full Flash sites, only that they put up some better tutorials for how to integrate it and that they allow hosting of flash files and javascript so our pages load quickly. There is a wealth of cheap or free flash code out there (Fore example: http://www.flashden.net/category/flash) that we could use to improve our sites appeal but the fact that all the code must be hosted externally means that people many times have to know how to change actionscript in order to change XML paths etc. If we could host the files on our sites local directory it would be easier for us to just cut and paste the flash code we like. Flash and photographic sites go together. If you don't believe me, Digital Photo Magazine just did a long article on it (NOV 2007). I know that Flash won't make up for crappy photos and that Flash may not impress other photographers but the fact is that it impresses potential clients and that is what we want to do with out Pro accounts.
Sincerely
Jesse
Hi Jesse, we're actually using flash now, have you seen the new slideshow?
I see that and I appreciate the work that must have went in to it. It is nice that you have provided a way for people who are not inclined to spend hours customizing, to have a slick Flash slideshow. However, If everyones customization looks the same is it really customization? What about those of us who want to be more creative or use a different gallery? I know you can't give specific examples of how to embed every available flash gallery. I guess what I've been looking for is a general guideline for using Flash within Smugmug similar to the great "CSS Customizing SmugMug Simplified — Your Guide to a Stylin' SmugMug site" document that Ivar wrote, but for Flash. I know Smugmug is better than anything out there. More Flash Tutorials would make it better. I criticize it because I love how much better this company is than everything else out there and I want it to stay that way. I've learned so much from your support staff already. I know I could not get this kind of service anywhere else and I really hope the company never sells out. You guys are setting a precedent for photosharing. Keep up the good work but please put up more Flash tutorials!
"Do what I mean" for sort order instead of an error
I think a small design change could replace an error message with a "do what I mean" action and just make things work - avoiding an error message completely.
I have a series of galleries that were initially configured to sort by filename. On several of them, I decided that I wanted to tweak the presentation order and manually reposition a few images. So, I click the checkbox and start arranging images. I get a message that I have to change my sort order in gallery customization before any of this will work.
Now, it seems to me that Smugmug could just "do what I mean" here rather than giving me an error message, making me go to the customize gallery screen, change the setting, come back to the gallery, then proceed with arranging my images.
Wouldn't it be better to just automatically change the gallery sort order to "position" anytime I manually move something rather than giving me an error and making me fix it myself?
With my action, I am clearly telling you that I want to change the presenation order. Could my intention be unclear here? On the Windows desktop, I can have my icons ordered by filename. But if I drag one into a different order, it just goes where I put it. It doesn't give me an error and ask me to change the sort order. I would guess that the Mac desktop works the similarly or even better.
In this particular case, I wanted the default order to be by filename (I had manually renamed the files in Bridge so that a filename sort would correspond to a sort by rating with highest rated images first), but then I wanted to manually tweak a few. And, I had to do this on 14 galleries (one for each player on a team).
Further, if you ignore or don't understand the message you first get about sort order and continue to reposition images and then view your gallery, none of the changes take effect. You think that image positioning is broken and that Smugmug has a bug. I've even seen support requests on this topic at dgrin.
Collage Setting
Came up as a question under Pro support - but I think some of my parents would love to be able to take the sports pictures of their kids and create a collage from them. Would be a neat idea and then I would limit it to 8 x 10 or larger for printing.
So a feature request for a collage setting........
Manage AND list of all categories in one area
I know there's a place to create, rename, delate categories but, it's not real friendly IMHO.
What I'd like to see is ONE place where you can not only manage all your categories and sub catagories and galleries but, see a complete list of them.
In other words a complete list of all categories, sub categories, galleries each in a separate list form. In addition, a chart showing their heirarchy. Or a category / gallery tree if you will?
Wouldn't it be cool if we could simply "drag and drop" the contents of one gallery into another?
I'm also going to suggest (and I'd be surprised if I was the first on this :-)
A way to do a global discount by.......
1. gallery
2. by image size
That way, if we want to have a "sale" on 5 x 7 prints because that's the size (just as an example) that a pro account user is selling the LEAST of.
Or, if we want to give to a discount just to a particular
group
business
association
Thanks for all your recent updates and we look forward to more :-)
Markjay
Markjay
Canon AE1 - it was my first "real camera"
Canon 20D - no more film!
[FEATURE REQUEST] Radio Buttons for picture sizes
Not quite what I was suggesting
Each picture size would have a () Yes () No to it, some people only want to show blah, blah, and blah blah size versus some poeple want to offer all sizes of their pictures.
Also the "Save Photo" feature is still attached with the "Original" function, still should be separate.
Each picture size would have a () Yes () No to it, some people only want to show blah, blah, and blah blah size versus some poeple want to offer all sizes of their pictures.
Also the "Save Photo" feature is still attached with the "Original" function, still should be separate.
It would really complicate Smugmug's UI (and the presentation to the user) if you could show only certain sizes (e.g. Large and XL2, but not XL). Why do you want to do something like that?
It would really complicate Smugmug's UI (and the presentation to the user) if you could show only certain sizes (e.g. Large and XL2, but not XL). Why do you want to do something like that?
Some events, the group we take pictures for dictate the picture sizes they would like made available to the public, some prefer to display small, medium and xlarge, but would definitely would like to have the 'SAVE PHOTO' feature separate from picture size available for viewing, otherwise, if the decision is made to allow for people to 'SAVE PHOTO' and purchase, all the picture sizes do not have to be shown. Small - Original eats up screen space on the picture to.. So how would that complicate the Smugmug, actually it would allow default settings files to be smaller with less options, or you could make it option in .css to disable certain file sizes to display.
Some events, the group we take pictures for dictate the picture sizes they would like made available to the public, some prefer to display small, medium and xlarge, but would definitely would like to have the 'SAVE PHOTO' feature separate from picture size available for viewing, otherwise, if the decision is made to allow for people to 'SAVE PHOTO' and purchase, all the picture sizes do not have to be shown. Small - Original eats up screen space on the picture to.. So how would that complicate the Smugmug, actually it would allow default settings files to be smaller with less options, or you could make it option in .css to disable certain file sizes to display.
I'm not sure you're understanding that the larger sizes are intended for optimal viewing on larger screen sizes. While it is possible for you to allow your viewers to download them, that isn't really their main point. They are mostly there to enhance the web viewing experience.
In service of that goal, it's important to have a contiguous set of pre-rendered high quality sizes available so that the UI can pick the available size that best fits the viewer's screen. Today, when you are in the Smugmug view and you click on the main image, it takes you to a view that automatically selects the size of the image that best fits your screen. That can only really do a good job if a contiguous set of sizes is available to pick from. The whole point of this capability falls apart if medium and XL2 is available, but not large and XL. None of the intervening screen sizes would get anything more than medium (which looks really, really small on a large screen these days). It works consistently if you tell Smugmug the max size you want users to be able to see, but doesn't work consistently if you remove some sizes in the middle as the whole model of showing the best size that fits breaks down if there aren't enough sizes to choose from.
Smugmug has indicated that, in the future, there will be a bunch of other places in their UI where the page automatically picks the appropriate size for your screen. I don't know if this is exactly what Smugmug will do or not, but imagine a Smugmug view of a gallery on a big screen that dynamically adjusts both the number of thumbs and the main image viewing size based on the window size the user picks, including sizes all the way up to XL3. This is exactly how most thick client apps that deal with images like this do it (e.g. Adobe Bridge, Photoshop Elements, Windows explorer, etc...).
I don't understand what you want for the Save Photo function and wasn't attempting to comment on that at all.
Public Computer BUG
I didn't see any responses to this so I guess I'll post it again. This "public computer" nonsense is really annoying and so simple to do. It is hard to believe it was not set up correctly the first time - if for no other reason than to be more secure. But certainly just to be efficient. It is not difficult nor complex to save one flag in a cookie.
Can someone tell me if ANYONE is working on this? Every day I have this hassle over, and over, and over ... I have e-mailed the help desk several times but I don't even know if anyone is working on fixing it.
My biggest issue is that much of my modification is done on a public computer - so I have to check the "public computer" box about 50 times a day. For security reasons the default should be to NOT store passwords. You should have to check the box to store a password - not the opposite. And it should remember the check box for that computer in the future. There should be a cookie to indicate whether that computer is public or not - OR - the lack of a cookie should indicate this. Once you know that a computer is public or not - it should not have to be set again and again and again - but we still need the option to change it.
I didn't see any responses to this so I guess I'll post it again. This "public computer" nonsense is really annoying and so simple to do. It is hard to believe it was not set up correctly the first time - if for no other reason than to be more secure. But certainly just to be efficient. It is not difficult nor complex to save one flag in a cookie.
Can someone tell me if ANYONE is working on this? Every day I have this hassle over, and over, and over ... I have e-mailed the help desk several times but I don't even know if anyone is working on fixing it.
My biggest issue is that much of my modification is done on a public computer - so I have to check the "public computer" box about 50 times a day. For security reasons the default should be to NOT store passwords. You should have to check the box to store a password - not the opposite. And it should remember the check box for that computer in the future. There should be a cookie to indicate whether that computer is public or not - OR - the lack of a cookie should indicate this. Once you know that a computer is public or not - it should not have to be set again and again and again - but we still need the option to change it.
Pilot.smugmug.com
__________________
I have no idea whether Smugmug will decide to do this or not, but I wonder if you could investigate a work-around. Some browsers have the ability to clear cookies and history when you exit your browser session. This could also solve your problem - just quit the browser when you're done and all browser state from your session is removed (same as if it was never stored in the first place). Even if you don't have this feature available, you could also run a small program or create a small script that would clear cookies when you're done.
Can someone tell me if ANYONE is working on this? Every day I have this hassle over, and over, and over ... I have e-mailed the help desk
Hello, beyond our last response to you from our help desk on October 15, 2007, I don't have any news or update on this. I have made the request and our engineers and product team are aware of it. Indeed you did write the correct address - and in our reply to you we acknowledged your concern. Thanks again for posting it.
Hello,
I want to throw in my vote for some kind of virtual galleries. What I would like to do is to upload images only ONCE and then copy bunches of pictures from existing galleries to another gallery, ideally by not copying them in terms of a duplicate, but rather some kind of "hard link" in unix terms (for those that are familiar with that).
Please change the SmugMungous bulk generation to not change the thumbnails.
They are all zoomed square and the regeneration removes the zoom.
Now have to re-zoom hundreds in a gallery.
... and it looks like they are knocked out of popular also.:bash
Please change the SmugMungous bulk generation to not change the thumbnails.
They are all zoomed square and the regeneration removes the zoom.
Now have to re-zoom hundreds in a gallery.
Yipes indeed. I've just SmugMungousized all of my 2007 photos, and really don't want to go back and reset all of the thumbnails...
Request for new account-wide password for API accessing originals
I think I can see where things are headed with the Smugmug APIs and a bunch of third party services that want to integrate with people's Smugmug galleries. This is, in general, goodness and will offer Smugmug customers added features and services beyond what Smugmug decides to offer themselves. Blurb is one such service.
But, there's a problem with the way it works now. In order to use any of these, I have to enter the master password for my entire account into a third party web-site so that they can get API access to all my galleries and all my originals. I will not do that. There's too much at stake for companies that I barely know. They might not even have malicious intent, they might just have bugs or errors in how they use the APIs that could seriously mess up my galleries. Or, they might not be all that clean in how they store passwords or use https to secure them in transport or who within their company they give access to them.
There are several possible solutions to this. Here's one idea:
Allow a customer to create a new account-level password that provides only two additional things over anonymous API access: read-only access to private galleries and read-only access to originals. In this way, my site is at zero risk if I use this secondary password on a third party web-site. I'm opting-in to lettting their service access my originals so I still want to know that they have good intentions, but there is zero chance of my site getting messed up, even if they are malicious or incompetent.
There are other ideas that use mechanisms like OpenID uses where the customer actually logs into Smugmug and a token/cookie is generated that can be passed to the partner and used by them for temporary access to the api. That could work too, but even then, I'd want the access to only be read-only access, not full read/write API access.
Since I think partner-integration-with-Smugmug is a trend that is likely to grow (and I think both Smugmug and customers want it to grow), I hope folks at Smugmug can give the security aspects of this some serious thought.
Feature requests
I'm new to smugmug - so not sure if these have been requested before but here goes...
1. Flash slideshows - setting so they don't start automatically - wait until someone clicks on the play button (or the starter image etc.)
2. Flash slideshows - setting to start them with slow/medium OR fast speed - It annoys me that they show on fast speed - should default to slow and be selectable via a parameter
Comments
Thanks a lot for hints and pointers ... yes, of course I have looked through this forum. And I have seen some of your coding hints.
I am just asking for some items to be added to SM itself to make life easier for all us not-so-technical ones, to let us concentrate on photos rather than coding. But I do appreciate your work and suggestions so keep the good hints coming.
Regards, HaraldE
My focus is on digitizing memories
Re: Quick settings
YEAH! I was going to write that the Bulk Settings feature for Quick Settings that will do what you want, albeit annoyingly because you have to 1) Save your setting as a new name, because just overwriting it with the old name actually doesn't work, and 2) You'd have to go through and Bulk Set all 200 of your "Family" galleries. That sucks, and you're absolutely right -- galleries should maintain an association with their assigned Quick Setting.
Re: Unique Gallery Names, you wrote:
If you're talking about duplicate filenames, I think that since SmugMug creates their own unique ImageID, that shouldn't be a problem. You should ust be able to do two uploads (which it sounds like you're already doing), but to the same gallery. Then sort by timestamp, and assuming your cameras have their date/time synced, you should have a nice combined gallery.
Re: virtual galleries
Yah, I think in Flickr they're called "Sets". ;-}
Re: Show/hide within a Gallery
Yeah, Phanfare offers this and it is *great* for trimming down my galleries that have waaaay too many shots of my precious son at his preschool. The shots of him are still stored there for posterity, but other parents don't have to page through multiple shots of him just to see a picture of their kid. It'd be great if SmugMug offered this.
But ugh, that would mean another "bulk UI" page. Phanfare's desktop client (OS X and Windows) makes these kinds of operations super-easy to accomplish. OTOH, Flickr's Organizer interface offers many of the same multiple operations. SmugMug's UI, on the other hand is a bit too modal (is that right term?) Bulk Rotate Interface. Bulk Caption/Keywords Interface. Bulk Delete Interface. Bleh. It's so very 90s. :-}
PBolchover replied about:
> Virtual Galleries
(link to Virtual Galleries hack involving keywords, and Javascript coding to essentially emulate something like Flickr sets)
> Sub-Sub-Galleries
(link to a scary complicated hack to kind of sort of offer subfolders, whereas even a crappy site like Fotki has real, unlimited subfolders)
> Hiding part of a breadcrumb
Has anybody noticed how much hacking we sometimes have to do to SmugMug? Hey, sure, I'm glad we *can* do it. I'm just sometimes kind of bummed that we *have* to do it.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm impressed and in awe of the coding and customization skills of everybody here, both volunteers and SmugMug employees alike. But sometimes... you don't want to have to write a freaking Perl script just to have a automated "newest galleries" section at the top of your page.
But yeah, I can't think of ANYBODY who offers the amount of customization that SmugMug does w/ CSS/JavaScript/Footer/Header mods. I mean, you can't rewrite your home page on Flickr, Phanfare, Fotki (hahaha, I'm so sorry), or any of the sites out there.
On the other hand, what a pain to have to implement virtual galleries or subfolders using what really are (IMHO) hacks.
The blog :-)
Yes, I have noticed...
As a software professional, I think its cool that you can have this level of control. As a user, I am disappointed that some of these seemingly straightforward features are either not implemented or are implemented the way they are. I am also *very* disappointed to see that there are entire areas of this forum dedicated to what amount to brutal, brutal hacks and that there are smugmug insiders encouraging our use of them. I mean no offense when I say this but I feel that these people should be focusing on how to make the product better based on the HUGE amount of feedback we have here instead of showing us the circuitous and frankly, brittle way to get the functionality today. More and more photo sharing/storage sites are going up all of the time - this is a highly competitive market. I like smugmug and I am committed to making smugmug work for me and everyone in my circle of influence but it seems like there is a fundamental disconnect here... There doesn't seem to be a recognition of the fact that while its true that smugmug has *functional* gaps (who doesn't?), smugmug has clear *architectural* issues that are limiting their ability to roll these features (or resource issues) (or both), no matter how many times we ask for them. Wouldn't it be more productive to have a frank conversation about what is possible/what is not esp. given that we have the attention of the insiders in this forum?
Is there a product roadmap for Smugmug out there? An architecture diagram?
Thanks to all!
Quickset option
I love the idea of linked quicksets but I would also like quicksets where I set all except description and password but when I create the gallery and choose the quickset it asks for those 2 entires - allows me to create one quickset for many different teams without forgetting to change the password by team.
Pricing quickset
Would like to see pricing quicksets that are identified by name not gallery applied so I if I have different ones I do not have to remember which is on which gallery (I understand that I can create an empty gallery and do it that way - but seems a waste). It would allow a separate interface for setting pricing without having to go into a gallery.
Also - why in the drop box for custom pricing is there no option to go back to portfolio pricing? I applied the wrong set once and had to find a gallery that was portfolio priced and use that to apply it. Simpler to just add it to the apply these settings dialog box.
Customization vs feature
I love the fact that we can customize so much but I gave up being a coder many years ago and some things should be just features. I don't mean Navbars and the like but more like nested categories (would like more than 2 deep without having to read and figure the code).
Vanity URLS
Would like to see Vanity URLs as part of a quickset (possibly based upon sub-category assuming we can go deeper than sub category) so that I do not have to remember to do the coding (which I currently do). I can tell a person a link without having to write it down or email it with Vanity URLs but it seems a simple for SM to add and another box on Quicksets would be perfect.
Dual Sub-categories
I know this can be done by keywords but I would like to be able to have 2 sub-categories so since I do sport pictures I can do galleries by town (which I currently do) and by month and/or year. Once you have more than a few galleries it would be nice to go by date or by name. Allows me to present in 2 different styles - one my traditional and two by date.
Okay enough suggestions from me......
- Brian
http://photos.katzclix.com
Brian
http://photos.katzclix.com
blog - http://blog.katzclix.com
Well - if I am paying Smugmug $12.50 a month for unlimited space - is it logical to pay someone else $10 a month for the same thing? I don't mind paying for unlimited space - once. I have never bought a DASD that restricted the file extensions.
On the website when you click on the link for the word "unlimited" it reads:
It doesn't mention only JPGs. Even when defining the word "unlimited".
Maybe you can call the pro level semi-pro and come out with a new PRO level that accomodates the file types that pros use? Just a suggestion.
Steve
http://midnightblue.smugmug.com
Canon
I know Flash is a controversial technology but the fact is many very good professional photographers use it to display their photos because many clients are impressed with sites that use Flash. I'm not suggesting that Smugmug allow full Flash sites, only that they put up some better tutorials for how to integrate it and that they allow hosting of flash files and javascript so our pages load quickly. There is a wealth of cheap or free flash code out there (Fore example: http://www.flashden.net/category/flash) that we could use to improve our sites appeal but the fact that all the code must be hosted externally means that people many times have to know how to change actionscript in order to change XML paths etc. If we could host the files on our sites local directory it would be easier for us to just cut and paste the flash code we like. Flash and photographic sites go together. If you don't believe me, Digital Photo Magazine just did a long article on it (NOV 2007). I know that Flash won't make up for crappy photos and that Flash may not impress other photographers but the fact is that it impresses potential clients and that is what we want to do with our Pro accounts.
Sincerely
Jesse
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=73247
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I see that and I appreciate the work that must have went in to it. It is nice that you have provided a way for people who are not inclined to spend hours customizing, to have a slick Flash slideshow. However, If everyones customization looks the same is it really customization? What about those of us who want to be more creative or use a different gallery? I know you can't give specific examples of how to embed every available flash gallery. I guess what I've been looking for is a general guideline for using Flash within Smugmug similar to the great "CSS Customizing SmugMug Simplified — Your Guide to a Stylin' SmugMug site" document that Ivar wrote, but for Flash. I know Smugmug is better than anything out there. More Flash Tutorials would make it better. I criticize it because I love how much better this company is than everything else out there and I want it to stay that way. I've learned so much from your support staff already. I know I could not get this kind of service anywhere else and I really hope the company never sells out. You guys are setting a precedent for photosharing. Keep up the good work but please put up more Flash tutorials!
I think a small design change could replace an error message with a "do what I mean" action and just make things work - avoiding an error message completely.
I have a series of galleries that were initially configured to sort by filename. On several of them, I decided that I wanted to tweak the presentation order and manually reposition a few images. So, I click the checkbox and start arranging images. I get a message that I have to change my sort order in gallery customization before any of this will work.
Now, it seems to me that Smugmug could just "do what I mean" here rather than giving me an error message, making me go to the customize gallery screen, change the setting, come back to the gallery, then proceed with arranging my images.
Wouldn't it be better to just automatically change the gallery sort order to "position" anytime I manually move something rather than giving me an error and making me fix it myself?
With my action, I am clearly telling you that I want to change the presenation order. Could my intention be unclear here? On the Windows desktop, I can have my icons ordered by filename. But if I drag one into a different order, it just goes where I put it. It doesn't give me an error and ask me to change the sort order. I would guess that the Mac desktop works the similarly or even better.
In this particular case, I wanted the default order to be by filename (I had manually renamed the files in Bridge so that a filename sort would correspond to a sort by rating with highest rated images first), but then I wanted to manually tweak a few. And, I had to do this on 14 galleries (one for each player on a team).
Further, if you ignore or don't understand the message you first get about sort order and continue to reposition images and then view your gallery, none of the changes take effect. You think that image positioning is broken and that Smugmug has a bug. I've even seen support requests on this topic at dgrin.
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Came up as a question under Pro support - but I think some of my parents would love to be able to take the sports pictures of their kids and create a collage from them. Would be a neat idea and then I would limit it to 8 x 10 or larger for printing.
So a feature request for a collage setting........
Brian
http://photos.katzclix.com
blog - http://blog.katzclix.com
I know there's a place to create, rename, delate categories but, it's not real friendly IMHO.
What I'd like to see is ONE place where you can not only manage all your categories and sub catagories and galleries but, see a complete list of them.
In other words a complete list of all categories, sub categories, galleries each in a separate list form. In addition, a chart showing their heirarchy. Or a category / gallery tree if you will?
Wouldn't it be cool if we could simply "drag and drop" the contents of one gallery into another?
I'm also going to suggest (and I'd be surprised if I was the first on this :-)
A way to do a global discount by.......
1. gallery
2. by image size
That way, if we want to have a "sale" on 5 x 7 prints because that's the size (just as an example) that a pro account user is selling the LEAST of.
Or, if we want to give to a discount just to a particular
group
business
association
Thanks for all your recent updates and we look forward to more :-)
Markjay
Canon AE1 - it was my first "real camera"
Canon 20D - no more film!
Feature request to change from drop down to radio buttons,
Large pics () Yes () No
Medium pics () Yes () No
Also unless one enables Originals, users cannot download pics, which currently enables all the picture size options
Principle Photographer/Co-Founder
Body Bumpers, LLC
PH: 717 918 1262
Fax: 831 480 5873
url: www.body-bumpers.com
email: mteicher@body-bumpers.com
CHeck out the release notes - they now have the radio buttons - very cool implementation. - already used them tonight.
Yeah SM
Brian
http://photos.katzclix.com
blog - http://blog.katzclix.com
Not quite what I was suggesting
Each picture size would have a () Yes () No to it, some people only want to show blah, blah, and blah blah size versus some poeple want to offer all sizes of their pictures.
Also the "Save Photo" feature is still attached with the "Original" function, still should be separate.
Principle Photographer/Co-Founder
Body Bumpers, LLC
PH: 717 918 1262
Fax: 831 480 5873
url: www.body-bumpers.com
email: mteicher@body-bumpers.com
It would really complicate Smugmug's UI (and the presentation to the user) if you could show only certain sizes (e.g. Large and XL2, but not XL). Why do you want to do something like that?
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Some events, the group we take pictures for dictate the picture sizes they would like made available to the public, some prefer to display small, medium and xlarge, but would definitely would like to have the 'SAVE PHOTO' feature separate from picture size available for viewing, otherwise, if the decision is made to allow for people to 'SAVE PHOTO' and purchase, all the picture sizes do not have to be shown. Small - Original eats up screen space on the picture to.. So how would that complicate the Smugmug, actually it would allow default settings files to be smaller with less options, or you could make it option in .css to disable certain file sizes to display.
Principle Photographer/Co-Founder
Body Bumpers, LLC
PH: 717 918 1262
Fax: 831 480 5873
url: www.body-bumpers.com
email: mteicher@body-bumpers.com
I'm not sure you're understanding that the larger sizes are intended for optimal viewing on larger screen sizes. While it is possible for you to allow your viewers to download them, that isn't really their main point. They are mostly there to enhance the web viewing experience.
In service of that goal, it's important to have a contiguous set of pre-rendered high quality sizes available so that the UI can pick the available size that best fits the viewer's screen. Today, when you are in the Smugmug view and you click on the main image, it takes you to a view that automatically selects the size of the image that best fits your screen. That can only really do a good job if a contiguous set of sizes is available to pick from. The whole point of this capability falls apart if medium and XL2 is available, but not large and XL. None of the intervening screen sizes would get anything more than medium (which looks really, really small on a large screen these days). It works consistently if you tell Smugmug the max size you want users to be able to see, but doesn't work consistently if you remove some sizes in the middle as the whole model of showing the best size that fits breaks down if there aren't enough sizes to choose from.
Smugmug has indicated that, in the future, there will be a bunch of other places in their UI where the page automatically picks the appropriate size for your screen. I don't know if this is exactly what Smugmug will do or not, but imagine a Smugmug view of a gallery on a big screen that dynamically adjusts both the number of thumbs and the main image viewing size based on the window size the user picks, including sizes all the way up to XL3. This is exactly how most thick client apps that deal with images like this do it (e.g. Adobe Bridge, Photoshop Elements, Windows explorer, etc...).
I don't understand what you want for the Save Photo function and wasn't attempting to comment on that at all.
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I didn't see any responses to this so I guess I'll post it again. This "public computer" nonsense is really annoying and so simple to do. It is hard to believe it was not set up correctly the first time - if for no other reason than to be more secure. But certainly just to be efficient. It is not difficult nor complex to save one flag in a cookie.
Can someone tell me if ANYONE is working on this? Every day I have this hassle over, and over, and over ... I have e-mailed the help desk several times but I don't even know if anyone is working on fixing it.
Is there a better e-mail address to use?
So here it is again:
===================================================
My biggest issue is that much of my modification is done on a public computer - so I have to check the "public computer" box about 50 times a day. For security reasons the default should be to NOT store passwords. You should have to check the box to store a password - not the opposite. And it should remember the check box for that computer in the future. There should be a cookie to indicate whether that computer is public or not - OR - the lack of a cookie should indicate this. Once you know that a computer is public or not - it should not have to be set again and again and again - but we still need the option to change it.
Pilot.smugmug.com
__________________
Steve
I have no idea whether Smugmug will decide to do this or not, but I wonder if you could investigate a work-around. Some browsers have the ability to clear cookies and history when you exit your browser session. This could also solve your problem - just quit the browser when you're done and all browser state from your session is removed (same as if it was never stored in the first place). Even if you don't have this feature available, you could also run a small program or create a small script that would clear cookies when you're done.
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I want to throw in my vote for some kind of virtual galleries. What I would like to do is to upload images only ONCE and then copy bunches of pictures from existing galleries to another gallery, ideally by not copying them in terms of a duplicate, but rather some kind of "hard link" in unix terms (for those that are familiar with that).
Thanks,
Daniel
Please change the SmugMungous bulk generation to not change the thumbnails.
They are all zoomed square and the regeneration removes the zoom.
Now have to re-zoom hundreds in a gallery.
... and it looks like they are knocked out of popular also.:bash
My Website index | My Blog
Yipes indeed. I've just SmugMungousized all of my 2007 photos, and really don't want to go back and reset all of the thumbnails...
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I think I can see where things are headed with the Smugmug APIs and a bunch of third party services that want to integrate with people's Smugmug galleries. This is, in general, goodness and will offer Smugmug customers added features and services beyond what Smugmug decides to offer themselves. Blurb is one such service.
But, there's a problem with the way it works now. In order to use any of these, I have to enter the master password for my entire account into a third party web-site so that they can get API access to all my galleries and all my originals. I will not do that. There's too much at stake for companies that I barely know. They might not even have malicious intent, they might just have bugs or errors in how they use the APIs that could seriously mess up my galleries. Or, they might not be all that clean in how they store passwords or use https to secure them in transport or who within their company they give access to them.
There are several possible solutions to this. Here's one idea:
Allow a customer to create a new account-level password that provides only two additional things over anonymous API access: read-only access to private galleries and read-only access to originals. In this way, my site is at zero risk if I use this secondary password on a third party web-site. I'm opting-in to lettting their service access my originals so I still want to know that they have good intentions, but there is zero chance of my site getting messed up, even if they are malicious or incompetent.
There are other ideas that use mechanisms like OpenID uses where the customer actually logs into Smugmug and a token/cookie is generated that can be passed to the partner and used by them for temporary access to the api. That could work too, but even then, I'd want the access to only be read-only access, not full read/write API access.
Since I think partner-integration-with-Smugmug is a trend that is likely to grow (and I think both Smugmug and customers want it to grow), I hope folks at Smugmug can give the security aspects of this some serious thought.
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I'm new to smugmug - so not sure if these have been requested before but here goes...
1. Flash slideshows - setting so they don't start automatically - wait until someone clicks on the play button (or the starter image etc.)
2. Flash slideshows - setting to start them with slow/medium OR fast speed - It annoys me that they show on fast speed - should default to slow and be selectable via a parameter
Thanks for a great service
Cheers
Jase
Jase // www.stonesque.com