Navigation issues driving me nuts!
denverdad
Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
First of all, I should probably say that I have only the standard Smugmug account, and apparently this may be part of my "problem". But I am at my wits end trying to set up my page to do what I want, in terms of basic navigation.
What I want is a main page to share my wildlife and nature photos; but also to have hidden galleries for family photos that won't show on my main page. The family galleries would be in a category with subcategories, and all would be password protected with the same password. This way, once family and friends are "in" (via a gallery link or sharegroup link I sent them), they would be able to navigate around to any other of my "family" galleries. I would also like them to be able to go to the main page and view it normally as any other public visitor would (except that the private family category should now be visible).
So here's the problem: After accessing a private gallery via, navigation is all but impossible! The breadcrumb at the top of the page includes private family category, subcategory, and gallery. But clicking on these returns the "gallery set to private" message. So basically people can't navigate at all - they won't be able to go back, or move upward through my family photos pages. They are basically just stuck in that gallery.
...well not completely stuck; if they were to click on the beginning of the breadcrumb to go to my main page (which I would like them to be able to do - you know, re-enter through the "front door" so to speak), the categories on my main page are now messed up. The Family category now shows up first. Also, the featured galleries and featured photos aspect of the display is messed up so that the wrong gallery/photo is shown for the family photos category.
Now I HAVE tried using a share group to accomplish all this. And, from a previous post, I also got the tip to put a link to the sharegroup in each of the gallery descriptions so that users could click on that and return to the share group. What I don't like about that is that all a user can see when clicking on the share-link is a list of galleries in some (I don't know what) order - all categorization is lost. Furthermore, the other problems are still there - when they click on my main page, the categories are now misordered (showing the family category first), and any subsequent attempt to click on family galleries and subcategories returns the "private gallery" error message again.
In the process of trying to make this work, I have read a lot in this forum about modifications to the breadcrumb (turning it off, and other things), and all the other cool stuff you can do my adding things to your CSS sheet. Like creating a Navbar (hey, maybe that's exactly what I need!). But of course it didn't take long to realize that I can't do any of that unless I upgrade to a power user account! Argggh!
Ok, so maybe I just need to upgrade (and spend a while reading all the faq's and tutorials on customization, learning all there is to know about CSS, etc.). But it seems like I must just be missing something! I mean do you really have to go through all that just to get simple navigation? Also, I am not certain that I will be able to do what I want with power user account. My worry is that I will go to all of that effort only to be told that now I need a Pro-level account! (where does it end?)
I'm very confused. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jeff
What I want is a main page to share my wildlife and nature photos; but also to have hidden galleries for family photos that won't show on my main page. The family galleries would be in a category with subcategories, and all would be password protected with the same password. This way, once family and friends are "in" (via a gallery link or sharegroup link I sent them), they would be able to navigate around to any other of my "family" galleries. I would also like them to be able to go to the main page and view it normally as any other public visitor would (except that the private family category should now be visible).
So here's the problem: After accessing a private gallery via, navigation is all but impossible! The breadcrumb at the top of the page includes private family category, subcategory, and gallery. But clicking on these returns the "gallery set to private" message. So basically people can't navigate at all - they won't be able to go back, or move upward through my family photos pages. They are basically just stuck in that gallery.
...well not completely stuck; if they were to click on the beginning of the breadcrumb to go to my main page (which I would like them to be able to do - you know, re-enter through the "front door" so to speak), the categories on my main page are now messed up. The Family category now shows up first. Also, the featured galleries and featured photos aspect of the display is messed up so that the wrong gallery/photo is shown for the family photos category.
Now I HAVE tried using a share group to accomplish all this. And, from a previous post, I also got the tip to put a link to the sharegroup in each of the gallery descriptions so that users could click on that and return to the share group. What I don't like about that is that all a user can see when clicking on the share-link is a list of galleries in some (I don't know what) order - all categorization is lost. Furthermore, the other problems are still there - when they click on my main page, the categories are now misordered (showing the family category first), and any subsequent attempt to click on family galleries and subcategories returns the "private gallery" error message again.
In the process of trying to make this work, I have read a lot in this forum about modifications to the breadcrumb (turning it off, and other things), and all the other cool stuff you can do my adding things to your CSS sheet. Like creating a Navbar (hey, maybe that's exactly what I need!). But of course it didn't take long to realize that I can't do any of that unless I upgrade to a power user account! Argggh!
Ok, so maybe I just need to upgrade (and spend a while reading all the faq's and tutorials on customization, learning all there is to know about CSS, etc.). But it seems like I must just be missing something! I mean do you really have to go through all that just to get simple navigation? Also, I am not certain that I will be able to do what I want with power user account. My worry is that I will go to all of that effort only to be told that now I need a Pro-level account! (where does it end?)
I'm very confused. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jeff
0
Comments
I don't think upgrading your account will help you. You seem to want to 'bulk share' a number of private galleries and not use sharegroups to do that, if I understand you correctly. None of the accounts will give you this functionality. It's like being able to make an entire category or subcategory private (which might be an idea for smugmug to do).
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