SmugMug Feature Requests

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  • drdanedrdane Registered Users Posts: 383 Major grins
    edited January 27, 2008
    Andy wrote:
    You can do this now. Set up a form (easy to do, www.emailmeform.com ) and then put that form in a gallery. Then you can do your own emailing :)

    Super easy, I have one on my site, though it's purely for contact, Dane: http://www.moonriverphotography.com/gallery/4217152

    Cool! Thanks Andy, this looks good. I signed up, and am waiting a response from yahoo regarding some email address questions before proceeding.

    Dane
    Dr Dane :rofl
    Celebrating the essence of Nature, the Human Spirit, and the Divine Presence in all
    http://www.drdane.smugmug.com or:
    http://www.inner-light-images.com

  • olegosolegos Registered Users Posts: 94 Big grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    Ftp
    FTP uploads, PLEASE!

    I know it's been asked before, but unfortunately the forum search can't handle a search for "ftp", so I'll start again...

    I've just upgraded my account to be able to add videos, and am fighting with uploads. To be able to use FTP for upload would be wonderful. It should be trivial for you guys to run an FTP server that drops all uploads into one special gallery, like the mail server does for emailed photos (trivial compared to some other stuff you do, anyway).

    I have access to a well-connected UNIX box. So with photos, I sometimes have been FTP-ing them there, then e-mailing them to SmugMug. How crazy is that? Obviously I can't e-mail videos. I tried a couple of command line uploaders, but they seem to insist on loading the whole file into memory for upload, so crash with "can't allocate memory" errors on video files. Anyway, I just spent a couple of hours on this... And I don't understand why I had to! The problem of transferring large files has been solved rather well long ago with FTP (handles slow/unreliable connections, lots of clients, most people are familiar with at least one client) -- so why can't SmugMug leverage that???

    Frustrated...
  • mdraughnmdraughn Registered Users Posts: 38 Big grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    Better URLs for private photos
    The use of guessable URLs for private photos has been bothering me for a while, and now that Philipp Lenssen is blogging about it, I figured I'd bring it up here. If you can't switch to guid's, even for new photos and galleries, is there some way you can tack them onto the URL as a sort of embedded password?

    Update: To be clear, the password feature is annoying because now I have to send people two things (a URL and a password) instead of just one. If the password could be added to the URL (especially if you provide us a link for doing that) then I could just send people one working link again, but it would be a link that's harder to guess. If there's a handy tool that picks a GUID as the password, even better.
  • I SimoniusI Simonius Registered Users Posts: 1,034 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    mdraughn wrote:
    The use of guessable URLs for private photos has been bothering me for a while, and now that Philipp Lenssen is blogging about it, I figured I'd bring it up here. If you can't switch to guid's, even for new photos and galleries, is there some way you can tack them onto the URL as a sort of embedded password?

    I just read that link and yes it is probbaly a concern fr some

    However AFAIC ( as are other like me probably) I am only interested n not displaying these pics as part of my public face - I don't actually care if people access them, in fact the URLs are often given out so people can see them but not from casual browsing, that's all

    If I really want something private then I password protect it


    Perhaps the solution is simply for SM to make it clearer that 'private does not mean inaccessible , but 'not obvious'. It's an easier solution that getting too serious about redressing the 'security hole'

    That would do me
    Veni-Vidi-Snappii
    ...pics..
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    mdraughn wrote:
    The use of guessable URLs for private photos has been bothering me for a while, and now that Philipp Lenssen is blogging about it, I figured I'd bring it up here. If you can't switch to guid's, even for new photos and galleries, is there some way you can tack them onto the URL as a sort of embedded password?

    Even a less guessable URL isn't really security (it's just more obscured), so if it's security that people want, then you must use a password on the gallery. Decreasing the guessability won't really provide security.

    I've written before about this feature often called "private galleries". There is a legitimate use for this feature. But, it's not to provide security. It's about not linking the gallery on your home page and not indexing it for searching. In my opinion, the feature is fine and solves a real need, but the UI presentation and subsequent help pages and terminology used in describing the feature offers a false sense of security that is not really provided.

    What this feature does is:

    [X] Include link to this gallery from home page

    If that's what it was called rather than a private gallery, then people looking for security wouldn't think that this feature was giving them true privacy and there would be no problem.

    My conclusion is that the feature either needs to be made truly secure (which isn't just changing the URLs) or the whole UI presentation should change so it sets an appropriate expectation. "Private" or "Non-Public" is not the right expectation for what it delivers.
    --John
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  • I SimoniusI Simonius Registered Users Posts: 1,034 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    "Hi Tony, no problem. It is possible to see photos using URLs even if they are in password protected galleries *unless* you set the external link option to no. I may not have made that clear enough in a previous post. If not I apologize."

    from Mike Lane's blog. I think tis sume it up what is needed is simply clearer communication about what is and what isn't securemwink.gif
    Veni-Vidi-Snappii
    ...pics..
  • mdraughnmdraughn Registered Users Posts: 38 Big grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    I Simonius wrote:
    I think tis sume it up what is needed is simply clearer communication about what is and what isn't securemwink.gif

    That would probably help, and that's really up to smugmug.

    What I want is to have a secure way to share photos with some people and no one else. Passworded galleries do the trick, but the password feature is annoying because now I have to send people two things (a URL and a password) instead of just one. People would add the URL to their favorites but lose the password, chaos would ensue...

    GUIDs in the URLs would help, since it would make it nearly impossible to guess the URL so I wouldn't have to password protect galleries. Maybe a work-around is to allow passwords in the URL:

    http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/849473754+password

    Then I could just send that to people, but script kiddies couldn't guess it.
    If smugmug gave us a link to that URL and had a use-a-GUID-as-a-password feature, all the better...
  • olegosolegos Registered Users Posts: 94 Big grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    I Simonius wrote:
    If I really want something private then I password protect it
    And there you have it, the biggest confusion of all, in my opinion. Password protecting a gallery is not sufficient to make the photos in it inaccessible. You also need to change another setting from default, which is the external links option. (I know that you quoted Mike Lane's comment about that, but wanted to emphasize it again...) Regardless of how much you write in help about it, it's confusing and error-prone, in a bad way -- in that what you think is not accessible to the public, might become public.
  • I SimoniusI Simonius Registered Users Posts: 1,034 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    olegos wrote:
    And there you have it, the biggest confusion of all, in my opinion. Password protecting a gallery is not sufficient to make the photos in it inaccessible. You also need to change another setting from default, which is the external links option. (I know that you quoted Mike Lane's comment about that, but wanted to emphasize it again...) Regardless of how much you write in help about it, it's confusing and error-prone, in a bad way -- in that what you think is not accessible to the public, might become public.

    No doubt the guys here will make it clearer easier now it has been drawn to their attention:D
    Veni-Vidi-Snappii
    ...pics..
  • BradfordBennBradfordBenn Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    Simple request
    Howdy-

    I use SmugMug MacDaddy Uploader or Star*Explorer to upload my photos. But I often find it easier to create the gallery using the web interface of my smugmug account. However when I create a gallery it takes me to the add photos page. Can it be set to take me to customize gallery page instead?

    Thanks
    -=Bradford

    Pictures | Website | Blog | Twitter | Contact
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2008
    Howdy-

    I use SmugMug MacDaddy Uploader or Star*Explorer to upload my photos. But I often find it easier to create the gallery using the web interface of my smugmug account. However when I create a gallery it takes me to the add photos page. Can it be set to take me to customize gallery page instead?

    Thanks

    I ALWAYS want to go to the customize gallery page after creating a gallery, so I second this request. Actually, what I really want is to pick the gallery settings I want before creating the gallery, but I'll settle for Brad's request.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
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  • glasbergenglasbergen Registered Users Posts: 84 Big grins
    edited January 29, 2008
    jfriend wrote:
    I ALWAYS want to go to the customize gallery page after creating a gallery, so I second this request. Actually, what I really want is to pick the gallery settings I want before creating the gallery, but I'll settle for Brad's request.

    Same here. I allways want to customize my gallery settings before I upload images.
  • glasbergenglasbergen Registered Users Posts: 84 Big grins
    edited January 29, 2008
    mdraughn wrote:
    That would probably help, and that's really up to smugmug.

    What I want is to have a secure way to share photos with some people and no one else. Passworded galleries do the trick, but the password feature is annoying because now I have to send people two things (a URL and a password) instead of just one. People would add the URL to their favorites but lose the password, chaos would ensue...

    GUIDs in the URLs would help, since it would make it nearly impossible to guess the URL so I wouldn't have to password protect galleries. Maybe a work-around is to allow passwords in the URL:

    http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/849473754+password

    Then I could just send that to people, but script kiddies couldn't guess it.
    If smugmug gave us a link to that URL and had a use-a-GUID-as-a-password feature, all the better...

    I feel the same way as user mdraughn here and his suggestion of allowing the password to be added to the URL seems like a good workaround. Don't know if this is going to work with sharegroups though.
  • I SimoniusI Simonius Registered Users Posts: 1,034 Major grins
    edited January 30, 2008
    DEFAULT gallery prefs
    probably repeating myself but I put it down to dementia...

    I wish there was a 'savable' preference so you ddin't have to reember to do anything everytime you create a new gallery. i.e. a way that saved your preferred formatting and choices of gallery each time you create a new one, too many choices, too much to remember!mwink.gif
    Veni-Vidi-Snappii
    ...pics..
  • PuR HARTPuR HART Registered Users Posts: 11 Big grins
    edited January 30, 2008
    I am not thinking of jumping ship one bit but
    this is a really nice feature they got going on here

    http://pa.photoshelter.com/help/tour/formats


    I would love a place to store much more than jpeg's
    some of the major files would be beautiful
    jpegs, RAW DNG, TIFF, PSD.PDF, AI, just to name a few
    All NEW) Canon 30D w/grip 17-55 2.8ISL, 70-200 2.8ISL,
    Epson R1800 18 gigs of CF

    Canon 20Dw/grip 50 mm f/1.8II Canon Pro 1- SIGMA EF 500 SUPER- Manfrotto 3021 & 322 RC2
    FS: 17-85 4.0-5.6 & 70-200 f.4L

  • lildudelildude Registered Users Posts: 70 Big grins
    edited January 31, 2008
    I Simonius wrote:
    probably repeating myself but I put it down to dementia...

    I wish there was a 'savable' preference so you ddin't have to reember to do anything everytime you create a new gallery. i.e. a way that saved your preferred formatting and choices of gallery each time you create a new one, too many choices, too much to remember!mwink.gif

    You can already, sort of.

    Go to one gallery, set all the options as you like then, then go back to the top of the page. See the "quick settings" drop down? Select it and choose "save settings below as ..." . A new input box appears where you can give your settings a name. Click "save".

    Now when you create a new gallery, just select the settings profile you want from the "quick settings" drop down and click save.

    What I'm not sure about, is if you can set your quick settings profile as the default for all new galleries.
  • I SimoniusI Simonius Registered Users Posts: 1,034 Major grins
    edited January 31, 2008
    lildude wrote:
    You can already, sort of.

    Go to one gallery, set all the options as you like then, then go back to the top of the page. See the "quick settings" drop down? Select it and choose "save settings below as ..." . A new input box appears where you can give your settings a name. Click "save".

    Now when you create a new gallery, just select the settings profile you want from the "quick settings" drop down and click save.

    What I'm not sure about, is if you can set your quick settings profile as the default for all new galleries.


    well spotted that man!

    many thanksmwink.gif
    Veni-Vidi-Snappii
    ...pics..
  • I SimoniusI Simonius Registered Users Posts: 1,034 Major grins
    edited January 31, 2008
    leading on from that then:
    can we make presets for pricings too ( rather than having to choose from a zillion gallieries)?
    Veni-Vidi-Snappii
    ...pics..
  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,013 Major grins
    edited January 31, 2008
    I Simonius wrote:
    leading on from that then:
    can we make presets for pricings too ( rather than having to choose from a zillion gallieries)?
    Create a private gallery for each pricing scheme. Name them something like
    x_family
    x_priceList1
    x_priceList2

    Put something in front like x so when the dropdown appears with 100's of
    galleries all you have to do is type x till the one you want shows.
    Al - Just a volunteer here having fun
    My Website index | My Blog
  • I SimoniusI Simonius Registered Users Posts: 1,034 Major grins
    edited February 1, 2008
    Allen wrote:
    Create a private gallery for each pricing scheme. Name them something like
    x_family
    x_priceList1
    x_priceList2

    Put something in front like x so when the dropdown appears with 100's of
    galleries all you have to do is type x till the one you want shows.

    Good thinking Batman - thanks!
    Veni-Vidi-Snappii
    ...pics..
  • dvdmondvdmon Registered Users Posts: 28 Big grins
    edited February 1, 2008
    jfriend wrote:
    You can do RSS feeds for private galleries. Smugmug won't show you the URL for the feed like they do for public galleries, but if you take an RSS feed for one of your public galleries and just change the gallery number in it to match the gallery number of the private gallery, it will work. I am using an RSS feed to a private gallery in a wireless picture frame and it works fine.

    The gallery number is the part of the URL to your gallery in bold below (after gallery, before the # symbol) http://jfriend.smugmug.com/gallery/3310411#184751174.

    Hmmm, this works when I view the feed in Firefox while I'm also logged into my smugmug account, however, I'm trying to use another feed-reading wep app. Specifically I'm using it with Google's Reader. When I enter the feed url, it tell's me there is no feed. I've tried this with a number of iGoogle gadget rss readers and get no luck either - invalid feed or just blank feeds. It shows up fine in FF live bookmarks, but nowhere else. Any idea if there's a workaround? Thanks!
  • AllenAllen Registered Users Posts: 10,013 Major grins
    edited February 2, 2008
    Set Watermark
    When creating a new gallery via the "add photos" button and the upload page
    comes up we really need a warning to set the watermark under gallery
    customization BEFORE upload. There's been some questioning why their
    watermark is PROOF or not the one they want.

    Actually, after creating a new gallery, the customize gallery page should
    first show instead of the "add photo" page. That way public/private/password
    could be set before upload. Imagine a large photo upload that takes many
    hours and your gallery password or privacy is not set and it's all public.eek7.gif


    Discussion in another thread about extended/security photo numbers I think
    only applies to private gallery photos so without setting the gallery to
    private first they might not apply.
    Al - Just a volunteer here having fun
    My Website index | My Blog
  • mpdehaanmpdehaan Registered Users Posts: 14 Big grins
    edited February 2, 2008
    Some suggestions
    I've already emailed a few of these in, but to repeat here:

    #1 ... A favorites feature like Flickr's that lets me go back and look at photos I really liked again.

    #2 ... Make timeline have a view that doesn't require clicking on a link, so that when you visit a photo homepage, you can see that person's most recent work easily if they want to make that visible. Basically this focus on things that were "recent" seemed to keep Flickr streams "alive". Similarly, consider implementing a "subscribe" find of feature similar to Flickr's misnamed "contacts", but possibly only subscribing to certain people's galleries? It was always nice being able to log in and see a feed of interesting new photography.

    #3 ... Be able to add a photo into multiple galleries without having to have two copies of that photo (this way comments/voting/etc would not have to be duplicated, and it would look right in timeline view)

    #4 ... It would be nice if the forum functionality was built-into Smugmug so each community could have it's own forums... this is something I found fairly useful from Flickr.
  • darryldarryl Registered Users Posts: 997 Major grins
    edited February 2, 2008
    dvdmon wrote:
    Hmmm, this works when I view the feed in Firefox while I'm also logged into my smugmug account, however, I'm trying to use another feed-reading wep app. Specifically I'm using it with Google's Reader. When I enter the feed url, it tell's me there is no feed. I've tried this with a number of iGoogle gadget rss readers and get no luck either - invalid feed or just blank feeds. It shows up fine in FF live bookmarks, but nowhere else. Any idea if there's a workaround? Thanks!

    Does your gallery have a password? If so, then the feed won't work with any web-based RSS readers. Actually, I'm not sure any local RSS readers would work either unless they have a browser built-in and can allow you to login to SmugMug and cache the cookie.
  • PursuitPursuit Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
    edited February 4, 2008
    Viewing the picture behind a random thumbnail
    I'm a SmugMug newbie, so pardon my ignorance if it becomes too obvious.

    My categories and subcategories have random thumbnails next to them, which I really like as it reminds me of pictures I've taken and forgetten about. But when I want to actually look at a picture in the thumbnail, it can be impossible to find (e.g somewhere in 8 subcategories, with 6 large galleries a piece).

    Is there currently any way to jump directly to a picture as seen in a thumbnail? If not, I'd like to add this as a feature request.

    As for the details, I actually have no idea what the UI front end would look like. I'm envisioning "right-click -> go to picture", but that doesn't really work in a web browser very well.

    Thanks for your help.
  • straehlestraehle Registered Users Posts: 45 Big grins
    edited February 4, 2008
    Last Month's Stats
    I'm not sure if this is a bug report or feature request; I'm sure it has been brought up before. I went to my Stats page and went to the January stats. Yes it displays stats by gallery, but the individual gallery areas don't activate the cursor to allow checking stats for individual images. This would be useful, at least for the immediately preceding month.
    Gallery: http://straehle.smugmug.com
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    Canon EF 70-200 F:/2.8 L IS
    Canon EF 24-70 F:2.8L
    Sigma 80 - 400 f:/4/5.6 OS
    Sigma 105 f:/2.8 macro
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited February 4, 2008
    straehle wrote:
    I'm not sure if this is a bug report or feature request; I'm sure it has been brought up before. I went to my Stats page and went to the January stats. Yes it displays stats by gallery, but the individual gallery areas don't activate the cursor to allow checking stats for individual images. This would be useful, at least for the immediately preceding month.
    Correct, it'd be a feature request :) Thanks for that!
  • olegosolegos Registered Users Posts: 94 Big grins
    edited February 5, 2008
    Could someone (preferably from SmugMug) comment on my request for FTP, please. Since I'm now experimenting with videos it's gotten new urgency for me...
  • mpdehaanmpdehaan Registered Users Posts: 14 Big grins
    edited February 5, 2008
    General request to make more UI elements "ajaxy"
    If I want to leave multiple communities, I have to visit each community page and then click on the various leave links.

    If presentation of this list were instead an ajaxy list with an [X] beside each link, it would allow me to make multiple operations without visiting new pages.

    (As a side effect, I think this would also reduce smugmug bandwidth from having to render lots of pages)

    The "leave community" UI element is just one of a few examples of things I would tweak to be more like this.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited February 5, 2008
    mpdehaan wrote:
    If I want to leave multiple communities, I have to visit each community page and then click on the various leave links.

    If presentation of this list were instead an ajaxy list with an [X] beside each link, it would allow me to make multiple operations without visiting new pages.

    (As a side effect, I think this would also reduce smugmug bandwidth from having to render lots of pages)

    The "leave community" UI element is just one of a few examples of things I would tweak to be more like this.
    Thanks for the FR!
This discussion has been closed.