personal vs pro sites? both needed?

mrfizzed · March 14, 2008

im curious. how many of you out there have both a personal and a pro site. i paid for both but am now wondering if i needed to? does anyone upload family and friend pictures to their pro site and if so how do you keep them hidden but yet visible to people who you want to see them? i find that i am not very efficient since i have two different sites. would be easier if i had one wouldnt it? any thoughts?

poleinajeep · March 14, 2008

mrfizzed wrote:

im curious. how many of you out there have both a personal and a pro site. i paid for both but am now wondering if i needed to? does anyone upload family and friend pictures to their pro site and if so how do you keep them hidden but yet visible to people who you want to see them? i find that i am not very efficient since i have two different sites. would be easier if i had one wouldnt it? any thoughts?

Check out my page. www.beachglassphotography.com

My personal categories/galleries are locked and organized under sharegroups. Works well for me.

mrfizzed · March 14, 2008

can you explain sharegroups for me?
what exactly are sharegroups? how do they work? could i set one up for my "family" for example and if so is it hard?

stuartb · March 14, 2008

I am trying to get my head around this very same problem.
Sharegroups are good BUT they are not the easiest thing to setup.
I am using Picasa's wonderful Smumug uploader . . .when I upload a fresh gallery for my family to view . .it would be nice to have the option to allocate the gallery as unlisted and to my existing 'family sharegroup' as a natural part of the upload workflow.
At the moment, all new uploaded galleries are 'public' by default and then you have to make a big effort to switch to control panel and sharegroups and then find your new gallery in the sea of thumbnails and then allocate the sharegroup.

I am not surprised that lots of people dont know about or understand sharegroups. I think they are brilliant and under-rated and I wish they were easier to work with.
An 'add to sharegroup' option in Gallery Tools would be perfect.

jfriend · March 14, 2008

mrfizzed wrote:

im curious. how many of you out there have both a personal and a pro site. i paid for both but am now wondering if i needed to? does anyone upload family and friend pictures to their pro site and if so how do you keep them hidden but yet visible to people who you want to see them? i find that i am not very efficient since i have two different sites. would be easier if i had one wouldnt it? any thoughts?

I have two sites and greatly appreciate being able to keep my family photos separate from all the other photos. There are many ways to try to create some separation of family/business in a single account (sharegroups, hidden categories, dummy home pages, etc..) but in the end, I decided it was just a whole lot easier to use a second account and have a nice simple separation that doesn't require any hacks or maintence and gives the whole range of features for both.

scottkwest · March 14, 2008

I really like this feature request to automatically add to a sharegroup! Or even to have an option in the 'customize gallery' section. Adding to a sharegroup now is cumbersome when you have many galleries.

stuartb wrote:

I am trying to get my head around this very same problem.
Sharegroups are good BUT they are not the easiest thing to setup.
I am using Picasa's wonderful Smumug uploader . . .when I upload a fresh gallery for my family to view . .it would be nice to have the option to allocate the gallery as unlisted and to my existing 'family sharegroup' as a natural part of the upload workflow.
At the moment, all new uploaded galleries are 'public' by default and then you have to make a big effort to switch to control panel and sharegroups and then find your new gallery in the sea of thumbnails and then allocate the sharegroup.

I am not surprised that lots of people dont know about or understand sharegroups. I think they are brilliant and under-rated and I wish they were easier to work with.
An 'add to sharegroup' option in Gallery Tools would be perfect.

guy · March 15, 2008

mrfizzed wrote:

im curious. how many of you out there have both a personal and a pro site. i paid for both but am now wondering if i needed to? does anyone upload family and friend pictures to their pro site and if so how do you keep them hidden but yet visible to people who you want to see them? i find that i am not very efficient since i have two different sites. would be easier if i had one wouldnt it? any thoughts?

One appraoch would be make a new catagory say "family". Then make all your family galleries & sub categories under that catagory and make them all unlisted. Now you have a site within a site but nothing shows on your homepage to say its there & your pro site ins't cluttered. So now you just need a new front door to the family6 stuff. You could use a blog for that. Family & friends go to your blog address and you post links to new photos & family galleries etc there.

My Blog is embedded in my smugmug site but you would probably want to keep yours seperate.

Allen · March 15, 2008

guy wrote:

One appraoch would be make a new catagory say "family". Then make all your family galleries & sub categories under that catagory and make them all unlisted. ..

I would create the Family cateory and add the same password to all galleries
under it. Then hide the family category from any browse page like homepage
or galleries boxes. Then use the direct link to the category.
http://nickname.smugmug.com/Family
With the same password it would have to be entered only one time entereing the first gallery.

This is put in the javascript.

        <[B]![/B]-- Hide Categories -->    <!-- Hide Categories -->
function delCategory() {
  re = /\/([COLOR=red]Family[/COLOR])$/;

  var oList = YD.getElementsByClassName('miniBox', 'div', this);

  for (i = 0; i < oList.length; i++) {
    if (re.test(oList[i].getElementsByTagName('a')[0].href))
      oList[i].parentNode.removeChild(oList[i]);
  }
}
YE.onContentReady('categoriesBox', delCategory);
     <[B]![/B]-- End Hide Categories -->
     <!-- End Hide Categories -->

stuartb · March 15, 2008

guy wrote:

. . So now you just need a new front door to the family6 stuff..

you mean like a URL. But when your family view the family gallery, wont they see the full breadcrumb at the top and want to start clicking on non-family stuff?

The password solution is useless. I dont want to have to manually assign a password every time I drop a new gallery into the family category. I should just be able to drop them in and have them visible to my family.

guy · March 15, 2008

stuartb wrote:

you mean like a URL. But when your family view the family gallery, wont they see the full breadcrumb at the top and want to start clicking on non-family stuff?

The password solution is useless. I dont want to have to manually assign a password every time I drop a new gallery into the family category. I should just be able to drop them in and have them visible to my family.

Well I think you can hide the breadcrum pretty easily with a bit of code. Haven't done it myself but I'm sure Allen can chime in or a quick search on Hide Breadcrum would tell you how.

ivar · March 15, 2008

The only 'safe' way to make it so that there is no option to get to other parts of your site from a gallery is to enable the 'hide owner' option. All other options allow the viewer to get to other parts of your site, depending on how computer savvy that person is.

What you can do, is use a 'public' category and a 'family' category, and hide the breadcrumb in the 'family' category.

Let's say you use the category 'Family' for this, the code would be:

.category_Family #breadcrumb { display: none; }

Hope this helps.

stuartb · March 16, 2008

Thanks for the help ivar.
So . . I upgrade to Power User . . I set the breadcrumb to 'hidden' in category 'Family' using CSS . .

Q - I give my sister a url link to the Family category ? (not an individual gallery)

Q - She will see all the galleries I put in Family category and not be able to browse out of that category?

Q - She will see any future galleries I drop into the family catgory (ie no need for sharegroup)?

If I 'upgrade' to Power can I downgrade again if it doesnt do what I need?

ivar · March 16, 2008

stuartb wrote:

Thanks for the help ivar.
So . . I upgrade to Power User . . I set the breadcrumb to 'hidden' in category 'Family' using CSS . .

Q - I give my sister a url link to the Family category ? (not an individual gallery)

Q - She will see all the galleries I put in Family category and not be able to browse out of that category?

Q - She will see any future galleries I drop into the family catgory (ie no need for sharegroup)?

If I 'upgrade' to Power can I downgrade again if it doesnt do what I need?

Yes to all of the above

What you can also do, is open a new trial account, and play with that to see if it works for you. If you decide it works, close the trial account, and upgrade the account you have now. If it doesn't work for you, just close the trial account

stuartb · March 17, 2008

ivar wrote:

Yes to all of the above
What you can also do, is open a new trial account, and play with that to see if it works for you.

i set up a trial Power accont.
I am afraid it doesnt do as I hoped.

1 - I want all my galleries unlisted. No problem with that.
2 - I set up the CSS hide breadcrumb ok. No problem with that.
3 - I am able to take a url shortcut to a gallery, sub category or category . . BUT only the gallery url shortcut shows any thumbs. Seems the Category and Sub Category url shortcuts just say 'no galleries found'. No doubt because they are unlisted. So to allow my sister to see all my family pics I need to make all my galleries public? thats no use. And dont get me started on sharegroups! Sigh . . . nearly . . .

EDIT : OK I am playing about with this some more . .I can get it to do what I need by making my galleries Public . . but turning off the Hello World and SmugMuggers thingy . . (it seems odd that Google cant find my pics even if they are 'public?)

Anyway I have it working the way I want BUT whilst I can hide the breadcrumb using css . .I cant hide the url in the browser at the top www.mysite.smugmug.com/family so people can still edit up to my homepage. So is there a css way to hide the homepage?

stuartb · March 18, 2008

1 - I have had an idea . . . . is there any way I can use an HTML 'refresh' line on my homepage to point it at www.smugmug.com ? That way my homepage is effectively hidden. Obviously I only want it bumping my homepage to smugmug and not all my gallery pages.

2 - If my galleries are all set as 'public', but I choose to hide from smugmuggers and google search . . does the fact that they are still 'public' mean google can find? Or do they have to be unlisted AND hidden from google/smugmuggers?

glasbergen · March 18, 2008

stuartb wrote:

1 - I have had an idea . . . . is there any way I can use an HTML 'refresh' line on my homepage to point it at www.smugmug.com ? That way my homepage is effectively hidden. Obviously I only want it bumping my homepage to smugmug and not all my gallery pages.

2 - If my galleries are all set as 'public', but I choose to hide from smugmuggers and google search . . does the fact that they are still 'public' mean google can find? Or do they have to be unlisted AND hidden from google/smugmuggers?

About number 2: If you don't want others to see or find your pictures, your galleries really need to be unlisted and password protected. See the help page about privacy & security. And the best way to then still be able to share the photos with your family is using sharegroups (in my opinion). You give your family a link to a sharegroup once (the only thing they need to bookmark) and after that you decide which galleries should be in that sharegroup, or not. These galleries can be public or unlisted, doesn't matter. Hope this makes sense...

stuartb · March 18, 2008

Thanks glasbergen, but until they add Sharegroups to Gallery Tools I am giving up on them.
And until they allow you to set 'unlisted' as a default option on gallery uploads (rather than 'public' which you then have to change manually) then I need to find a solution using 'public' galleries.

Lets say I add one or more galleries every day. I need to upload, then manually assign a password for that specific client, then close the gallery, then go to Control Panel to edit Sharegroups, then try to find the latest gallery in a sea of ALL my galleries, then add it to the Sharegroup.
All fine for hobbyists who have time to tweak and fiddle, but not if you want to use smugmug professionally and need to a simple streamlined workflow.

My target workflow is as follows : -
1 - One click upload from Picasa straight into my client's 'category'.
2 - There is no 2. Thats it!

I am very nearly there with this.
I give my clients a url to their 'category' and they can see everything I have uploaded (and they see pretty thumbnails . . not a row of padlocks) I hide the breadcrumb so they cant browse up out of their category, and I hide the categories on my homepage so they cant 'edit up' the url in the browser. Works great!
I would just like to hide ALL categories on my homepage with one setting . . or even bump my homepage someplace else with an html refresh. Then I dont have to keep editing the css every time I add a client (category).

I am still seeking answers to these 2 questions :
1 - Is there any way I can use an HTML 'refresh' line on my homepage to point it at www.smugmug.com ? That way my homepage is effectively hidden. Obviously I only want it bumping my homepage to smugmug and not all my gallery pages.

2 - If my galleries are all set as 'public', but I choose to customize them and hide them from smugmuggers and google search . . does the fact that they are still 'public' mean google can find? Or do they also have to be unlisted AND hidden from google/smugmuggers?

glasbergen · March 18, 2008

stuartb wrote:

Thanks glasbergen, but until they add Shargroups to Gallery Tools I am giving up on them.
And until they allow you to set 'unlisted' as a default option on gallery uploads then I need to find a solution using 'public' gallries.

Lets say I add a gallery every day. I need to upload, then manually assign a password for that specific client, then close the gallery, then go to Control Panel, then try to find the latest gallery in a sea of ALL my galleries! Fine for hobbyists but not if you want to use smugmug professionally.

My target workflow is as follows : -
1 - One click upload from Picasa straight into my client's 'category'.
2 - There is no 2. Thats it!

I give my clients a url to their 'category' and they can see everything I have uploaded (thumbnails . . not a row of padlocks) I hide the breadcrumb so they cant browse out of their category, and I hide the categories on my homepage so they cant 'edit up' the url in the browser.
I would just like to hide ALL categories on my homepage with one setting . . or even bump my homepage someplace else with an html refresh. Then I dont have to keep editing the css every time I add a client (category).

I'm sorry you feel that way about sharegroups. Two things though:

1) It is possible to set default options for galleries (like unlisted) when creating them. I defined 'quick settings' to do this and I have several different quick settings for different uses. See the help pages about customizing galleries.

2) I think the interface for selecting galleries for sharegroups is not exactly the best in the world. But since the newest galleries are allways on top of the list it is pretty easy to find them.

Off course, I'm no pro indeed, so I'm less bothered with efficient workflow and stuff like that.

stuartb · March 18, 2008

The problem is you seem to have to need use 3 or 4 tools on every gallery upload (customize, password, sharegroups, quick settings) when i just want to use one to do it all (quick settings for example).

It would be nice if 'Quick settings' included the ability to add to a specific Sharegroup and add a defined password. Why can it not? then I could set up a quick setting for each Client. Teh workflow would be : -
1 Upload
2 Apply Quick setting
3 done!

It would also be nice if you could choose a custom quick setting to apply as the 'default' for new uploads.

I am actually more or less happy with the way I have it sorted now. I just would like to completely hide my homepage.

stuartb · March 18, 2008

Problem solved! I just put the new slideshow on the homepage! Yippee!
Time to pay for my upgrades to Power Users.

Scott98 · July 17, 2008

Gallery Set-up

poleinajeep wrote:

Check out my page. www.beachglassphotography.com

My personal categories/galleries are locked and organized under sharegroups. Works well for me.

This is for poleinajeep (or anyone else who might have the answer)

in the middle of working through my cusimizations.

I am very interested in setting my site up the same you have your Sharegroup and Client Folders done here.

How did you do this? Can you protect (password) the gallery that contains the links to the indivisual sharegroups as well?

can someone point me in the right direction?

Scott

ruffin.smugmug.com

personal vs pro sites? both needed?

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