Dumbest thing yet
I just did my first new gallery upload since you added this feature, and was appalled at the square thumbnails. This is not at all what I would have ever wanted. What's even dumber is that even after finding the new square thumbnail setting, changing that had no effect on the thumbnails. I really should not have had to dig around in your forums to find out how to fix this breakage -- and it should not have been necessary to make my gallery look all wrong for a few minutes in order to fix the problem.
While I can see that some people might like this new "feature", you never should have made it the default for new galleries. The way it should have worked is that you should have added the feature as a new setting option, and then if people saw other galleries with the square thumbnails and liked it, they could dig around and figure out how to do it to their own galleries. Please keep this in mind for the future. I've been a smugmug user for a few years now, and generally y'all have done things that make sense. But this one was kind of reckless.
I had similar thoughts when you made the new gallery style a while back, changing the default for existing galleries. In that case I kind of liked the new style and it was at least possible to figure out how to reset it. But I would have much rather had you make the change an opt-in thing rather than an opt-out thing. (BTW, this is off topic for this thread, but my biggest problem with the new style is that the active content is blocked for Internet Exporer within my employer's firewall. If I send a link to a gallery to a co-worker I have to tell them to either use Firefox or to set the gallery style to "traditional".)
I seem to be having a problem that has not been addressed?? I've read all the posts here and thought I'd try Square thumbs out to see how it looked.
I selected a gallery... went to customize gallery, and set it to Square Thumbs - Yes.
Then went to the gallery and rotated all photos... right.... Waited.
Then went to the gallery and rotated all photos... left.... Waited.
It all seemed to work out ok, except the cropping on a few photo's. So I selected the photo in question and went to "zoom thumbnail". I zoomed the photo to make the thumb look more correct and hit save.
Then when I go back to see the new "zoomed" thumb... it is no longer "squared"??
I seem to be having a problem that has not been addressed?? I've read all the posts here and thought I'd try Square thumbs out to see how it looked.
I selected a gallery... went to customize gallery, and set it to Square Thumbs - Yes.
Then went to the gallery and rotated all photos... right.... Waited.
Then went to the gallery and rotated all photos... left.... Waited.
It all seemed to work out ok, except the cropping on a few photo's. So I selected the photo in question and went to "zoom thumbnail". I zoomed the photo to make the thumb look more correct and hit save.
Then when I go back to see the new "zoomed" thumb... it is no longer "squared"??
Nice feature and thanks folks for giving us yet another one. I can see that some folks had some pretty interesting workarounds to do this. I'm not so sure I will ever use it, but wonderful that you keep adding to the toolbox.
That being said, I'm sure you noticed a spike in your support emails and posts as a result of that new feature being implemented. The goal of introducing new features in software should be by doing it in such a way as to be seemless and transparent so as not to interrupt the normal workflow of the user. Especially an important consderation for those users with automated workflows. ..A new feature should simply be a new feature, an option for the user to enable.
If you had simply chosen the default to NO, you would have saved yourselves quite a bit of headache and simply basked in the glow of another successful release. I don't think any of your design work on this feature was flawed... only in the way you chose to implement.
The reason I post this is to share some thoughts with the folks at SmugMug that I have an amazing respect for, as I have quite a bit of experience in this field. I have been a software developer for 25+ years and currently work for a Fortune 100 company doing development on customer facing web applications. (my day job which affords me all my "toys" )
To me, the worst day in the world is the day after a release when you incur problem tickets due to a flawed implementation of a new feature.. Sorta like attempting to help a seemingly confused elderly lady cross the street and have her wack and scream at you because she is waiting for her son to come pick her up.
If you're going to fix things up, here are some suggestions for fixing it.
6. To really make square thumbs work, you need a bulk adjust thumbs screen where you can just quickly grab each thumb and position it to show what you want to show. Once screen to adjust all thumbs, hit OK and you're done.
THIS IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT!! After using BZT for awhile now, I can personally attest to how crucial this is.
Square Thumbnails
I have to agree that I would have liked the squared thumb option to be an option, not a default. Even with the zoom square thumb feature, I still have horse photos that don't look right.
I got a call from a previous client within 1/2 hour of uploading my latest horse show photos (while I was still trying to figure out how they all got turned into squares) telling me she was not ordering any photos because I had "cut off" all the heads and most of the tails of the horses I took photos of! Too funny!
Anyhow, that being said, I cannot thank you at SM enough for all your support and how easy my life is now that I don't have to run to the photo lab and then to the post office to get photos to clients. I have so much more time just to shoot pictures. You guys rock!:D
Comments
I just did my first new gallery upload since you added this feature, and was appalled at the square thumbnails. This is not at all what I would have ever wanted. What's even dumber is that even after finding the new square thumbnail setting, changing that had no effect on the thumbnails. I really should not have had to dig around in your forums to find out how to fix this breakage -- and it should not have been necessary to make my gallery look all wrong for a few minutes in order to fix the problem.
While I can see that some people might like this new "feature", you never should have made it the default for new galleries. The way it should have worked is that you should have added the feature as a new setting option, and then if people saw other galleries with the square thumbnails and liked it, they could dig around and figure out how to do it to their own galleries. Please keep this in mind for the future. I've been a smugmug user for a few years now, and generally y'all have done things that make sense. But this one was kind of reckless.
I had similar thoughts when you made the new gallery style a while back, changing the default for existing galleries. In that case I kind of liked the new style and it was at least possible to figure out how to reset it. But I would have much rather had you make the change an opt-in thing rather than an opt-out thing. (BTW, this is off topic for this thread, but my biggest problem with the new style is that the active content is blocked for Internet Exporer within my employer's firewall. If I send a link to a gallery to a co-worker I have to tell them to either use Firefox or to set the gallery style to "traditional".)
I selected a gallery... went to customize gallery, and set it to Square Thumbs - Yes.
Then went to the gallery and rotated all photos... right.... Waited.
Then went to the gallery and rotated all photos... left.... Waited.
It all seemed to work out ok, except the cropping on a few photo's. So I selected the photo in question and went to "zoom thumbnail". I zoomed the photo to make the thumb look more correct and hit save.
Then when I go back to see the new "zoomed" thumb... it is no longer "squared"??
example... http://rholliday.smugmug.com/gallery/4650875_XkTbB#269567613
Maybe Im missing a step or not doing the zoom correctly?
RH
rholliday.smugmug.com
My Website index | My Blog
Nope. I will try that. Thank you.
RH
rholliday.smugmug.com
Worked perfect! Thank you.
RH
rholliday.smugmug.com
That being said, I'm sure you noticed a spike in your support emails and posts as a result of that new feature being implemented. The goal of introducing new features in software should be by doing it in such a way as to be seemless and transparent so as not to interrupt the normal workflow of the user. Especially an important consderation for those users with automated workflows. ..A new feature should simply be a new feature, an option for the user to enable.
If you had simply chosen the default to NO, you would have saved yourselves quite a bit of headache and simply basked in the glow of another successful release. I don't think any of your design work on this feature was flawed... only in the way you chose to implement.
The reason I post this is to share some thoughts with the folks at SmugMug that I have an amazing respect for, as I have quite a bit of experience in this field. I have been a software developer for 25+ years and currently work for a Fortune 100 company doing development on customer facing web applications. (my day job which affords me all my "toys"
To me, the worst day in the world is the day after a release when you incur problem tickets due to a flawed implementation of a new feature.. Sorta like attempting to help a seemingly confused elderly lady cross the street and have her wack and scream at you because she is waiting for her son to come pick her up.
My deepest respect,
jww
My site:Fine Image Photography
I have to agree that I would have liked the squared thumb option to be an option, not a default. Even with the zoom square thumb feature, I still have horse photos that don't look right.
I got a call from a previous client within 1/2 hour of uploading my latest horse show photos (while I was still trying to figure out how they all got turned into squares) telling me she was not ordering any photos because I had "cut off" all the heads and most of the tails of the horses I took photos of! Too funny!
Anyhow, that being said, I cannot thank you at SM enough for all your support and how easy my life is now that I don't have to run to the photo lab and then to the post office to get photos to clients. I have so much more time just to shoot pictures. You guys rock!:D
Justus Photography
www.lindasherrill.com
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