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SmugMug dealbreaker
putty
Registered Users Posts: 16 Big grins
I'm in the trial period of my account and I have to say that there's a lot to like here. i really like the look and feel & customization. I have ~35GB of photos categorized in ~1500 folders & subfolders, many of them 4-5 levels deep and there's the dealbreaker. I've tried to think about how I can fit them into categories, subcat's and galleries but I can't. It makes things very unorganized.
I've tried other similar websites and while fotki allows what I want, I hate the site. I much prefer the SmugMug look & feel. I'm at a loss to imagine why a site as professional and customizable as this doesn't allow for subgalleries. If this is planned for the near future, I may hold off and wait.
Is there a reason for not having this obvious feature that I'm overlooking?
I've tried other similar websites and while fotki allows what I want, I hate the site. I much prefer the SmugMug look & feel. I'm at a loss to imagine why a site as professional and customizable as this doesn't allow for subgalleries. If this is planned for the near future, I may hold off and wait.
Is there a reason for not having this obvious feature that I'm overlooking?
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How about keywords? Have you thought about using them?
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Sure, maybe "most" people wouldn't want to do that but they're not forced to. I'm talking about having the option to create whatever subfolders we'd want. I asked around and I've now learnt that Flickr Pro offers this. An amateur site like Flickr, but not SmugMug??
Keywords wouldn't help me enough. I wish they did.
There are a number of reasons we don't offer it. One of them is a battle that we have to fight harder than any other photo sharing site: feature bloat. We're proud that we have so many features and options, but it's extremely difficult not to clutter up the interface with them.
Galleries are by far the most important pages for us and we work the hardest on them. We want every last inch of the screen to be filled with big, beautiful photos. But there are some things that sometimes need to be there (footer, purchasing options, etc.).
When a visitor browses to a gallery on SmugMug now, they generally do it from the site owner's homepage, a category page, or a subcategory page. How would we make sure a sub-gallery option is visible and noticeable on a gallery page, not break the current browsing scheme, and yet also not detract from the presentation of photos in the gallery?
I'd also like to see at least one more "level" of organization (subgallery). I do ok with the current structure, but I don't see the harm in Category -> Subcategory -> Gallery -> Subgallery. I think it could be used to help people find the pictures they're looking for. Sure, it could be "abused" as used when not necessary, but so what?
I keyword my pictures, and I try hard to only use keywords that are going to be repeated often so I don't end up with a lot of keywords that point to just one or two pictures. But I don't at all see "keyword galleries" as any sort of alternative to subgalleries. We have far too little control of keyword galleries. No sort order, etc. When (not if!) virtual galleries come along, it will help solve some of the trouble, but it may also create some extra work and hurt the site organization. Subgalleries could help.
Just as an example, imagine if you shot pictures at a car show. Maybe you want subgalleries for different classes of vehicles. You could do it with keywords, but that leaves too little control and it's hard to tell visitors how to find a keyword gallery. If we had virtual galleries, we could put all the pictures in a main gallery, then make virtual galleries for each class of vehicles. But when someone visits the car show gallery, how would they know that those other virtual galleries exist? But with Subgalleries, they'd see right away that the car show is split up into sections based on vehicle class. And then you could still (if it was possible) have a virtual gallery where you put all the pictures from the car show together, sorted as you want.
Right now, the options are very limited. I think what everybody would like is for smugmug to have the flexibility to work with everyone's needs. Right now, your customers have to be flexible to fit into your mold, not the other way around.
Dave
Sheaf, I understand the desire to fill the pages with photos. That's why we're here and you guys do a great job of this. But for those of us who need better hierarchal support, a bit less photo space while having this would be MORE than acceptable, it's desired. Perhaps an option in Control Panel would be sufficient: Hierarchy or not. Our choice.
In my case, I'm a surgeon. I work in 2 locations so there's a big split intoo 2 main folders. Then I have my subfolders according to patient ID, then subfolders within each patient by procedure done (many get multiple procedures), and then subfolders within these subfolders for post-op photos. How to get this organized here is beyond me. Heck I even paid for Flickr Pro yesterday when I saw that they can go up to 5 categories deep but their interface is just terrible. I much prefer SmugMug, and I'd still pony up for an account (possibly Pro) if I can get something reasonable done here. I love the support, love this forum, love the interface, etc.
Thanks for any advice.
Categories = locations -> Subcategories = Patient ID's -> Multiple galleries.
Examples:
LocationA -> Patient 123456 -> Procedure Alpha
LocationA -> Patient 123456 -> Procedure Alpa post-op
LocationA -> Patient 123456 -> Procedure Beta
LocationB -> Patient 987654 -> Procedure Alpha
Laid out on an actual SmugMug site.
Your homepage only has to have two categories, each patient has his/her own subcategory page (great for direct links), and unless I am misunderstanding, each subcategory only needs two galleries per procedure.
Alternatively, you could combine the Location and Patient ID to create categories (Category: LocationA - Patient 123456). That would allow you to have a subcategory for each procedure and assign multiple galleries to each one.
I was following this thread because I wondered if I could find something contained in these thoughts by Putty, & answers, which would address what I was hoping for in my own organized mess, ha! I've been here a year now & am thrilled with all I can do. The organizational capability here already seems fantastic for me, and perhaps there's already an answer to this which I'm overlooking. Or perhaps it's contained in this thread.
Anyway, the small "trouble" I have is when I want to have a certain sub-category visible in more than one category. For instance, I have a gallery "children doing music". I wish that one were visible in both the "music" category" and the "family" category. Or if I have a sub-category "music", I wish that could show up under two different categories. When I have a travel gallery such as "Chimney Rock", I'd love to place it in "travel", vacation", and "North Carolina" categories. Or put the "vacations" sub-category under both "family and "travel" categories. I'm in the middle of customizing & have a way to go yet, so perhaps there will be a way through customizing my tabs, to make such cross-categorizing capability happen? I've seen some detailed tabbing in some folks' sites-- tabs within tabs, etc. which may be my answer, but I'm not sure. I looked at the Beta example made for Putty. Looks great. I think it's solving a different problem, but perhaps my answer is still here somewhere. My site is www.winsomeworks.com or www.annalisa.smugmug.com .
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
Account 1 = LocationA ->
(Category) Patient 123456 -> (Sub-Cat) Procedure Alpha - Gallery (as many galleries as you need).
(Category) Patient 789101 -> (Sub-Cat) Procedure Alpha - Gallery (as many galleries as you need).
Repeat for Account 2 - (location 2)
Each patient gets a Category (and their own link to it) and then you have 2 further sub-levels (sub-cats and galleries)
While not a prefect solution, you could create a second galery in the other catagory you want it in, duplcate the pictures and move them to the newly created folder.
I would like to have one password protected gallery for the client to log into, and then within that gallery there are separate albums/galleries for each of the different types of pictures.
I would also like this feature for clients that I work with over time, so that they can just log into one gallery and then have subgalleries when they can see the pictures we took in February, then in May, etc.
Or for weddings - a subgallery for preparation, ceremony, reception, etc.
I can think of a million ways to use subgalleries! I don't want tons and tons of hierarchy, but some way to organize large client galleries would be helpful. In the meantime I'm trying to figure out a work-around.
By virtual galleries, I mean the ability to display the same photos in multiple galleries without having to upload a second copy. You'd be able to create a gallery (with all the functionality of a regular smugmug gallery) and pick and choose pictures from other galleries all over your site for it. We don't even have a "copy photos to another gallery" tool.
Right now, smugmug recommends doing something like a virtual gallery by using a unique keyword for all the pictures you want in that gallery. But that doesn't allow you to sort the pictures as you want, apply a gallery description, display the gallery within a category/subcategory, feature the gallery on your homepage, or apply a different theme, etc.
Instead of suggesting workarounds, lets add some features here!
Dave
Thanks for taking the time to create the example site. I think that's something that might be doable & I'll give it a try. Now... any ideas on how to get 17925 pics in 1347 folders uploaded to fit this?
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We have covered this each time it gets brought up, most recently in this very thread, with Sheaf's first posting.
Thanks for telling us how important it is to you
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Just not the same thing.
I agree completely with Putty.
Pilotdave, we don't have a "copy photo to another gallery" tool, but it's not much more trouble to "make a second copy" and then "move to..." whatever gallery you want. Second copies get made quite fast. I do understand what you're asking about otherwise, but at least the above is a possibility in the meantime. They come up with cool stuff so fast around here... you never know! ETA: I don't particularly need another layer, but I wish each layer could show up in various places in the layer above, rather than only one layer above. So I like your virtual galleries idea. I think the suggestion I got earlier (to make some identical galleries) will help for now though.
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
We have received numerous requests in the past for sub-subcategories. It's a difficult problem to solve. Flickr attempted to provide a solution and, in my opinion, failed. Many of their customers who initially requested it ended up rebelling against using the feature after they realized how difficult it became for their visitors to find photos.
In my personal opinion, we would need a new browsing interface. Click fatigue is a very real issue and going through five different pages (homepage, category page, subcategory page, sub-subcategory page, and gallery) just to begin browsing in a gallery is a bit ridiculous. Maybe something like the add photos menu would be the solution in that case.
As far as galleries within galleries go, that's a different animal altogether. I take this to mean that the "subgallery" is basically only accessible from within the parent gallery. Which means we would struggle to find the delicate balance of making it stand out in the interface and yet not detract from the browsing experience in the parent gallery.
So I'm curious as to which one people would prefer. No promises that we would build it anytime soon though! The SmugSorcerers are incredibly bogged down in very important sorcery at the moment.
Also, would widening the homepage, category, and subcateogry pages help alleviate the problem? If they stretched to fill the screen properly or at least allowed for a third column of galleries/categories/etc?
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and make it private. Then in the album description add the link. In the "sub"
add the link back to the parent.
So if you had a gallery for Mary's photos, in the description you would add
something like this.
<html>
<a href="/gallery_xxxxxx_xxxxx">Mary's 1st Birthday</a>
<a href="/gallery_xxxxxx_xxxxx">Mary's 2nd Birthday</a>
<a href="/gallery_xxxxxx_xxxxx">Mary's 3rd Birthday</a>
</html>
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You can place things in multiple categories by using Gallery Redirects.
For example, I have several galleries under both "Weddings" and their "Year" category. I also have a "New Photos" category that highlights my latest galleries.
If you want to have an occasional sub-gallery, then it is possible to do this via javascript. However, it is awkward to do this frequently
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=57994
Seriously, does this look like click fatigue?? I couldn't have done this in Smugmug because it would have stopped me one level up.
The "click fatigue" argument just doesn't hold water, it just doesnt. Myself & many many others have been using methods like this for years now & not once have I heard of anyone ever complaining. Ever.
You give people the option to pretty much make their Smug sites as beautiful or as disgusting as they want with the ability to code their own sites & no one ever steps in because its the users right to do so. But yet you wont simply allow extra levels in the breadcrumb?? That doesnt make much sense. Its all about options. Just like with coding, if people want it, give it to them. If they wanna make their sites ugly using bad HTML coding, so be it. If they wanna make their breadcrumb a mile long, so be it.
People want more levels than this, I guess. Personally I don't see why, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.
I've done that, but it's extremely annoying in a very large gallery. The times I've used it were mostly when I wanted to pull a photo from a private backup gallery (with 1000+ photos) into a public gallery. Most of smugmug's tools don't work well with huge galleries. There's no "bulk make a 2nd copy" tool (if i wanted to copy a bunch of em), and the "move photos" tool doesn't highlight the selected photo by default. Trying to find the picture I just duplicated to move to another gallery can be like playing "where's waldo."
Dave
And I can make it as deep as I want:
I can't see the need for making the breadcrumb quite that deep, but you get the idea.
I am definitely interested in having galleries that are only visible from the parent gallery. I am thinking more in terms of people (clients) who are only interested in looking at one specific gallery, and having that gallery organized with subgalleries or albums. I feel like the discussion as to whether subgalleries will mess up the smugmug interface are centered around browsers who want to easily search through several galleries and have all the photographs clearly accessible.
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