I can just dump all my photos in one gallery and "organize" virtually.
I wouldnt recommend it. Trying to view a 5000 image gallery would be painful just due to the nature of the internet (downloading, connection speed, browser limits etc.) let alone trying to perform any sort of operation on all those images.
You'd still want to organize your photos somewhat logically before you start moving them around virtually.
I know I'm a new kid on the block, but since I've paid for a Pro account, I feel like I should be able to weigh in on some small level.
I was truly upset when I found out that we can only go three deep: category -> subcategory -> gallery.
That's just nuts.
For those of us who shoot sports, that is truly inconvenient, and I simply dont buy the "people dont want to drill down through menus, so three should be enough" argument.
Here's an example:
Sports -> Swimming -> Team Name -> 2008 -> Tournament with Date -> Individual Competitor
That is impossible to do as it stands. I should be able to have n number of sports, with n number of teams, n number of anything.
I'm very glad the Smuggers are working on this, as I have read in another post the back-end is done, now they just need a decent UI.
I hate to say it, that if this cannot be done (it exists in pretty much every CMS-based imaging module, so why not SM?), I'm going to have to pack up and go elsewhere, which I dont want to do, b/c I find SM to be outstanding.
I respectfully bow out now...
AMEN!
This has always been my exact dilemma, and even one more level of depth would solve a ton of my problems....especially being able to break out years as you've exampled above.
I've come very close to simply purchasing extra PRO accounts too, although frankly don't see why I should have to pay double or triple for such a thing.
Sports -> Swimming -> Team Name -> 2008 -> Tournament with Date -> Individual Competitor
That is impossible to do as it stands. I should be able to have n number of sports, with n number of teams, n number of anything.
...
Not really so, would not be too hard to set up.
Create html gallery showing all sport thumbs. Swimming, baseball, football, etc.
As an example pick swimming thumb and it links to this page.
Create html gallery showing all team thumbs. Team1, team2, etc.
As an example pick team1 thumb and it links to this page.
Create html gallery showing all year thumbs. 2009, 2008, etc.
As an example pick 2008 thumb and it links to this page.
/category/Swimming_team1_2008
At this point you start your three levels.
Swimming_team1_2008 -> Tournament with Date -> Individual Competitor
Holler back if you want to try this and I'll help you set it up.
Take a look here for an example, only two pages to the category but will
give you an idea of how to do it.
You could also do this with a dropdown navbar. Once clicked on year which is a category you have three levels.
Sports << main navbar button
Swimming << drop (no link)
Team1 << drop flyout (no link)
2009 << drop flyout flyout (category link Swimming_Team1_2009)
2008 << drop flyout flyout (category link Swimming_Team1_2008)
Team2 << drop flyout (no link)
2009 << drop flyout flyout (category link Swimming_Team2_2009)
2008 << drop flyout flyout (category link Swimming_Team2_2008)
Baseball << drop (no link)
Team1 (no link)
2009 (category link Baseball_Team1_2009)
2008 (category link Baseball_Team1_2008)
Team2 (no link)
Not really so, would not be too hard to set up.
Create html gallery showing all sport thumbs. Swimming, baseball, football, etc.
As an example pick swimming thumb and it links to this page.
Create html gallery showing all team thumbs. Team1, team2, etc.
As an example pick team1 thumb and it links to this page.
Create html gallery showing all year thumbs. 2009, 2008, etc.
As an example pick 2008 thumb and it links to this page.
/category/Swimming_team1_2008
At this point you start your three levels.
Swimming_team1_2008 -> Tournament with Date -> Individual Competitor
...
That's a lot of HTML creation, Allen. While it is *possible* to work around two levels of hierarchy, let's be clear: It's a work-around, a kludge, an inelegant hack.
For me, one of SmugMug's strengths is its elegant interface for viewers. And to a lesser degree, for photographers/customers. (Although um, hello - drop-down menus?)
At any rate, if you're going to be hacking HTML pages yourself, you're just a small step away from just generating your gallery pages with Adobe Photoshop export or some such and using any old generic webhosting provider. You also wouldn't be limited to working within the confines of SmugMug's CSS and Javascript structures.
I think the point here is that we don't all want to become HTML/CSS/Javascript experts just to add a little more organization to our photo galleries.
Help -- school is starting!
Attached is the current organization of my son's site (cut and pasted from Nitrodesk)...
The problem? New school year coming up.
Ideally I could create a 2007-2008 Category and simply drop Events, Portraits, and all of the Teacher's Classes into that new "archive" category, retaining the subcategories.
Then I would want to be able to have new Events, Portraits and Teachers categories at the top level for this current schoolyear.
I know lots of people want this. I just wanted to post a nice picture, ok? Also, Nitrodesk rocks!
Ideally I could create a 2007-2008 Category and simply drop Events, Portraits, and all of the Teacher's Classes into that new "archive" category, retaining the subcategories.
Then I would want to be able to have new Events, Portraits and Teachers categories at the top level for this current schoolyear.
Hey Darryl, I'm working on expanding our category/subcategory features, and this thread is rich with suggestions.
So if I read this right, you'd want to create a new archive category and move subcategories to it. Then in the "current" category you'd then recreate all the subcategories? Or are you looking for it to keep the original structure while moving the galleries around?
Hey Darryl, I'm working on expanding our category/subcategory features, and this thread is rich with suggestions.
So if I read this right, you'd want to create a new archive category and move subcategories to it. Then in the "current" category you'd then recreate all the subcategories? Or are you looking for it to keep the original structure while moving the galleries around?
Hi Balmer -- you're new, right? :-}
I'd want to create 2007-2008, move the original structure (cats and subcats) under it, and recreate the original structure a the top level.
See attached. (Oh man, my wife is lucky to still be sleeping, because if I showed her my awful MSPAINT-job, she'd have nightmares. She actually does professional work w/ Photoshop, so my mock-up is shameful. :-)
I'd want to create 2007-2008, move the original structure (cats and subcats) under it, and recreate the original structure a the top level.
See attached. (Oh man, my wife is lucky to still be sleeping, because if I showed her my awful MSPAINT-job, she'd have nightmares. She actually does professional work w/ Photoshop, so my mock-up is shameful. :-)
Yup, you totally win at "spot the new sorcerer". I started in June, and my first big job is to see what can be done about making the category/subcategory stuff Amazing. It started out looking like a small addition, but it's turning into a pretty big and exciting deal the more I dig in and grok how other users organize their pics.
As for your point, we're just talking a structure move, or copy the galleries as well? Just want to be clear, my head is swimming with feature requests which sound similar but prove to be different in subtle little ways.
Yup, you totally win at "spot the new sorcerer". I started in June, and my first big job is to see what can be done about making the category/subcategory stuff Amazing. It started out looking like a small addition, but it's turning into a pretty big and exciting deal the more I dig in and grok how other users organize their pics.
As for your point, we're just talking a structure move, or copy the galleries as well? Just want to be clear, my head is swimming with feature requests which sound similar but prove to be different in subtle little ways.
Ideally, my last screenshot would be the result of:
1) Creating top-level 2007-2008 category
2) Dragging and dropping Portraits, Teacher * Class, Events into the 2007-2008, and having all subcategories and galleries move into that folder.
3) Recreating "empty" categories and subcategories at the top level for Portraits, Teacher * Class, Events, et al.
This way we'd start the new year off "fresh", but the old photos would still be archived.
In my dream implementation, the top-level 2007-2008 category could be made into a Sharegroup with all of the levels below it intact. This would allow "alumni" to still view images from their year, without seeing all of the photos of the current class. But that's pie in the sky stuff. :-}
I too am hoping for virtual galleries. :help Re-uploading seems like a waste of HD space, time and flexibility.
If not, then at the very least, the ability to select pictures (like the watermark option) and copy them to a new or existing gallery.:D The move image tool is tedious at best. If I want to move 30 pics, I have to select each gallery individually. Not very efficient.
Your team is doing a great job of providing a top notch product. Keep giving us more new features.
If not, then at the very least, the ability to select pictures (like the watermark option) and copy them to a new or existing gallery.:D The move image tool is tedious at best. If I want to move 30 pics, I have to select each gallery individually. Not very efficient.
I'll 2nd (far more than that actually) the ability to bulk copy images to another gallery. Copy+Move*number of images=way too much work!
Most folks don't like click - wait - click - wait - click - wait -click - photos.
Speaking of which...I have a few subcategories that, for the moment, only have one gallery. It would be great if there was a way to have it automatically bypass any level where there's only one option.
Blog - updated irregularly Photos - still under construction, suggestions welcome
Yup, ok - project started, put on brief hiatus, so that another proj can get out asap. Then resuming n-deep gallery structure.
That's great! I was going to go with SmugMug for my photo galleries, but decided on Zenfolio for this reason alone. SmugMug implementing an n-deep hierarchical gallery/subgallery structure would definitely make me reconsider.
So you want a gallery within a gallery? Can you explain why exactly you want that and how it's not handled properly with categories and subcategories?
if i had that option, i'd do ALLL my photo stuff on smugmug... but since smugmug doesn't offer that, i can't...
here's my DIR structure on my main photo website as an example of why allowing sub>sub>sub>sub galleries (or whatever you're after) would be awesome... ESPECIALLY if smugmug could retain the DIR structure during upload...OMG my life would be some much easier!
My first thought on this was to solve it via html. Allen had some cool advice. I'll probably be giving that a try if I ever need to go to an nth level for heirarchy.
I think most people's issues stem from trying to be too general with descriptions.
There's really no functional difference in having Sports --> 2008 --> Sport --> Team --> Game --> Player
Than having Sports --> 2008 Football --> Team A vs Team B (date) and using keywords to help locate the team or players
My first thought on this was to solve it via html. Allen had some cool advice. I'll probably be giving that a try if I ever need to go to an nth level for heirarchy.
I think most people's issues stem from trying to be too general with descriptions.
There's really no functional difference in having Sports --> 2008 --> Sport --> Team --> Game --> Player
Than having Sports --> 2008 Football --> Team A vs Team B (date) and using keywords to help locate the team or players
having been in this biz for 3 years, full time, as my ONLY job, trust me when i say it IS practical to have people seperated out... mainly for the reason that people don't like to hunt for themselves...having them already seperated out also eliminates one more step for the customer, whom i'm catering to. plus, you'd be surprised at how many people have trouble ordering off my 4theriders.com website when i simply cannot fathom how it could be made ANY simpler...
Question.. I tried to order from that site, and I just can't figure it out. I mean, you have "Directory".. I tried to change it from some strange words to "No, my phone number isn't listed" and it didn't work. Then, I tried to click the print button in my browser, and even though it says that the printed images don't have watermarks, what came out of my printer was low-quality and *had* watermarks! I just don't understand what I could have possibly done wrong!
Besides, $50 for a CD? I buy them for $20 for 100 CD's. Can I just give you a blank CD and you can copy the photos onto it for me? I don't need the fancy expensive blank CD's you use... Then.. I can use Walmart to print the pictures--or my home inkjet... But.. How do I get rid of that watermark??
Question.. I tried to order from that site, and I just can't figure it out. I mean, you have "Directory".. I tried to change it from some strange words to "No, my phone number isn't listed" and it didn't work. Then, I tried to click the print button in my browser, and even though it says that the printed images don't have watermarks, what came out of my printer was low-quality and *had* watermarks! I just don't understand what I could have possibly done wrong!
Besides, $50 for a CD? I buy them for $20 for 100 CD's. Can I just give you a blank CD and you can copy the photos onto it for me? I don't need the fancy expensive blank CD's you use... Then.. I can use Walmart to print the pictures--or my home inkjet... But.. How do I get rid of that watermark??
So you want a gallery within a gallery? Can you explain why exactly you want that and how it's not handled properly with categories and subcategories?
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 am an event photographer weddings and such and need sub galleries!
I need this to be easy for my clients. They should be able to log into their event and sort through their photos by each category of their wedding.
Is this possible on smugmug? Every company I used before smugmug had this option (since 2001) If not I will have to leave smugmug asap and go back to other online vendors.
I need this to be easy for my clients. They should be able to log into their event and sort through their photos by each category of their wedding.
Is this possible on smugmug? Every company I used before smugmug had this option (since 2001) If not I will have to leave smugmug asap and go back to other online vendors.
I need this to be easy for my clients. They should be able to log into their event and sort through their photos by each category of their wedding.
Is this possible on smugmug? Every company I used before smugmug had this option (since 2001) If not I will have to leave smugmug asap and go back to other online vendors.
To be a little more specific, you could set up this structure on Smugmug:
Weddings (category)
....Jones Wedding (sub-category)
........Ceremony (gallery with 250 photos)
........Portraits (gallery with 500 photos)
........Dancing (gallery with 250 photos)
........Reception (gallery with 1000 photos)
This will give you a "Jones Wedding" page (the sub-category page) that has the four gallery thumbs on it.
You can create categories and sub-categories either in the control panel or in the UI for creating a new gallery.
The categories and sub-categories will not show on your homepage until you put a gallery in them. Galleries are then assigned a category and (optionally) a sub-category when you create them or in the customize gallery screen.
Note that I put back links in the gallery description area of the sub gallery so the visitor can go back to the main gallery. You could also include links to the other sub galleries.
It's a little bit more work but it does serve the purpose well.
I'd like to create two galleries with the same photos but with different rules applying to the galleries.
Scenario: I've password protected a gallery clients can use to buy photos. I'd like to create the same gallery with no password but shopping cart and photo downloads switched off.
How can I do this?
Some of the things I'd want to do is preserve the photo ordering etc.
I'd like to create two galleries with the same photos but with different rules applying to the galleries.
Scenario: I've password protected a gallery clients can use to buy photos. I'd like to create the same gallery with no password but shopping cart and photo downloads switched off.
How can I do this?
Some of the things I'd want to do is preserve the photo ordering etc.
Working on it... stay tuned it's hopefully not too far off!
Comments
You'd still want to organize your photos somewhat logically before you start moving them around virtually.
AMEN!
This has always been my exact dilemma, and even one more level of depth would solve a ton of my problems....especially being able to break out years as you've exampled above.
I've come very close to simply purchasing extra PRO accounts too, although frankly don't see why I should have to pay double or triple for such a thing.
*sigh*
DigitalTheta.com
Create html gallery showing all sport thumbs. Swimming, baseball, football, etc.
As an example pick swimming thumb and it links to this page.
Create html gallery showing all team thumbs. Team1, team2, etc.
As an example pick team1 thumb and it links to this page.
Create html gallery showing all year thumbs. 2009, 2008, etc.
As an example pick 2008 thumb and it links to this page.
/category/Swimming_team1_2008
At this point you start your three levels.
Swimming_team1_2008 -> Tournament with Date -> Individual Competitor
Holler back if you want to try this and I'll help you set it up.
Take a look here for an example, only two pages to the category but will
give you an idea of how to do it.
You could also do this with a dropdown navbar. Once clicked on year which is a category you have three levels.
Sports << main navbar button Swimming << drop (no link) Team1 << drop flyout (no link) 2009 << drop flyout flyout (category link Swimming_Team1_2009) 2008 << drop flyout flyout (category link Swimming_Team1_2008) Team2 << drop flyout (no link) 2009 << drop flyout flyout (category link Swimming_Team2_2009) 2008 << drop flyout flyout (category link Swimming_Team2_2008) Baseball << drop (no link) Team1 (no link) 2009 (category link Baseball_Team1_2009) 2008 (category link Baseball_Team1_2008) Team2 (no link)My Website index | My Blog
That's a lot of HTML creation, Allen. While it is *possible* to work around two levels of hierarchy, let's be clear: It's a work-around, a kludge, an inelegant hack.
For me, one of SmugMug's strengths is its elegant interface for viewers. And to a lesser degree, for photographers/customers. (Although um, hello - drop-down menus?)
At any rate, if you're going to be hacking HTML pages yourself, you're just a small step away from just generating your gallery pages with Adobe Photoshop export or some such and using any old generic webhosting provider. You also wouldn't be limited to working within the confines of SmugMug's CSS and Javascript structures.
I think the point here is that we don't all want to become HTML/CSS/Javascript experts just to add a little more organization to our photo galleries.
Attached is the current organization of my son's site (cut and pasted from Nitrodesk)...
The problem? New school year coming up.
Ideally I could create a 2007-2008 Category and simply drop Events, Portraits, and all of the Teacher's Classes into that new "archive" category, retaining the subcategories.
Then I would want to be able to have new Events, Portraits and Teachers categories at the top level for this current schoolyear.
I know lots of people want this. I just wanted to post a nice picture, ok? Also, Nitrodesk rocks!
Hey Darryl, I'm working on expanding our category/subcategory features, and this thread is rich with suggestions.
So if I read this right, you'd want to create a new archive category and move subcategories to it. Then in the "current" category you'd then recreate all the subcategories? Or are you looking for it to keep the original structure while moving the galleries around?
Hi Balmer -- you're new, right? :-}
I'd want to create 2007-2008, move the original structure (cats and subcats) under it, and recreate the original structure a the top level.
See attached. (Oh man, my wife is lucky to still be sleeping, because if I showed her my awful MSPAINT-job, she'd have nightmares. She actually does professional work w/ Photoshop, so my mock-up is shameful. :-)
Yup, you totally win at "spot the new sorcerer".
As for your point, we're just talking a structure move, or copy the galleries as well? Just want to be clear, my head is swimming with feature requests which sound similar but prove to be different in subtle little ways.
Ideally, my last screenshot would be the result of:
1) Creating top-level 2007-2008 category
2) Dragging and dropping Portraits, Teacher * Class, Events into the 2007-2008, and having all subcategories and galleries move into that folder.
3) Recreating "empty" categories and subcategories at the top level for Portraits, Teacher * Class, Events, et al.
This way we'd start the new year off "fresh", but the old photos would still be archived.
In my dream implementation, the top-level 2007-2008 category could be made into a Sharegroup with all of the levels below it intact. This would allow "alumni" to still view images from their year, without seeing all of the photos of the current class. But that's pie in the sky stuff. :-}
Got it.
If not, then at the very least, the ability to select pictures (like the watermark option) and copy them to a new or existing gallery.:D The move image tool is tedious at best. If I want to move 30 pics, I have to select each gallery individually. Not very efficient.
Didn't we used to have this tool?
Speaking of which...I have a few subcategories that, for the moment, only have one gallery. It would be great if there was a way to have it automatically bypass any level where there's only one option.
Photos - still under construction, suggestions welcome
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Multi-level, nested galleries.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
That's great! I was going to go with SmugMug for my photo galleries, but decided on Zenfolio for this reason alone. SmugMug implementing an n-deep hierarchical gallery/subgallery structure would definitely make me reconsider.
if i had that option, i'd do ALLL my photo stuff on smugmug... but since smugmug doesn't offer that, i can't...
here's my DIR structure on my main photo website as an example of why allowing sub>sub>sub>sub galleries (or whatever you're after) would be awesome... ESPECIALLY if smugmug could retain the DIR structure during upload...OMG my life would be some much easier!
linky: http://4theriders.com/viewpics.php?loc=/pics/
EDIT// often my DIRS look like this: 4theriders.com/viewpics.php?loc=/pics/trackdays/2008/12.06.08-infineon/SUNDAY/_MISC/
that's six dirs deep!
I think most people's issues stem from trying to be too general with descriptions.
There's really no functional difference in having Sports --> 2008 --> Sport --> Team --> Game --> Player
Than having Sports --> 2008 Football --> Team A vs Team B (date) and using keywords to help locate the team or players
having been in this biz for 3 years, full time, as my ONLY job, trust me when i say it IS practical to have people seperated out... mainly for the reason that people don't like to hunt for themselves...having them already seperated out also eliminates one more step for the customer, whom i'm catering to. plus, you'd be surprised at how many people have trouble ordering off my 4theriders.com website when i simply cannot fathom how it could be made ANY simpler...
"K.I.S.S."
keywords are NOT simple for a lot of users.
EDIT// seriously...does it get any easier than this? http://www.4theriders.com/viewpics.php?loc=/pics/trackdays/2008/12.06.08-infineon/SATURDAY/BLAISE/
Besides, $50 for a CD? I buy them for $20 for 100 CD's. Can I just give you a blank CD and you can copy the photos onto it for me? I don't need the fancy expensive blank CD's you use... Then.. I can use Walmart to print the pictures--or my home inkjet... But.. How do I get rid of that watermark??
David - tongue firmly pressed into cheek
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
I am an event photographer weddings and such and need sub galleries!
example
Jones Wedding (2000 photos uploaded)
(jones) ceremony (250 photos)
(jones) portraits (500 photos)
(jones) dancing (250 photos)
(jones) reception (1000 photos)
etc
I need this to be easy for my clients. They should be able to log into their event and sort through their photos by each category of their wedding.
Is this possible on smugmug? Every company I used before smugmug had this option (since 2001) If not I will have to leave smugmug asap and go back to other online vendors.
We hope to have more and different options in the not so distant future
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
To be a little more specific, you could set up this structure on Smugmug:
Weddings (category)
....Jones Wedding (sub-category)
........Ceremony (gallery with 250 photos)
........Portraits (gallery with 500 photos)
........Dancing (gallery with 250 photos)
........Reception (gallery with 1000 photos)
This will give you a "Jones Wedding" page (the sub-category page) that has the four gallery thumbs on it.
You can create categories and sub-categories either in the control panel or in the UI for creating a new gallery.
The categories and sub-categories will not show on your homepage until you put a gallery in them. Galleries are then assigned a category and (optionally) a sub-category when you create them or in the customize gallery screen.
Homepage • Popular
JFriend's javascript customizations • Secrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
Always include a link to your site when posting a question
Examples are here and here.
Note that I put back links in the gallery description area of the sub gallery so the visitor can go back to the main gallery. You could also include links to the other sub galleries.
It's a little bit more work but it does serve the purpose well.
Hope this helps some.
www.socalimages.com
Artistically & Creatively Challenged
Hi,
I'd like to create two galleries with the same photos but with different rules applying to the galleries.
Scenario: I've password protected a gallery clients can use to buy photos. I'd like to create the same gallery with no password but shopping cart and photo downloads switched off.
How can I do this?
Some of the things I'd want to do is preserve the photo ordering etc.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Any update on the topic of subfolders?