SmugMug dealbreaker

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  • GloriousnseGloriousnse Registered Users Posts: 29 Big grins
    edited April 28, 2011
    First up, this is not at all a "deal-breaker" personally, i'm loving Smugmug, especially compared to my previous photo host (to whom the concept of "support" was totally alien, you may think i'm exagerating there but i'm *really* not!)

    But one bit where I think that Zenfolio works better (but maybe as a consequence doesn't come off looking so nice - personal opinion) is in integrating the different levels of the heirarchy into a seamless structure.

    I'm a rail enthusiast and my "audience" varies between model makers, virtual 3d modellers, "general" hobbyists and occasionally commercial users trying to find/research specific images, from that viewpoint the heirarchical structure is very useful and works well for that kind of browsing. I've tried to include a variety of ways of viewing the site to hopefully let any user find their own most logical way of using it.

    I've a couple of situations where it's not ideal for my needs though.

    Example 1: http://ukrailwaypics.smugmug.com/UKRailwayPics-1
    First Great Western is my local company and so not surprisingly I tend to have lots of shots of their trains - I felt I needed to split that down to end up with galleries of a manageable size so created FGW as a sub-category not as a gallery like the rest of them are - but unfortunately on Smugmug that means it stands alone up at the top rather than being part of the rest of the content.
    I *think* on Zenfolio it could be up sorted into the other content and to the user it would be seamless, they would see all gallery/sub categories together regardless and you would just get another level of choices when you click if it was the latter? The only way I can see of correcting that and getting them all back together whilst retaining the sub-categories for FGW would be to put all the other ones as sub-categories as well which would mean inflicting an extra click on them for no reward.

    Example 2: http://ukrailwaypics.smugmug.com/Allinthedetails/DMUs contains just galleries of detail images, supplemented using the smart gallery feature with general shots - these detail images are of interest to the "model maker" and "3d modeller" parts of my audience but are very seldom of interest to other browsers so ideally I don't want them cluttering up the galleries listed in example 1 - my current solution is that these sit here on their own separate heirarchy out of the way but obviously that also means they are harder to find for those that would use them.
    A "sub gallery" level of heirarchy would allow me to bury the detail images of things at a deeper level within the existing gallery page - again this is something which it seems you can do with Zenfolio?

    So summing up my ideal variance from the current setup would be:

    1. Whatever the structure, the different heirarchy levels should work together not separately as they do now if you decide to mix them.
    2. Based on the above, a sub-gallery option to allow you to "bury" additional images amidst the general photo's inside a gallery would keep the clutter down whilst keeping all the content on the same easy to use/easy to find/easy to understand heirarchy.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited April 28, 2011
    First up, this is not at all a "deal-breaker" personally, i'm loving Smugmug, especially compared to my previous photo host (to whom the concept of "support" was totally alien, you may think i'm exagerating there but i'm *really* not!)

    But one bit where I think that Zenfolio works better (but maybe as a consequence doesn't come off looking so nice - personal opinion) is in integrating the different levels of the heirarchy into a seamless structure.

    I'm a rail enthusiast and my "audience" varies between model makers, virtual 3d modellers, "general" hobbyists and occasionally commercial users trying to find/research specific images, from that viewpoint the heirarchical structure is very useful and works well for that kind of browsing. I've tried to include a variety of ways of viewing the site to hopefully let any user find their own most logical way of using it.

    I've a couple of situations where it's not ideal for my needs though.

    Example 1: http://ukrailwaypics.smugmug.com/UKRailwayPics-1
    First Great Western is my local company and so not surprisingly I tend to have lots of shots of their trains - I felt I needed to split that down to end up with galleries of a manageable size so created FGW as a sub-category not as a gallery like the rest of them are - but unfortunately on Smugmug that means it stands alone up at the top rather than being part of the rest of the content.
    I *think* on Zenfolio it could be up sorted into the other content and to the user it would be seamless, they would see all gallery/sub categories together regardless and you would just get another level of choices when you click if it was the latter? The only way I can see of correcting that and getting them all back together whilst retaining the sub-categories for FGW would be to put all the other ones as sub-categories as well which would mean inflicting an extra click on them for no reward.

    Example 2: http://ukrailwaypics.smugmug.com/Allinthedetails/DMUs contains just galleries of detail images, supplemented using the smart gallery feature with general shots - these detail images are of interest to the "model maker" and "3d modeller" parts of my audience but are very seldom of interest to other browsers so ideally I don't want them cluttering up the galleries listed in example 1 - my current solution is that these sit here on their own separate heirarchy out of the way but obviously that also means they are harder to find for those that would use them.
    A "sub gallery" level of heirarchy would allow me to bury the detail images of things at a deeper level within the existing gallery page - again this is something which it seems you can do with Zenfolio?

    So summing up my ideal variance from the current setup would be:

    1. Whatever the structure, the different heirarchy levels should work together not separately as they do now if you decide to mix them.
    2. Based on the above, a sub-gallery option to allow you to "bury" additional images amidst the general photo's inside a gallery would keep the clutter down whilst keeping all the content on the same easy to use/easy to find/easy to understand heirarchy.
    Two possible work-arounds for you:
    1. Customization number 6 on this page will allow you to combine your sub-category thumbnails with your category thumbnails into one seamless box on the page. It doesn't allow you to specify the sort order, but it does combine them together.
    2. To create part of the effect of a sub-gallery, you can put a comment in the gallery description of the main that contains text and a link to your gallery of detail images where they are located now. That will at least make it easy for those who are interested in them to know they exist and to get to them without forcing any changes to your hierarchy.
    --John
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  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited April 28, 2011
    Here's an example of what John's describing in #2, in one of my galleries. I photographed a friend's redbud trees, but wanted to provide a link to another gallery with that same friend's other flower images. So I put a link to the 2nd gallery in the description: http://annalisa.smugmug.com/gallery/4869719_QiGkQ#290255190_J7TMB I've done a lot of this. Also, in case it helps you, an additional hierarchy step is in the works here. There are also some nifty things you can do now with collected photos or smart galleries (virtual galleries). I've duplicated some of my galleries virtually, making it easier to have them appear in either two completely different categories or even two hierarchy levels. I'll see if I can find a thread where I've explained this, with examples. [ETA: Here's the thread. It has a couple different ideas. I'm not sure if they'll help your situation, but see what you think. http://www.digitalgrin.com/showthread.php?t=193497 ] --Anna Lisa
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • GloriousnseGloriousnse Registered Users Posts: 29 Big grins
    edited April 28, 2011
    John/Anna Lisa, thanks for those, the solution to #1 is great, the sorting is the only downside, but for the places it's being used that's not a huge issue for me. clap.gif

    I need to have a play as I still seem to have the empty top box left over as well, it probably means i've copied something wrong somewhere so i'll have a play and try and re-copy stuff over the weekend and see if I can fix it.

    The second fix is nowhere near as nice looking but you're right it does solve the functionality problem of folk finding that detailed content if they want it, sounds like a good way to go for the time being until we see what the revised version looks like.

    Gorgeous tree blossom as well Anna Lisa thumb.gif

    Thanks again!
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited April 28, 2011
    John/Anna Lisa, thanks for those, the solution to #1 is great, the sorting is the only downside, but for the places it's being used that's not a huge issue for me. clap.gif

    I need to have a play as I still seem to have the empty top box left over as well, it probably means i've copied something wrong somewhere so i'll have a play and try and re-copy stuff over the weekend and see if I can fix it.

    The second fix is nowhere near as nice looking but you're right it does solve the functionality problem of folk finding that detailed content if they want it, sounds like a good way to go for the time being until we see what the revised version looks like.

    Gorgeous tree blossom as well Anna Lisa thumb.gif

    Thanks again!
    If you use actual HTML links (clickable text), then it looks nicer than showing the entire URL in the gallery description.

    If the empty box is showing, then you're probably missing the CSS that hides that box or you have errors in your CSS that are preventing it from working.
    --John
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  • GloriousnseGloriousnse Registered Users Posts: 29 Big grins
    edited April 28, 2011
    Thanks John, i'd somehow managed to copy the first part of the coding in the bottom box twice, once i'd corrected that it worked fine. Hadn't realised you could use html in the links as well, much neater!
  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    jfriend wrote: »
    If you use actual HTML links (clickable text), then it looks nicer than showing the entire URL in the gallery description.

    If the empty box is showing, then you're probably missing the CSS that hides that box or you have errors in your CSS that are preventing it from working.
    Thanks for the reminder. Mine are all messy. I must re-teach myself how to make the tidy links. Just can't seem to keep that stuff in my head when I don't use it every week. Aargh. I know it's simple. Guess I should post sticky-notes on my computer for awhile 'til it stays in my head.
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    Thanks for the reminder. Mine are all messy. I must re-teach myself how to make the tidy links. Just can't seem to keep that stuff in my head when I don't use it every week. Aargh. I know it's simple. Guess I should post sticky-notes on my computer for awhile 'til it stays in my head.
    This one is pretty easy.

    <a href="xxx">Click here</a>
    --John
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  • GloriousnseGloriousnse Registered Users Posts: 29 Big grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    Just can't seem to keep that stuff in my head when I don't use it every week.

    Laughing.gif - same here, I had to look it up in "HTML for dummies" :D
  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    Laughing.gif - same here, I had to look it up in "HTML for dummies" :D
    It's ridiculous. I literally have books-ful of numbers I remember effortlessly: Phone #s, card #s, licenses, college IDs, SS, bank routing & acct #s... you name it, all in my head w/o even trying. (not prices though, unfortunately!) I think it almost scares my spouse-- I don't even like numbers, but there they are. Spelling is a very strong suit too-- I just see it in my head. And I could play Celtic tunes all night long from memory & not run my head dry of fiddle fingerings. Yet I can barely remember any bits of Html to save my life. Brains are weird.

    I'm not sure what I'm putting in the "xxx" , however, and what I'm putting in the Click here spots. If I were fixing the example I'd given, of that flower gallery, would I put "http://annalisa.smugmug.com/gallery/...90255190_J7TMB" in place of the "xxx" and Flower gallery (or whatever I wanna call the link) in place of the Click here ?? Well, yeah, I know... I could just go try it!
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    It's ridiculous. I literally have books-ful of numbers I remember effortlessly: Phone #s, card #s, licenses, college IDs, SS, bank routing & acct #s... you name it, all in my head w/o even trying. (not prices though, unfortunately!) I think it almost scares my spouse-- I don't even like numbers, but there they are. Spelling is a very strong suit too-- I just see it in my head. And I could play Celtic tunes all night long from memory & not run my head dry of fiddle fingerings. Yet I can barely remember any bits of Html to save my life. Brains are weird.

    I'm not sure what I'm putting in the "xxx" , however, and what I'm putting in the Click here spots. If I were fixing the example I'd given, of that flower gallery, would I put "http://annalisa.smugmug.com/gallery/...90255190_J7TMB" in place of the "xxx" and Flower gallery (or whatever I wanna call the link) in place of the Click here ?? Well, yeah, I know... I could just go try it!
    xxx is the link you want the click to go to. "Click Here" is the text you want to show.
    --John
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  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    It's ridiculous. I literally have books-ful of numbers I remember effortlessly: Phone #s, card #s, licenses, college IDs, SS, bank routing & acct #s... you name it, all in my head w/o even trying. (not prices though, unfortunately!) I think it almost scares my spouse-- I don't even like numbers, but there they are. Spelling is a very strong suit too-- I just see it in my head. And I could play Celtic tunes all night long from memory & not run my head dry of fiddle fingerings. Yet I can barely remember any bits of Html to save my life. Brains are weird.

    I'm not sure what I'm putting in the "xxx" , however, and what I'm putting in the Click here spots. If I were fixing the example I'd given, of that flower gallery, would I put "http://annalisa.smugmug.com/gallery/...90255190_J7TMB" in place of the "xxx" and Flower gallery (or whatever I wanna call the link) in place of the Click here ?? Well, yeah, I know... I could just go try it!

    We have a great HTML-Help page right here :)
    http://www.smugmug.com/help/html-help
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    Andy wrote: »
    We have a great HTML-Help page right here :)
    http://www.smugmug.com/help/html-help
    You know Andy, you really ought to remove the clickable link to one's email address from that page. That is not a recommended practice because it's delicious for SPAM harvesters and it doesn't work with lots of types of email accounts.
    --John
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  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    jfriend wrote: »
    You know Andy, you really ought to remove the clickable link to your email address from that page. That is not a recommended practice because it's delicious for SPAM harvesters and it doesn't work with lots of types of email accounts.

    Many want the basics - and if they want the advanced tricks, they can look here: http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq and we give the link to Dgrin for more tricks.
  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    jfriend wrote: »
    xxx is the link you want the click to go to. "Click Here" is the text you want to show.
    Thanks, John. I just used this on a new blog post. Much much better. Will have to work on my galleries another time. Andy, I completely forgot we had html help here. And on the email thing, I think John was talking about your own email link.
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited April 29, 2011
    Andy wrote: »
    Many want the basics - and if they want the advanced tricks, they can look here: http://www.smugmug.com/help/customize-faq and we give the link to Dgrin for more tricks.
    We tell them here in the forum that mailto:xxxx@domain.com is a bad practice and you shouldn't do it both because it won't work reliably and because it feeds your email address to SPAM harvesters. But, your web page advises them to do that. Do you think it's a good idea to suggest that to newbie HTML folks? I don't.
    --John
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  • larrytxeastlarrytxeast Registered Users Posts: 34 Big grins
    edited December 8, 2011
    I just found this thread. I only had (and I mean "had") a SmugMug trial account, probably 4-5 years ago. I went to actually use it, and it was gone, but it was gone because I hadn't used it for that entire time.

    The reason? Because of the lack of sub-galleries feature.

    I am glad to hear it's about to be added, my response--about freaking time. To me, I don't care that my site is part of SmugMug so much as that it's MY SITE. If I want subgalleries, I ought to be able to have them, period. I don't care what anyone thinks, it's MY SITE and that's how I want it.

    I take photos of kids sometimes, and I've done some "portraits" lately (I'm using that word loosely), and I like to have it as portraits/kids/name of kid. I don't want to have to lump in all of the photos of John, Jane and Linda in 1 big gallery without the ability to subdivide them by name. Further, I don't want those children photos all mixed in with photos of adults.

    Yes, it's nice for a browser to be able to just click "portraits" and see a sampling of all I've done, but if I'm wanting to be able to set it up for sub-category browsing via subgalleries, that most certainly should be my choice. I could give a rip what someone thinks of "click-wait" or whatever.

    If this has been added or is about to be, good. Otherwise, I've been with PBase since 2004 and have no interest in leaving them if this continues. I'm looking for a change, but I'm looking for it to be MY WAY just the same.

    LRH
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited December 8, 2011
    I just found this thread. I only had (and I mean "had") a SmugMug trial account, probably 4-5 years ago. I went to actually use it, and it was gone, but it was gone because I hadn't used it for that entire time.

    The reason? Because of the lack of sub-galleries feature.

    I am glad to hear it's about to be added, my response--about freaking time. To me, I don't care that my site is part of SmugMug so much as that it's MY SITE. If I want subgalleries, I ought to be able to have them, period. I don't care what anyone thinks, it's MY SITE and that's how I want it.

    I take photos of kids sometimes, and I've done some "portraits" lately (I'm using that word loosely), and I like to have it as portraits/kids/name of kid. I don't want to have to lump in all of the photos of John, Jane and Linda in 1 big gallery without the ability to subdivide them by name. Further, I don't want those children photos all mixed in with photos of adults.

    Yes, it's nice for a browser to be able to just click "portraits" and see a sampling of all I've done, but if I'm wanting to be able to set it up for sub-category browsing via subgalleries, that most certainly should be my choice. I could give a rip what someone thinks of "click-wait" or whatever.

    If this has been added or is about to be, good. Otherwise, I've been with PBase since 2004 and have no interest in leaving them if this continues. I'm looking for a change, but I'm looking for it to be MY WAY just the same.

    LRH
    Just to be clear here, Smugmug already has three levels of categorization. They will be adding more soon, but you can already do Portraits/Kids/John. Portraits would be a category. Kids would be a sub-category and John would be the gallery containing the images of the particular child. What you cannot currently do is Portraits/Family/Kids/John.

    Personally, I find that when you're really optimizing your site for your viewers (quickest for viewers to find things and fewest clicks to get there), one very rarely needs more than the number of levels Smugmug has now and many people who want it now want it more because it fits their sense of order and organization rather than it's really the optimal way of finding and navigating. But, there will be more levels soon so people can go as deep as they want.
    --John
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  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited December 9, 2011
    stuartb wrote: »
    I wish this was true.

    However, it is worth mentioning at this point that no matter what customization tricks you do to 'hide' stuff on Smugmug, by sticking the word 'iphone' at the end
    http://nickname.smugmug.com/iphone
    then ALL your public galleries are visible to the world. No URL-guessing required.
    It would be nice of course if there were the option to disable the iphone pages 'feature' but until then you are going to have to individually 'password' and/or 'unlist' all the galleries you want complete control of.
    There is an option to disable the mobile site in the settings tab of the control panel.

    That said, all public images and galleries are available via the Smugmug API at any time. If you want something to be non-public, you have to make it non-public using official Smugmug features such as unlisted or password protected. If it's unlisted, it will not be available in the API unless the inquirer uses your login credentials with the API. If it's password protected, it will not be available via the API without the password.
    --John
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