Improvements to SmugMug's default theme

Baldy

Hi Everyone,

We made some improvements to our default theme that we've been testing for a few weeks. You'd see the changes on your homepage and gallery pages if you don't use some other theme, or if you have no customization.

They were driven by customer feedback and I get the feeling they will please most people and not be noticed by the rest. But if we're inadvertently causing some of you to curl in the fetal position, we'd love to know so we can do something about it.

Here's what the default current home page looks like:



And here's what the new default would look like:



You can see them both side-by-side here:

http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/4742293_Wz6Ad#280944474_x2Jms

Baldy

Here's what galleries would look like:






Side-by-side.

Baldy

Here's what it looks like on a live site:

http://andytest1.smugmug.com

and

http://andytest1.smugmug.com/gallery/4617894_Sct6R#272409799_GMko5

Caveat: SmugMug style only on that site.

Baldy

The main changes are:

1. More readable & sexy fonts.

2. Background not jet black.

3. Less green.

4. Caps where there were once lower-case words. That will affect you even if you customize. We know some people love lower case but our user tests showed it was a readability thing.

5. If you customize, and have done so via your CSS box, or via a custom theme, you'll see no changes to your customizing.

6. If you have customized, using say a black banner, and you've done it with HTML in your header box, and you have no CSS in your CSS box, you'll get the new background color (it's not pure black).. and so if you had a black background in your header, it wouldn't blend in:



There are a number of ways to address this, and we'll be happy to assist. Anything from a few clicks to change your default theme, or, helping you to make a new banner that matches if you like.


Your thoughts.

cRAsH

I don't think I would have been able to tell the difference if you hadn't pointed them out.

hotmama

Dig it. I was sort of getting tired of the green text. Nice change.

-Liz

Allen

This latest change might have induced a width problem with #albumNav_top.

I've checked 10 random sites and the page nav and photo nav line wraps
to two lines. Using Firefox. The photo nav ends up under the page nav. A
slight browser width change and it unwraps.

Happens on every color theme here except gray and white.

Andy

Allen wrote:

This latest change might have induced a width problem with #albumNav_top.

I've checked 10 random sites and the page nav and photo nav line wraps
to two lines. Using Firefox. The photo nav ends up under the page nav. A
slight browser width change and it unwraps.

Happens on every color theme here except gray and white.

Al, that's a separate bug, this stuff's not live
We've fixed that bug internally and will have it out on the live site as soon as we can.

Shoganai

Hello, I'm Gwen

I miss the green. :cry

To me it was 'Smugmug Green' like '3M Blue' or 'KTM Orange'.

The color alone was enough to make me think 'Smugmug'. Like team colors, how many of you might see orange and purple next to each other and think "Clemson Tigers"?

Frankly, I think it's a mistake to drop the 'Smugmug Green'

Loadedagain

looks good to me... deathe to green! gawd i hate caps... but i can live with them if someone else types them.

Mike Lane

Loadedagain wrote:

gawd i hate caps... but i can live with them if someone else types them.

I'm your man. power or pro smuggers can easily go back to lowercase by putting in text-transform:lowercase; into their CSS (need a selector of course). Eg.

body {text-transform:lowercase;}

That works better than us putting text-transform:capitalize; since that makes all the words capitalized (of, the, a, etc.) which looks dumb.

NWMtnGuy

Go-Live Date?
When will the change go live?

Dale

Andy

NWMtnGuy wrote:

When will the change go live?

Dale

Soon, we hope

We never give exact dates, and rarely pre-announce, but in this case wanted feedback - what's yours

Allen

Andy wrote:

Soon, we hope

We never give exact dates, and rarely pre-announce, but in this case wanted feedback - what's yours

If I could compare the examples posted might do that. But they are super
sized for really large monitors and very difficult to compare.:D

Andy

Allen wrote:

If I could compare the examples posted might do that. But they are super
sized for really large monitors and very difficult to compare.:D

go look on andytest1.smugmug.com

Mike Lane

Allen, or try here: http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/4742293_Wz6Ad#280944474_x2Jms-A-LB

Allen

Mike Lane wrote:

Allen, or try here: http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/4742293_Wz6Ad#280944474_x2Jms-A-LB

Thanks, makes it real easy to see the differences.
But but but that big face is still green.:D

DrDavid

I really love the Smugmug Gradient theme--as is. I guess I can use the Grey Gradient, but, please.. Leave the Smugmug Gradient (as is) at LEAST as an option to choose the original green smugmug text, etc..

Yes, I can make my own theme with it, but, this it's a lot easier for you to change the default (if you must) and keep the SM Gradient theme (as it is now) as an option to select. Please?

David

DrDavid

DrDavid wrote:

I really love the Smugmug Gradient theme--as is. I guess I can use the Grey Gradient, but, please.. Leave the Smugmug Gradient (as is) at LEAST as an option to choose the original green smugmug text, etc..

Yes, I can make my own theme with it, but, this it's a lot easier for you to change the default (if you must) and keep the SM Gradient theme (as it is now) as an option to select. Please?

David

Am I being an idiot? Is "Default" not Smugmug Gradient?

David

NWMtnGuy

Andy wrote:

Soon, we hope

We never give exact dates, and rarely pre-announce, but in this case wanted feedback - what's yours

Overall I like the new "default" look. The lack of green is easier on the eyes, though I realize some users probably like it. Will you leave the current default theme available as a selectable option?

I guess one thing that's always bothered me about SmugMug themes is that they all include a box/frame that surrounds each section (sometimes gradient, sometimes not, but there always seems to be a box). My personal feeling is that many pages would look a lot neater if sections of the page - i.e. galleries, bio, etc. - weren't all surrounded by frames/boxes and instead just floated over the background. Hope that makes sense.

Dale

Andy

DrDavid wrote:

Am I being an idiot? Is "Default" not Smugmug Gradient?

David

Default, is SmugMug Gradient right now, yes.

Luc De Jaeger

The changes are quite good imho, except that it's a bit too grey, too flat and 'colorless' now. The green gave some color to the default. Perhaps it's possible to let the account holder select a color (red, green, grey, white,...) to give some color to the site if desired.

Luc

Andy

Bump

jfriend

Too many font sizes?
The changes look like definite improvements.

When I go to the andytest site, I see an issue with the font on the "This is My: Friend Family" wording. I see this in Firefox and IE, but not in Safari (perhaps because I'm not logged in with Safari). It seems oddly spaced, small and different than "Andy's Home" which makes it look out of place.

In general, I'm wondering if you want this many different font sizes/weights/styles going on the same page (perhaps as many as 8 or 9). It appears that every one of these is a different font size/style combination. This seems like too many different ones. Wouldn't it be better to pick 3 and make everything one of those.

• Your Photos | Logout | Help
• Andy's Home
• This is My:
• Friend Family
• Featured Galleries
• Gallery1 Title
• Gallery1 description
• Updated: Mar. 30 ...

See this screen shot:

Andy

jfriend wrote:

The changes look like definite improvements.

When I go to the andytest site, I see an issue with the font on the "This is My: Friend Family" wording. I see this in Firefox and IE, but not in Safari (perhaps because I'm not logged in with Safari). It seems oddly spaced, small and different than "Andy's Home" which makes it look out of place.

Great feedback, John - that's definitely something we missed We'll get that fixed - the intention here isn't to undo things like this that already work just fine on the current default theme.

Thanks again!

Mike Lane

126.5% (?!?!?), 14px, 12px, 11px, oh my!

We'll get to a more sensible place. For now, headers are 18px, most body copy is 14px (with emphasis either using bold, italics, underlines, etc), and other stuff that should be a bit more out of the way is 12px (you may not be able to see these changes yet). We'll worry about getting yui fonts set up sometime later (though it won't affect how the page looks much compared to rightnow unless you use your browser to resize your text).

scwalter

Mike Lane wrote:

126.5% (?!?!?), 14px, 12px, 11px, oh my!

We'll get to a more sensible place. For now, headers are 18px, most body copy is 14px (with emphasis either using bold, italics, underlines, etc), and other stuff that should be a bit more out of the way is 12px (you may not be able to see these changes yet). We'll worry about getting yui fonts set up sometime later (though it won't affect how the page looks much compared to rightnow unless you use your browser to resize your text).

Pixels vs. Points vs. EM

I was recently wondering whether to use pixels or points for my CSS and a google search turned up many pages that said using em is the best because it scales best, mainly in IE but FF seems to also scale pixel fonts. Some of the information was pretty old though, is this still a valid concern with modern browsers? Should smugmug be using ems?

-Scott

Mike Lane

scwalter wrote:

Pixels vs. Points vs. EM

I was recently wondering whether to use pixels or points for my CSS and a google search turned up many pages that said using em is the best because it scales best, mainly in IE but FF seems to also scale pixel fonts. Some of the information was pretty old though, is this still a valid concern with modern browsers? Should smugmug be using ems?

-Scott

We'll be going to %-based fonts eventually. Check out the yui fonts to see how it'll end up. You're right, px-based fonts aren't super, but they'll work for now.

NWMtnGuy

Just a thought...

Have you guys ever considered implementing a "SmugMug Theme Builder" utility? Right now a user has the choice of choosing one of the pre-designed themes or having to wade into HTML or CSS to make significant changes. As an inexperienced web designer I have spent hours just trying to change something like the color of a background or font.

On the other hand, you could add a tab within the control panel for a "SmugMug Theme Builder" that would allow a user to quickly create a custom theme using pull-down menus. For example, you could have a list of all the different categories of text that appear on a SmugMug page and for each one a user could select the color, size, and font from pull-down menus. Same thing with colors - list all the different elements of the page that have colors or gradients, and for each one let the user choose their desired color/gradient.

You could even get really fancy and provide the ability to turn page elements on and off with simple check boxes. For example "Display horizontal lines", "Display Breadcrumbs", "Display Buy Photos buttons", etc.

This approach would seem to be a win-win solution: Users could quickly and easily design themes to meet their needs, and the SmugMug staff would spend a lot less time answering forum questions from people trying to modify themes.

I should probably post this in Feature Requests, but it seems relevant to this discussion.

Dale

Andy

NWMtnGuy wrote:

Just a thought...

Have you guys ever considered implementing a "SmugMug Theme Builder"

It's a very good idea

Andy

Bump