Smugmug UI polish ideas

jfriend · May 4, 2008

I thought I would start a thread where we could keep a list of Smugmug UI polish things that it would be nice to see. A "polish" item is generally not a site misfunction or a serious bug or even really a new feature request, but something that could just work better than it does.

Pieces of software or web-sites with great polish just feel more enjoyable to work with than ones that don't have as much polish. Smugmug does many polish things right, but is still missing many others. Polish items are items that rarely would ever get strictly prioritized above other new feature requests because by themselves or looked at one at a time, they never seem all that important. But if you are missing enough of them, your site just starts to feel less desirable and if you are great at polish items, the site just feels slick. This is one of the things that Apple is good at.

Here's a couple things I ran into today that I think could be better. Feel free to add your own responses to this thread with your own "polish" items. Here are my first few:

Rearrange doesn't - sometimes. My gallery is set to sort by filename. I decide that I'd like to put a different picture as the first item. I click the "rearrange" checkbox and drag one of the images to the front. It says "saving" in the upper left corner. Now, I do some other operation on the gallery and woah, my gallery doesn't show the new order I just set anymore. It's gone. To make it reappear, I have to to customize gallery and change the sort order to "position". Whoops. I shouldn't have to do that. I clearly told you I wanted to change the sort order when I clicked the rearrange checkbox and then dragged an image to a new location. Smugmug should have just changed this setting to position automatically and respected my new order automatically.
Auto-set cursor for typing. When I click on an "Edit" link to edit a gallery description or gallery name, the typing cursor ought to be automatically put in the edit field. 100% of the time after I clickon the edit link, I'm going to want to be typing. As it is now, I have to mouse click in the edit field before I can start typing.
After creating a gallery, it should be easier to get to the customize gallery screen before uploading. When you create a new gallery, Smugmug does everything in it's power to take you to the UI for immediately uploading in any one of a variety of ways. But, there is no quick way to go to the settings page for all the gallery settings. You have to click on the "back to gallery" button, then click on customize gallery. Since I often use various security settings and I use a third party uploader, I usually want to review those settings before uploading and I never upload from here. All it would take is a link for customize gallery on the one screen you are taken to right after creating a gallery. This has been asked for by many.
Sort Gallery doesn't sort - sometimes. This is similar to the drag/drop rearrange polish item above. If you go to the "Sort Gallery" menu item, it explains at the top of that page that if your gallery isn't set to sort by position, this feature won't do anything. Why does the user have to manually set it to "position". If they are asking to manually sort the gallery, they are clearly telling you that they want to control the position of each item in the gallery. You should just change the gallery to "position" and let them do the sort. This is really confusing. I actually thing that you could combine the three sorting methods into one unified design if you wanted to rather than have three separate positioning methods that all conflict like you do now (there's auto-sort, there's batch sort and there's manually position. I've also seen several users on dgrin get confused by this.
Smugmongous should auto-generate. When a user increases the max size that can be displayed in the gallery, you should just auto-generate the larger sizes. They've clearly told you what they want. There's no ambiguity about it. They want larger display sizes. As it today, the user has to know to manually go generate new Smugmongous sizes.
Create new gallery should know your hierarchy location and use it as the default. Apparently this used to work and broke recently. When you go to the Create Gallery pull-down to create a new gallery, it should default to a create gallery dialog that has the category and sub-category of your current navigation position already selected. That means it will default to creating a gallery where you are already located.

OK, that's what first comes to mind today. I'll see about adding more things as I run into them.

jfriend · May 5, 2008

A few more items that came to mind:

Remember thumbnail aspect ratio. When adjusting thumbnail sizes, I always want to retain the "original" aspect ratio. It would be nice if the adjust thumbanil screen remembered my previous setting for that drop-down. I think it used to remember this, but no longer does. This would eliminate a step from adusting every thumbnail I touch.
Ajaxify thumbnail changes. When saving changes on an adjusted thumbnail, it's a long delay. Seems like a perfect place fo Ajax saving so I can go about my next business without waiting for thumbnails to be regenerated.
CSS validation. Users make a lot of mistakes customizing their pages by putting illegal stuff in the CSS configuration box. Can you run their CSS customization through a CSS "lint" that would tell them when they have errors giving them immediate feedback on their syntax error rather than requiring a dgrin or support trip. I see people putting raw text in their CSS, wrongly formatted comments in their CSS, missing close braces, missing colons, etc... Since different browsers treat CSS errors differently, a frequent symptom is that a user's site works in one browser and not another - something the site owner may not even initially realize.

Andy · May 5, 2008

Tagging this post, John, so I don't lose it. Great stuff, keep it coming and I'll be sure to share it with the whole team.

Mike Lane · May 5, 2008

Andy wrote:

Tagging this post, John, so I don't lose it. Great stuff, keep it coming and I'll be sure to share it with the whole team.

subscribing to this post now

jfriend · May 5, 2008

Some more:

Save Photo too buried. The "Save Photo" option when originals are enabled is too hidden for newbie viewers. If I don't tell my viewers in an introductory email that this option is enabled and available for them to have the originals of their kids for their own digital albums, many do not know it's there. I know this doesn't matter to those who don't share originals, but when I do, I'm doing it for a reason and I'd like this to be more obvious. I'd personally like to see an option for a "Save Photo" button or something similarly obvious somewhere. This is an important part of the service I am offering and it's hidden to most of my viewers.
Quick Settings / Bulk Settings really confusing. This whole UI is in need of a redesign and new presentation. I will write a separate post on this one with some ideas, but suffice it to say that you take the most complicated part of the customize gallery dialog, present it to the user as the first thing they see at the top of the page and then present it in a pretty complicated way. This is the exact kind of feature that should not be "in the way" of the newbie user, yet should be easily accessible to the more advanced user. And, it's various functions could be separated out onto different buttons and made a lot more intuitive. Some ideas to come in a separate posting.
Optimized thumb layout when all thumbs are vertical. I have many sports galleries where all thumbs are vertical. If the Smugmug style layout code could be smart enough to realize that, it could do a much more intelligent layout, putting more thumbs on the page, tightening up the space between the thumbs, etc... It could really look sharp!
Text clipped and not aligned well in customize gallery dialog. In IE7 (I didn't check other browsers), there's some text clipped in this dialog and there are things that just don't line up. It looks kind of amateurish. In the screen shot below, the "y" and "g" are clipped off on the bottom of Easy Sharing label. Similarly, the "g" is clipped off on the bottom of the Geography label. You can also see that the labels often don't line up with the "Yes/No" options - they all have a different text baseline. This could look a lot better.
Gallery name in password prompt. The prompt for a gallery password does not tell you which gallery it is. It needs to tell you the full category, sub-category, gallery name so you know which one it is. I use password protected galleries all the time and when you send someone a link, they click on the link and then they get this generic dialog, it doesn't help them know which password should apply here.
Link directly to your help topics in customize gallery. Since you have lots of great help topics, why aren't more of them linked to in the customize gallery dialog? External links, watermarks, right-click protection, unlisted, etc... Why wouldn't you want your users to be able to more easily see the help info on those topics if they are confused in that page?

TexasFamily · May 5, 2008

some of my polish ideas...

update button - have the update button float on the customize page so i don't have to scroll all the way down to the bottom after only changing CSS section. might work having tabs like control panel with a fixed update button.

tabify customize gallery - add tabs for each section just like control panel...reduce scrolling.

convert CSS validator to what you see is what you get CSS - show all options that users can modify...let them change options which would then format all css correctly...

icon toolbar - instead of pulldown menus how about a row of icons with tooltips for gallery options and another row of icons for image editing.

sharegroups - have option to only show gallery names instead of having to wait for gallery thumbnails to pick galleries for sharegroup.

sharegroup breadcrumb - a built-in bread crumb would be nice. so i don't have to include a link in header to return to sharegroup page...

gallery keywords - have keyword section (like on home page) for each gallery (with on/off option). only show keywords for that specific gallery. should only link to images for that gallery. should work on passwd protected galleries too.

keyword numbers - may_2008 should be a valid keyword, without stripping _2008...or having to quote it.

keyword hide - hide all image(s) in gallery with specific keyword(s)...bulk hide.

image comment only hack - should be a gallery customize option not a hack.

FLUFF ideas...would be nice to have someday.

CSS section in each gallery - on customize gallery have its own CSS section, for gallery specific css
JS section in each gallery - so that i don't have to put JS in header, or put gallery specific js on customize site page.
upload api - customize api so Nik can write upload of CSS, JS into S*E
api to update keywords/descriptions - so i don't have to upload pictures again...just the metadata
folder navigation - yui folder navigation similar to windows explorer...to go beyond the three levels...cat-subcat-gallery...could be used for virtual galleries.

Thanks for all the polish that we already have in SM!!!
Edward

Baldy · May 5, 2008

jfriend wrote:

Gallery name in password prompt. The prompt for a gallery password does not tell you which gallery it is. It needs to tell you the full category, sub-category, gallery name so you know which one it is. I use password protected galleries all the time and when you send someone a link, they click on the link and then they get this generic dialog, it doesn't help them know which password should apply here.

Eeewww, that's an ugly dialog. I'm gonna fix that as fast as I can (but I can't get it out this week).

We're working on the customize gallery page now.

Baldy · May 5, 2008

TexasFamily wrote:

tabify customize gallery - add tabs for each section just like control panel...reduce scrolling.

Great list. We're actually struggling with the customize gallery page at the moment. We thought about tabifying because we love the tabs and there are several other pages, like the search page, we're currently tabifying.

The problem I'm having is if you want to do several things on the customize gallery page, which I think many people probably do when they go there, do you really want to have to click a tab after each option you select? Especially if you're not sure which tab an option falls under so you have to go hunting.

I think tabs are in their element when you just want to do one thing, so you go to that tab and presto, the page is simplified.

But if what you need to do is on 4 different tabs...

I'm asking, not saying.

Baldy · May 5, 2008

Hey John,

More on that password dialog. Putting the gallery name and even a gallery thumbnail image if there is one to identify the gallery is pretty easy, as well as adding polish.

Do we really want breadcrumbs? Reason I ask is we're adding another visual element to the page and only 50% of users seem to understand what breadcrumbs are. We have to hide them if the owner has hide owner turned on, so the behavior will not be consistent. And are the breadcrumbs links? So we're adding the idea of navigation within a dialog box? What happens if they click them? Does the dialog go away and they get transported? Or are we talking about breadcrumbs that you can't use for nav?

denisegoldberg · May 5, 2008

Baldy wrote:

Great list. We're actually struggling with the customize gallery page at the moment. We thought about tabifying because we love the tabs and there are several other pages, like the search page, we're currently tabifying.

The problem I'm having is if you want to do several things on the customize gallery page, which I think many people probably do when they go there, do you really want to have to click a tab after each option you select? Especially if you're not sure which tab an option falls under so you have to go hunting.

I suspect that I wouldn't like tabs on the customize gallery page. I'd rather be able to see all of the options at once rather than clicking through a set of tabs. On the other hand, if that was an option - as in if we could click to switch from tabbed to non-tabbed. OK, OK, that's probably going too far...

What I'd really like is a way to set up and customize quick settings outside of the context of a specific gallery. I'd much rather be able to create and maintain a set of quick settings in a standalone mode.

--- Denise

jfriend · May 5, 2008

Baldy wrote:

Hey John,

More on that password dialog. Putting the gallery name and even a gallery thumbnail image if there is one to identify the gallery is pretty easy, as well as adding polish.

Do we really want breadcrumbs? Reason I ask is we're adding another visual element to the page and only 50% of users seem to understand what breadcrumbs are. We have to hide them if the owner has hide owner turned on, so the behavior will not be consistent. And are the breadcrumbs links? So we're adding the idea of navigation within a dialog box? What happens if they click them? Does the dialog go away and they get transported? Or are we talking about breadcrumbs that you can't use for nav?

I don't need breadcrumb navigation. I don't need navigation. I don't need it to look like a breadcrumb. What I do need is the gallery name fully described in whatever way looks good and is clear. Breadcrumbs are a famililar way of showing the hierarchy, but I'm OK with anything that is clear.

To give you an idea what I face, I have galleries with a name like "Highlights". We'll guess what - I have 30 galleries with that name because every sporting event I do has a sub-category that describes the event and then multiple galleries in that sub-category (one of which is "Highlights" and others are often player's names). I only know which gallery it is when I see the categorization.

As a further example, go to here: http://friend.smugmug.com/Sports/406225. This is a sub-category for a soccer season. It has a "Highlights" gallery in that category. All my sporting event sub-categories have a "Highlights" gallery. When I'm prompted for a password for a "Highlights" gallery, we need to know which "Highlights" gallery it is and the only way to describe that is to see the categorization. If one comes in the front door, via the sub-category link that I just gave you, then you can probably remember where you are. But, if someone sends you a link to the Highlights gallery and you bookmark it and then next time you go there you are prompted for a password, you will have no idea what gallery it's asking for a password for.

FYI, this happens to me all the time when I'm following Statcounter links to see which galleries are being viewed. I get promtped for a password and I don't know which gallery it is. It also happens when my viewers share links to images they like with each other, but aren't already cookied for the password. They've been previously told the password so if they are told what gallery it is, they can probably enter the right password, but not when it gives them no idea where they are going.

BenA2 · May 6, 2008

Baldy wrote:

But if what you need to do is on 4 different tabs...

I'm asking, not saying.

No, please do not tabify the customize gallery setting page. You're right, I have to go through these all the time and make repetitive changes to multiple galleries. Adding tabs would make that a real pain, especially since I always have a hard time finding the settings I'm looking for the way they're arranged today.

jfriend · May 6, 2008

BenA2 wrote:

No, please do not tabify the customize gallery setting page. You're right, I have to go through these all the time and make repetitive changes to multiple galleries. Adding tabs would make that a real pain, especially since I always have a hard time finding the settings I'm looking for the way they're arranged today.

Folks, please keep in mind that scrolling is often less efficient than selecting a tab. Our regular dialogs on our PCs and Macs have almost never had scrolling and almost always had something like tabs and we thought it worked pretty well.

I'd like a balance. I find it foolish to be constrained to a small percentage of my total window real-estate and forced to use lots of tabs when I could much more easily have more on the screen at once. At the same time, I find it very inefficient to have to scroll around just to find options and then to find the save button - in that case tabs with a fixed save button (like your desktop OS has) would have been much more efficient and easier.

So, I think we need a balance here. All scrolling and no tabs is bad. All tabs with no effective use of a large screen is bad too.

devbobo · May 6, 2008

TexasFamily wrote:

api to update keywords/descriptions - so i don't have to upload pictures again...just the metadata

smugmug.images.changeSettings already exists today, it can be used to update image keywords, captions and geotagging.

bch2300 · May 6, 2008

Baldy wrote:

I think tabs are in their element when you just want to do one thing, so you go to that tab and presto, the page is simplified.

The quick settings and bulk quick settings could use a little polish, too- They work, and save a lot of time, but get cumbersome when you have to or want to change the settings for a lot of galleries, particularly because you can't tell what category/sub-category each gallery is in from the bulk settings page....and other than your own memory, don't know what pricing is applied to what gallery-

my polish suggestion is a page similar to this.....

where you can see quick settings and quick pricing settings in all galleries in a specific subcategory...

i know, easy to suggest, hard to implement...
(that last "events" category should say family....(it's late...)...but you get the idea...)

bh

Mike Lane · May 6, 2008

TexasFamily wrote:

some of my polish ideas...

FLUFF ideas...would be nice to have someday.

CSS section in each gallery - on customize gallery have its own CSS section, for gallery specific css

You can do this now by creating a theme and setting it only on a specific gallery page. Make sense?

TexasFamily · May 6, 2008

Baldy wrote:

Great list. We're actually struggling with the customize gallery page at the moment. We thought about tabifying because we love the tabs and there are several other pages, like the search page, we're currently tabifying.

The problem I'm having is if you want to do several things on the customize gallery page, which I think many people probably do when they go there, do you really want to have to click a tab after each option you select? Especially if you're not sure which tab an option falls under so you have to go hunting.

I think tabs are in their element when you just want to do one thing, so you go to that tab and presto, the page is simplified.

But if what you need to do is on 4 different tabs...

I'm asking, not saying.

me personally, i would rather see the tabs at the top...the only ones that wouldn't know where/what they wanted to go/edit would be someone who just upgraded to power/pro who hasn't seen the page before...and your great help pages would explain what each tab does...with a link "?" to the help page(s).

if you have a tab for each input box you wouldn't have to wonder what each did...i think it is a lot faster to scan a row of tabs than it is trying to scroll down then up then down to find the section(s) you want/need to edit.

i guess another problem with tabs would be wether you had to submit that form before switching tabs...

what if you have tabs and one page...then use anchor tabs...so the tabs just scroll you down to the section you want/need to edit...if you know the section you want to edit...if you don't know the section...you can just scroll through all of them...then have the submit button float along to where ever you are on the page.

Edward

BenA2 · May 6, 2008

jfriend wrote:

Folks, please keep in mind that scrolling is often less efficient than selecting a tab.

I conditionally disagree. I would completely agree if scrolling were only possible by actuating the vertical scrolling bar. However, with mouse-wheel-based scrolling I find it very efficient to scroll.

I agree that tabs have their place in non-repetitive forms, like the control panel. But, if you need to change many galleries, repetitively, the tabs would really slow things down.

TexasFamily wrote:

what if you have tabs and one page...then use anchor tabs...so the tabs just scroll you down to the section you want/need to edit...if you know the section you want to edit...if you don't know the section...you can just scroll through all of them...then have the submit button float along to where ever you are on the page.

I think you're on to something for a potential compromise.

TexasFamily · May 6, 2008

Mike Lane wrote:

You can do this now by creating a theme and setting it only on a specific gallery page. Make sense?

yes i understand...and it does make sense...
but...
what if i only want/need to hide the breadcrumbtrail and use an existing theme...i would need to create a whole new theme just to change one line of css? i know its only a txt file and doesn't take much space...and then...what if the theme changes like SM just updated the default theme...

right now i enter the gallery id and change the line of css...but it would be nice to just enter the css mod in the gallery and then have it automagically enter the gallery id if needed...or just store that css with that gallery somehow/somewhere.

.gallery_12345678 #breadCrumbTrail {display:none !important;}

Edward

TexasFamily · May 6, 2008

BenA2 wrote:

I conditionally disagree. I would completely agree if scrolling were only possible by actuating the vertical scrolling bar. However, with mouse-wheel-based scrolling I find it very efficient to scroll.

I agree that tabs have their place in non-repetitive forms, like the control panel. But, if you need to change many galleries, repetitively, the tabs would really slow things down.

I think you're on to something for a potential compromise.

i'm not sure i understand how tabs would slow you down...are you talking about IF there were a customize page for each gallery then tabing to the section for that specific gallery...?

right now there is only one customize page...so you would tab to the section you want to change...enter changes for all galleries...no way scrolling would be faster than tabs to get to that section.

IF there was a customize gallery with js & css fields & all the other existing options on customize gallery...i still think you would find tabs much faster than scrolling...to get to the section you needed to edit in each gallery.

the other nice thing tabs might be able to introduce...larger fields for entering data...at least we could strechify them to reduce line wraps...making it easier to read...
(i know...color coding the content would be asking for way too much fluff

Edward

claudermilk · May 6, 2008

I'm with John on the tabs. I would personally prefer them, but the grouping of controls needs to be carefully thought out to minimize jumping from tab to tab. With so many parameters to set, breaking them up by a pageful at a time on a tab would help focus on the aspect of the page being set up. I sometimes find myself scroling from end to end trying to find a setting buried in the long list--not at all efficient.

TexasFamily · May 6, 2008

claudermilk wrote:

I'm with John on the tabs. I would personally prefer them, but the grouping of controls needs to be carefully thought out to minimize jumping from tab to tab. With so many parameters to set, breaking them up by a pageful at a time on a tab would help focus on the aspect of the page being set up. I sometimes find myself scroling from end to end trying to find a setting buried in the long list--not at all efficient.

sorry i have not been all the way awake...the past couple of hours...too busy.
what i really meant was tabs on the "customize" section not customize gallery

control panel > customize > customize
then tabs
/css tab/js tab/header tab/footer tab/footer js tab/etc/
with update button floating along side...
and textarea widths that strechify themselves to fill up my browser.

even with customize gallery i think the tabs/anchor tabs would work for both types of people...

tabs at the top of the page for those who know where they want to go on the page...tabs would just link to the section further down the page...for less scrolling

maybe a floating div with the tabs always at the top of the browser...have the submit button attached to this div...

Edward

BenA2 · May 6, 2008

TexasFamily wrote:

sorry i have not been all the way awake...the past couple of hours...too busy.
what i really meant was tabs on the "customize" section not customize gallery

control panel > customize > customize
then tabs
/css tab/js tab/header tab/footer tab/footer js tab/etc/
with update button floating along side...
and textarea widths that strechify themselves to fill up my browser.

even with customize gallery i think the tabs/anchor tabs would work for both types of people...

tabs at the top of the page for those who know where they want to go on the page...tabs would just link to the section further down the page...for less scrolling

maybe a floating div with the tabs always at the top of the browser...have the submit button attached to this div...

Edward

For the record, let me clarify my opinion as well. I'm all for tabifying the customization "control panel > customize settings" page. In fact, that's a perfect example of when scrolling is a total pain. But, the caveat here is that I don't ever have to rapidly/efficiently change things on multiple versions of this page. After all, there's only one.

My concern with segregating a page into multple tabs is in the gallery "customize gallery" page. It's multiple versions of this page that I often have to change multiple settings on across galleries. I realize I'm in the minority here, so I'll move on.

NaturalEye · May 8, 2008

I'm not sure if this has been explicitly covered here, but I would like to see galleries fully described when moving photos etc. In example higher up in this thread I would currently see Highlights 30 times with no clue as to which are which (and I know I can temporarily change a description to remove the ambiguity, but its a PITA!)

Gary

jfriend · May 21, 2008

jfriend wrote:

Some more:
...

Quick Settings / Bulk Settings really confusing. This whole UI is in need of a redesign and new presentation.

You only have to read this thread to see how undiscoverable the Delete Quick Setting command is. Definitely something to be polished up with some redesign.

lynnor · May 21, 2008

I agree with Gary (NaturalEye) 1000x over!!!
Please make it easier to find and distinguish galleries listed in pulldown menus! (and logically ordered) They seem randomly ordered and since you can have multiple galleries with the same name it's extremely frustrating moving pics or doing anything else where you need to pick out your gallery.

jnolan · May 22, 2008

Some more polish!
Having just found and enjoyed this thread (lots of good suggestions!) a quick comment of my own I was going to add to Feature Requests, but it's really just polish...

On the Bulk Captioning page, I have on several occassions accidentally navigated away after captioning lots of pictures and thereby lost my work. Would it be possible to have a "you-have-unsaved-changes, do-you-really-want-to-leave?" dialog?

On the same page, could there be a Save button at the bottom as well as the top?

And finally, could the Preview button be changed to say Apply since that seems to be what it does... or am I misunderstanding this one!?

Thanks!

jfriend · May 22, 2008

lynnor wrote:

I agree with Gary (NaturalEye) 1000x over!!!
Please make it easier to find and distinguish galleries listed in pulldown menus! (and logically ordered) They seem randomly ordered and since you can have multiple galleries with the same name it's extremely frustrating moving pics or doing anything else where you need to pick out your gallery.

I echo this one and have requested it several times before. I know it's been heard before - I just hope a fix arrives soon. Every one of my events I shoot has a gallery named "Highlights", thus it's impossible to figure out which of the 20 galleries in the list all named Highlights is the one I actally want to select. Every one of the seasons for my daughter's sports teams have a gallery named with my daughter's name (since I generally have a gallery for every player on the team). Same problem - can't figure out which one in the list is the one I want.

In my world gallery hierarchy, I have to be able to see the parent category or sub-category to know which gallery is which.

TexasFamily · May 22, 2008

we could have a tree structure that shows all images...under each cat/sub cat/gallery/images...
then you could just drag the image(s) from one folder structure to the one where you want to...(move or copy it

we were using a java navigation tree at work...but then thanks to ms/sun squables we started looking for a pure js navigation tree...
we use this software at work so i know it is possible to drag/drop...
maybe something similar inside sm is doable...???

i'm also pretty sure it works in most browsers too.

Edward

you can see some live demo's here...

http://www.dhtmlx.com/docs/products/docsExplorer/index.shtml?node=dhtmlxtree&type=smpl

mwgrice · May 22, 2008

How about a different spot/way to edit the bio box? Unless I'm missing something (always a possibility, and please let me know if I am), in order to put in a slide show on the front page I had to edit the bio box, and then remove it from my front page. In order to make changes to the bio box, I have to comment out some of my CSS, save it, make the changes to the slide show code in the bio box, and then uncomment the CSS again. It's a bit of a hassle.

It might be nice if it were added to the customization page. I suppose another way around this would be to add a dedicated spot for the slideshow.

jfriend · May 22, 2008

mwgrice wrote:

How about a different spot/way to edit the bio box? Unless I'm missing something (always a possibility, and please let me know if I am), in order to put in a slide show on the front page I had to edit the bio box, and then remove it from my front page. In order to make changes to the bio box, I have to comment out some of my CSS, save it, make the changes to the slide show code in the bio box, and then uncomment the CSS again. It's a bit of a hassle.

It might be nice if it were added to the customization page. I suppose another way around this would be to add a dedicated spot for the slideshow.

I agree. I am a fan of just making a home page with a slideshow be an option in the control panel so that you can do it without any CSS or JS and no ability to mess it up and so that even my mom could put a slideshow on her home page.

Even better, add to this the ability in the control panel to have your home page with a slideshow and a separate galleries page that is linked to from the home page like so many people hack together. Make this cool functionality available to the entire Smugmug population, not just those savvy enough to do customization.

Smugmug UI polish ideas

Comments