I only use Plain text e-mail, and will not send nor receive HTML content via e-mail. Additionally, I participate in newsgroups that restrict html coding.
Thank you John. I know I can. The annoyance is that before it was done automatically by clicking on send link. Now I need to either type it manually, or manually modify the copied link.
Thank you John. I know I can. The annoyance is that before it was done automatically by clicking on send link. Now I need to either type it manually, or manually modify the copied link.
I'm a bit confused how you only ever send plain text email, but also use Send Link. Send Link certainly isn't sending plain text email.
Or, as John said, you can give the olde style links still if you want.
Or you can use hide owner and have nothing show.
Does this help?
Andy, I really admire you, for your photography and for how you always give 150% of yourself here helping others. There's doing the job. And then there's doing more than the job. You always do the latter.
So please understand that my anger and frustration is not directed at you.
But angry and frustrated I am. This NiceName crud does not work with how I name my galleries. It causes me extra work when creating galleries. It causes me extra work when I send/post links. It has created a bunch of meaningless gallery titles:
Actual gallery titles:
International de Montgolfieres 15 August 2005
International de Montgolfieres - 17 August 2006
International de Montgolfieres - 14 August 2007
I can't even ignore it. When creating ta gallery, it won't let me proceed until I give it something it finds acceptable for a NiceName.
Add this annoyance to the growing list of annoyances I have with Smugmug:
- Meaningless stats that force me to page through screens of unsorted galleries with no usage to see the ones that do have usage.
- Send an e-mail feature that will not permit me to send e-mails without embeded images.
- unsorted list of galleries when attempting to move photos between galleries.
I think all of these are PITAs. But have been told, Sorry, that's the way it is.
A little brainpower needed. I am more of a cut and paster then an expert on anything.
I use a gallery for each year to keep my categories separated. Instead of loading 180 events, it only shows 30-50 from each year.
All of my races are named for the event (categories). My sub categories are the classes of cars that raced at the event (category), and the different races at said event (galleries).
So ever since nice names came around, I was changing some things around on http://www.apexonephoto.com/gallery/3877550 this page. I have noticed that when I click on a thumbnail it works no problem. When I click on the hypertexted link under the thumbnail it sometimes works. I have it figured that if I have a category that I am not using subcategories in, that my hypertexted link doesn't work.
I'm a bit confused how you only ever send plain text email, but also use Send Link. Send Link certainly isn't sending plain text email.
Send link is merely a copy and paste action. It copies the URL into the computer's clipboard. You can then just paste that data into the e-mail body. It copies as plain text.
The recipient than copies and pastes that text into their browser. No HTML coding required.
Not the most technology efficient, admittedly. But I have several recipients who are behind Corporate firewalls that will reject any e-mails with HTML code or attachments having a JPG extension.
Add this annoyance to the growing list of annoyances I have with Smugmug:
- Meaningless stats that force me to page through screens of unsorted galleries with no usage to see the ones that do have usage.
Ouch I'm so sorry you are upset at our stats. We are collecting stats on all hits. And presenting them. To call them 'meaningless' is simply flat wrong, I'm sorry. You probably want more. It's a very good thing we have a fulltime dedicated sorcerer on new stats, building out a whole bunch of new stuff that you should like very much. We hope to see it live soon.
- Send an e-mail feature that will not permit me to send e-mails without embeded images.
I'm so sorry you find this annoying. The way we built our system to support your type of sharing need is to give you an easy get a link feature, that lets you simply copy a gallery, slideshow, or direct photo link, into YOUR email program. And guess what - we're improving this, too, based on customer demand. Stay tuned, shouldn't be long.
Again, somehow, you gave it a nicename that could be longer and more descriptive. EASY to change
Do appreciate you trying to help, Andy.
FWIW, All those 'NiceName's were created by whatever Smugmug did to existing galleries when it implemented the 'NiceName' feature [sic].
I know I can change them.
I know I can avoid the system barfing every time I create a gallery name that is longer than 30 characters and doesn't duplicate an already existing NiceName.
All I have to do is change the way I've been naming and creating my galleries for the last almost 4 years.
My options are put up with the annoying crud or switch to another service.
Hate to say it but I really really dislike this feature. I'm usually not one to complain, but creating galleries was already enough of a pain in the butt without having to make sure the nicenames field is under 30 chars and unique. Nobody is going to remember a URL anyways, so its really just a nuisance to the pros. I've been out shooting all day, I come home, blast through a thousand or two photos... last thing in my mind is nicenames. People have a hard enough time remembering my main site url without adding a backslash "nicename" to the mix.:crazy:crazy:crazy Any way we can completely opt out and stick with random characters and numbers like the good old days?
Hate to say it but I really really dislike this feature. I'm usually not one to complain, but creating galleries was already enough of a pain in the butt without having to make sure the nicenames field is under 30 chars and unique. Nobody is going to remember a URL anyways, so its really just a nuisance to the pros. People have a hard enough time remembering my main site url without adding a backslash "nicename" to the mix.:crazy:crazy:crazy Any way we can completely opt out and stick with random characters and numbers like the good old days?
So, let me get this right. You think your users are going to have an easier time remembering a gallery ID and a gallery key (a series of 11 random characters) than a meaningful english name that you pick? How does this possibly get in your way? If you don't think either one is rememberable, then what difference does it make?
Advantages of the way it is:
You get to use lots of characters in your category and sub-category names that you couldn't previously use (because category names used to be limited to what chars could go in an URL, now they don't have to be limited that way).
If you care about SEO, you get much better search performance because there are real words in the URL instead of only random numbers and letters.
You get the option of referring to your galleries with either the new nice names or the old gallery IDs.
You get the option of making very short and rememberable nice names if you want.
The category and sub-category stuff is in the URL when viewing a gallery so you can see where you came from and/or manipulate the URL to get back to the category or sub-category if you want.
You get a word name for sub-categories now (they used to just be numbers).
And, if you really don't care about any of this, then just ignore it all. What have you lost? If you're having trouble when creating a gallery getting a unique nice name, then maybe it's legit to ask Smugmug to auto-generate something that's unique to your account, but I haven't had that problem myself.
If SM had an option that autogenerated some URL garbage for my nicenames I would be peachy peach. I drive customers to my site through business cards at events, and direct link from my website to the Smugmug gallery. Its so easy to hand someone a card, have them visit my page, homepage has a link to the most recent events and bam... there are the photos. Its almost as easy to tell someone you are talking to on the fly to "go to photos.tallmanphoto.com, click on equestrian, find your show by the date, find your ring and time gallery". Nobody is gonna remember me telling them, "go to photos.tallmanphoto.com/East-Ring-Jumpers-ReRun. WAIT!! Fast foward to 2010 when I once again shoot jumpers in the east ring at the rerun show... ooops... that name is already taken! Now its going to be 2010-East-Ring-Jumpers-R. Its just a total cluster-f when you have been using a perfectly usable naming convention for years that makes it easy for non-computer savvy people to find galleries among hundreds. Google finds my galleries fine... the event and location name are in the gallery title along with the date.
Works great when you have abc.smugmug.com/flowers...cars..houses... whatever... but when you start shooting things over and over year to year its just going to become a nightmare.
If SM had an option that autogenerated some URL garbage for my nicenames I would be peachy peach. I drive customers to my site through business cards at events, and direct link from my website to the Smugmug gallery. Its so easy to hand someone a card, have them visit my page, homepage has a link to the most recent events and bam... there are the photos. Its almost as easy to tell someone you are talking to on the fly to "go to photos.tallmanphoto.com, click on equestrian, find your show by the date, find your ring and time gallery". Nobody is gonna remember me telling them, "go to photos.tallmanphoto.com/East-Ring-Jumpers-ReRun. WAIT!! Fast foward to 2010 when I once again shoot jumpers in the east ring at the rerun show... ooops... that name is already taken! Now its going to be 2010-East-Ring-Jumpers-R. Its just a total cluster-f when you have been using a perfectly usable naming convention for years that makes it easy for non-computer savvy people to find galleries among hundreds. Google finds my galleries fine... the event and location name are in the gallery title along with the date.
Works great when you have abc.smugmug.com/flowers...cars..houses... whatever... but when you start shooting things over and over year to year its just going to become a nightmare.
I wonder if you're objecting to a problem that doesn't exist? A nicename only has to be unique within it's own category or sub-category. For example, I created two test galleries, each with the same nicename (which was auto generated), but in a different category:
No problem. So, unless you're trying to create multiple copies of the same gallery name in the same category or subcategory, this should not be an issue. If you are trying to make duplicately named galleries in the same container (which is the only circumstance I think you'd have any issue), I'd ask why you're doing that.
And, if you really don't care about any of this, then just ignore it all. What have you lost? If you're having trouble when creating a gallery getting a unique nice name, then maybe it's legit to ask Smugmug to auto-generate something that's unique to your account, but I haven't had that problem myself.
John, the problem is we *can't* ignore it all as you suggest. SM insists we have a NiceName. If it generated 'something that's unique' to fit its criteria of what is an acceptable NiceName, that would at least allow me to continue to do things as I have been for the past almost 4 years.
FWIW, your example of galleries Other/Test 1 & Other2/test1 is too simple. The problem really get annoying in galleries with titles that exceed the allowed 30 characters.
An example:
Category: Photography
Subcategory: Montreal Images
I have a number of galleries titled in this fashion "Walkabout Montreal - 12 December 2008'
This becomes a NiceName of 'Walkabout-Montreal-12-December'
The moment I continue to type the rest of that title (i.e. ' 2008') I receive an error and can't do anything until I remove the excess characters from the NiceName box.
So far I've been lucky that I've not had two galleries of photos taken on the same month and day but two different years. Or I'd have received an error telling me my NiceName is not unique, also requiring me to stop what I'm doing and make a correction.
I've four galleries entitled 'International de Montgolfieres' and a date afterward, i,e 'International de Montgolfieres - 17 August 2006'. And will be adding a fifth for this year's photos. So when I do, I'll again have to stop what I'm doing and come up with some sort of 'NiceName' that SM will accept and I never intend to use.
But despite all that, I guess it doesn't matter since I'm probably only "objecting to a problem that don't exist".
Its just comes to down to the fact that its time consuming for us to do, its adds ZERO value (at least for me), and its something that effects something customers see so I am forced to put forth effort into making it look "right".
If Smugmug put all this effort into allowing people to change the URL, you would think they would have at least allowed people who don't care to not bother and stick with good 'ol sequential numbers. Seems like simple programming if you ask me. Instead of that auto names thing, it just looks up the next numeric unique db identifier and uses that. Afraid of competitors knowing how many new galleries SM is generating daily or something?
This just doesn't seem like one of those updates where we had Pro's jumping up and down over. There's tons of stuff people have been asking for forever like digital download proof times, photo packages, and coupons.
This just doesn't seem like one of those updates where we had Pro's jumping up and down over. There's tons of stuff people have been asking for forever like digital download proof times, photo packages, and coupons.
Better SEO and more control of this stuff, and more human urls, has been begged for forever, by all types of customers.
And as we've been saying, we have a lot of Sorcerers. This project was completely separate from the Coupons and Packages projects that are currently underawy.
John, the problem is we *can't* ignore it all as you suggest. SM insists we have a NiceName. If it generated 'something that's unique' to fit its criteria of what is an acceptable NiceName, that would at least allow me to continue to do things as I have been for the past almost 4 years.
FWIW, your example of galleries Other/Test 1 & Other2/test1 is too simple. The problem really get annoying in galleries with titles that exceed the allowed 30 characters.
An example:
Category: Photography
Subcategory: Montreal Images
I have a number of galleries titled in this fashion "Walkabout Montreal - 12 December 2008'
This becomes a NiceName of 'Walkabout-Montreal-12-December'
The moment I continue to type the rest of that title (i.e. ' 2008') I receive an error and can't do anything until I remove the excess characters from the NiceName box.
So far I've been lucky that I've not had two galleries of photos taken on the same month and day but two different years. Or I'd have received an error telling me my NiceName is not unique, also requiring me to stop what I'm doing and make a correction.
I've four galleries entitled 'International de Montgolfieres' and a date afterward, i,e 'International de Montgolfieres - 17 August 2006'. And will be adding a fifth for this year's photos. So when I do, I'll again have to stop what I'm doing and come up with some sort of 'NiceName' that SM will accept and I never intend to use.
But despite all that, I guess it doesn't matter since I'm probably only "objecting to a problem that don't exist".
Then, you should just file those as bugs. That's bad behavior and can easily be fixed without throwing away the entire nicenames for everyone else. Nicenames can exist with no impact on you. If it is in your way, then rather than trash the feature (which won't help you at all because they're not going to get rid of it), please help identify where it's getting in your way and we can get them to fix it. It shouldn't be in your way. I'm sure the design intent was that it would auto-generate a unique nice name for any valid category name so if you didn't care about the nicename, you wouldn't even have to know it's there. If you are finding that is not the case, let's nail down the exact steps and file them as a bug. I suspect Smugmug will want to fix them because they want nicenames to be successful rather than a drag on users.
Why 30 char max? If you want to use the feature as intended so people can try to remember a URL (which they cannot)... then keep your gallery name short or make your own nicename. If you don't care, let it be whatever length its going to end up being. That makes it easy for people that have used long descriptive gallery names forever and don't want to bother.
Then, you should just file those as bugs. That's bad behavior and can easily be fixed without throwing away the entire nicenames for everyone else. Nicenames can exist with no impact on you. If it is in your way, then rather than trash the feature (which won't help you at all because they're not going to get rid of it), please help identify where it's getting in your way and we can get them to fix it. It shouldn't be in your way.
John, I must be a really incompetent writer for you to come to the conclusions you have . I've never suggested that NiceNames be thrown away. Nor do I feel that I've trashed the feature.
I have written a number of examples showing how the new feature is getting in my way. I've commented that I find it annoying that I must use it even though I see no benefit in it for myself.
In turn I've been told that I only need to change this for that or that for this. When I try to explain that it is the fact that I must change this for that and that for this that is the annoyance, I am then told that I shouldn't trash this great new feature.
Might as well add that if I don't like it, I can take my photos and go elsewhere.
John, I must be a really incompetent writer for you to come to the conclusions you have . I've never suggested that NiceNames be thrown away. Nor do I feel that I've trashed the feature.
I have written a number of examples showing how the new feature is getting in my way. I've commented that I find it annoying that I must use it even though I see no benefit in it for myself.
In turn I've been told that I only need to change this for that or that for this. When I try to explain that it is the fact that I must change this for that and that for this that is the annoyance, I am then told that I shouldn't trash this great new feature.
Might as well add that if I don't like it, I can take my photos and go elsewhere.
Thanks for being so understanding.
I may have gotten your comments mixed up with someone else's in this thread. Sorry about that.
My point is that nicenames can be a valuable feature for many and it's not going away. So, if it's in your way, we should help identify exactly what steps make it in your way so we can get Smugmug to fix that. They did not intend for it to be in your way.
So far, the only concrete info I've identified is that if your gallery name is >30 chars, then auto-generation of nicenames stops working and the user is forced to manually create a nice name. Are there other issues where it gets in the way?
...Like I mentioned above... if there was no char limit I could completely ignore this new yet seemingly useless feature. I assume most other people will too.
Yay... I have 9 galleries to make up names for tonight!
...Like I mentioned above... if there was no char limit I could completely ignore this new yet seemingly useless feature. I assume most other people will too.
Yay... I have 9 galleries to make up names for tonight!
Can you confirm that if the auto-generated nicename worked no matter how long your category name was that you could safely just ignore nicenames? Or, is there something else that also needs to be changed?
As long as I don't have to put thought into the URL I'm happy. If that means its not going to be a number anymore that's fine. I just don't want to have to edit it into something that looks planned because half the gallery name was removed from the URL.
Edit... I just went to create a subcategory and there is apparently nicenames for that too. That means when I create a subcategory name I must create another name that is under 30chars..zzzz... so annoyingly redundant.
just makes everything about this a pain in my *$%.
If you are going auto generate and its ONLY allowed to be 30 max... why does the auto generate code select more than 30 and throw an error!!! ARGHH!! Wtf
just makes everything about this a pain in my *$%.
If you are going auto generate and its ONLY allowed to be 30 max... why does the auto generate code select more than 30 and throw an error!!! ARGHH!! Wtf
Because it's not behaving as it should. We should simply get Smugmug to fix it! No need to get so angry about it. The software isn't perfect and needs to be fixed.
If you are going auto generate and its ONLY allowed to be 30 max... why does the auto generate code select more than 30 and throw an error!!! ARGHH!! Wtf
What is the hang up on 30 characters? Why not make it something very large that will never get hit? Maybe if you have like a 300 char url it errors? What we have now is worse than 30 char max where the auto name cuts it off at exactly 30. Currently the auto name code typically selects more than 30 characters, puts concatenated gallery text in the box, then errors out. So now just part of the text from my gallery name is there. I either have to live with what it selected and just delete chars until its 30, or go find the text that I want and type it in there. Its just overall poorly executed, and the entire thing is not well thought out. A 30 char counter next to the box could be handy, but that's fluff. Its not the root issue here. Knowing that the auto name generator selected 33 characters, erased the rest of the text, then errored out isn't going to make it less annoying and time consuming.
You had to know that people that have long galllery names were going to be annoyed over this. As photographers, we are ALWAYS looking for ways to streamline our process. When something like this comes up its so annoying because it could have easily been avoided. Yeah, so you want to make nicenames a new feature. Ok, fine, good..BUT! Spend some time, think it out, and make it transparent to the users!
Also looking back, all of my galleries that had numbers for the names have been converted to nicenames (in an ugly way I will add). The number urls are still working, so it appears nicenames is just a pointer. That leads me to believe that this could easily be disabled with a simple radio button in the options. Seems to me nicenames is really just, "lets not show flicker, etc, etc, how many galleries our subscribers are making"... and we got the short end of the stick.
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http://ghealy.smugmug.com/gallery/8652557_XCTdF
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Did you know you could share like this:
http://ghealy.smugmug.com/Other/Recent-photos-1/
Or for that gallery you can have the nicename be anything else you like? Such as:
http://ghealy.smugmug.com/Other/Recent
Or, as John said, you can give the olde style links still if you want.
Or you can use hide owner and have nothing show.
Does this help?
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Thank you John. I know I can. The annoyance is that before it was done automatically by clicking on send link. Now I need to either type it manually, or manually modify the copied link.
My galleries: http://ghealy.smugmug.com
My Blog: http://photosbyhealy.blogspot.com
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So please understand that my anger and frustration is not directed at you.
But angry and frustrated I am. This NiceName crud does not work with how I name my galleries. It causes me extra work when creating galleries. It causes me extra work when I send/post links. It has created a bunch of meaningless gallery titles:
Examples:
http://ghealy.smugmug.com/Photography/Montreal-Images/empty/1448135_BJcpf
empty???? The gallery title is: Walkabout Montréal & Mont Royal 26 April 2006
http://ghealy.smugmug.com/Events/Hot-Air-Balloons/International-de/912398_Yg7VU
http://ghealy.smugmug.com/Events/Hot-Air-Balloons/International-de-2/1887137_Cuzor
http://ghealy.smugmug.com/Events/Hot-Air-Balloons/International-de-1/3361120_nxW5M
Actual gallery titles:
International de Montgolfieres 15 August 2005
International de Montgolfieres - 17 August 2006
International de Montgolfieres - 14 August 2007
I can't even ignore it. When creating ta gallery, it won't let me proceed until I give it something it finds acceptable for a NiceName.
Add this annoyance to the growing list of annoyances I have with Smugmug:
- Meaningless stats that force me to page through screens of unsorted galleries with no usage to see the ones that do have usage.
- Send an e-mail feature that will not permit me to send e-mails without embeded images.
- unsorted list of galleries when attempting to move photos between galleries.
I think all of these are PITAs. But have been told, Sorry, that's the way it is.
So as I said, what I think doesn't matter.
My galleries: http://ghealy.smugmug.com
My Blog: http://photosbyhealy.blogspot.com
I use a gallery for each year to keep my categories separated. Instead of loading 180 events, it only shows 30-50 from each year.
All of my races are named for the event (categories). My sub categories are the classes of cars that raced at the event (category), and the different races at said event (galleries).
So ever since nice names came around, I was changing some things around on
http://www.apexonephoto.com/gallery/3877550 this page. I have noticed that when I click on a thumbnail it works no problem. When I click on the hypertexted link under the thumbnail it sometimes works. I have it figured that if I have a category that I am not using subcategories in, that my hypertexted link doesn't work.
It shows up like this
http://www.apexonephoto.com/gallery/%E2%80%9Dhttp://www.apexonephoto.com/CRA-Super-Series-at-Anderson%22
Where as the same href is used for the thumbnail and I get this
http://www.apexonephoto.com/CRA-Super-Series-at-Anderson
I know I could remove the link, but I have always had it and it always worked.
www.apexonephoto.smugmug.com
http://twitter.com/apexonephoto
http://www.facebook.com/ApexOnePhoto
The recipient than copies and pastes that text into their browser. No HTML coding required.
Not the most technology efficient, admittedly. But I have several recipients who are behind Corporate firewalls that will reject any e-mails with HTML code or attachments having a JPG extension.
My galleries: http://ghealy.smugmug.com
My Blog: http://photosbyhealy.blogspot.com
Somehow, you gave it a nicename of "empty" - dunno why or how. You can fix this in 5 seconds flat, by going to tools>customize gallery.
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Again, somehow, you gave it a nicename that could be longer and more descriptive. EASY to change
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FWIW, All those 'NiceName's were created by whatever Smugmug did to existing galleries when it implemented the 'NiceName' feature [sic].
I know I can change them.
I know I can avoid the system barfing every time I create a gallery name that is longer than 30 characters and doesn't duplicate an already existing NiceName.
All I have to do is change the way I've been naming and creating my galleries for the last almost 4 years.
My options are put up with the annoying crud or switch to another service.
My galleries: http://ghealy.smugmug.com
My Blog: http://photosbyhealy.blogspot.com
We've been getting raves for the effort we've made on this to help improve folks' SEO and make galleries easier to share.
I'm sorry that it's falling short for you, I really am. Feel free to write me further at our help desk if you wish.
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Advantages of the way it is:
- You get to use lots of characters in your category and sub-category names that you couldn't previously use (because category names used to be limited to what chars could go in an URL, now they don't have to be limited that way).
- If you care about SEO, you get much better search performance because there are real words in the URL instead of only random numbers and letters.
- You get the option of referring to your galleries with either the new nice names or the old gallery IDs.
- You get the option of making very short and rememberable nice names if you want.
- The category and sub-category stuff is in the URL when viewing a gallery so you can see where you came from and/or manipulate the URL to get back to the category or sub-category if you want.
- You get a word name for sub-categories now (they used to just be numbers).
And, if you really don't care about any of this, then just ignore it all. What have you lost? If you're having trouble when creating a gallery getting a unique nice name, then maybe it's legit to ask Smugmug to auto-generate something that's unique to your account, but I haven't had that problem myself.Homepage • Popular
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Works great when you have abc.smugmug.com/flowers...cars..houses... whatever... but when you start shooting things over and over year to year its just going to become a nightmare.
http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Other/test1
http://jfriend.smugmug.com/Other2/test1
No problem. So, unless you're trying to create multiple copies of the same gallery name in the same category or subcategory, this should not be an issue. If you are trying to make duplicately named galleries in the same container (which is the only circumstance I think you'd have any issue), I'd ask why you're doing that.
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FWIW, your example of galleries Other/Test 1 & Other2/test1 is too simple. The problem really get annoying in galleries with titles that exceed the allowed 30 characters.
An example:
Category: Photography
Subcategory: Montreal Images
I have a number of galleries titled in this fashion "Walkabout Montreal - 12 December 2008'
This becomes a NiceName of 'Walkabout-Montreal-12-December'
The moment I continue to type the rest of that title (i.e. ' 2008') I receive an error and can't do anything until I remove the excess characters from the NiceName box.
So far I've been lucky that I've not had two galleries of photos taken on the same month and day but two different years. Or I'd have received an error telling me my NiceName is not unique, also requiring me to stop what I'm doing and make a correction.
I've four galleries entitled 'International de Montgolfieres' and a date afterward, i,e 'International de Montgolfieres - 17 August 2006'. And will be adding a fifth for this year's photos. So when I do, I'll again have to stop what I'm doing and come up with some sort of 'NiceName' that SM will accept and I never intend to use.
But despite all that, I guess it doesn't matter since I'm probably only "objecting to a problem that don't exist".
My galleries: http://ghealy.smugmug.com
My Blog: http://photosbyhealy.blogspot.com
If Smugmug put all this effort into allowing people to change the URL, you would think they would have at least allowed people who don't care to not bother and stick with good 'ol sequential numbers. Seems like simple programming if you ask me. Instead of that auto names thing, it just looks up the next numeric unique db identifier and uses that. Afraid of competitors knowing how many new galleries SM is generating daily or something?
This just doesn't seem like one of those updates where we had Pro's jumping up and down over. There's tons of stuff people have been asking for forever like digital download proof times, photo packages, and coupons.
And as we've been saying, we have a lot of Sorcerers. This project was completely separate from the Coupons and Packages projects that are currently underawy.
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I have written a number of examples showing how the new feature is getting in my way. I've commented that I find it annoying that I must use it even though I see no benefit in it for myself.
In turn I've been told that I only need to change this for that or that for this. When I try to explain that it is the fact that I must change this for that and that for this that is the annoyance, I am then told that I shouldn't trash this great new feature.
Might as well add that if I don't like it, I can take my photos and go elsewhere.
Thanks for being so understanding.
My galleries: http://ghealy.smugmug.com
My Blog: http://photosbyhealy.blogspot.com
My point is that nicenames can be a valuable feature for many and it's not going away. So, if it's in your way, we should help identify exactly what steps make it in your way so we can get Smugmug to fix that. They did not intend for it to be in your way.
So far, the only concrete info I've identified is that if your gallery name is >30 chars, then auto-generation of nicenames stops working and the user is forced to manually create a nice name. Are there other issues where it gets in the way?
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Yay... I have 9 galleries to make up names for tonight!
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Edit... I just went to create a subcategory and there is apparently nicenames for that too. That means when I create a subcategory name I must create another name that is under 30chars..zzzz... so annoyingly redundant.
just makes everything about this a pain in my *$%.
If you are going auto generate and its ONLY allowed to be 30 max... why does the auto generate code select more than 30 and throw an error!!! ARGHH!! Wtf
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Here's what I do, tell me how we can improve.
I'm in this category
http://andytheme.smugmug.com/Electronics
I choose Add Photos to make a new gallery.
I type in this for gallery title:
My First stereo with 8 track tape deck
which is too long for a NiceName, so I see a red error message.
I go to the NiceName box and I just delete all the stuff after the word 'stereo' and I'm good. I have a NiceName that is memorable (if I care).
Now, my question, from a 'can-we-improve-this' standpoint:
Should we stop at 30 automatically in the NiceName Box?
Should we give you a character counter so you know how many are left?
Would these be helpful?
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You had to know that people that have long galllery names were going to be annoyed over this. As photographers, we are ALWAYS looking for ways to streamline our process. When something like this comes up its so annoying because it could have easily been avoided. Yeah, so you want to make nicenames a new feature. Ok, fine, good..BUT! Spend some time, think it out, and make it transparent to the users!
Also looking back, all of my galleries that had numbers for the names have been converted to nicenames (in an ugly way I will add). The number urls are still working, so it appears nicenames is just a pointer. That leads me to believe that this could easily be disabled with a simple radio button in the options. Seems to me nicenames is really just, "lets not show flicker, etc, etc, how many galleries our subscribers are making"... and we got the short end of the stick.