Setting up a family site

RichardSwe · August 15, 2013

It would seem to me that setting up a "family site" is a very common desired use of SmugMug.

I have -
- new SmugMug (migrated)
- upgraded to Power User (so I can use the designs provided)
- created a home page design I like

Now I want to share my homepage with family and friends, but not have it available to the public. Naturally I'd like them to see my homepage design in full (e.g. selected galleries, folders, recent uploads) and to be able to navigate (effortlessly) down to folders and galleries.

But this is elusive. I can not find a way to do it. After quite a bit of trial and error, I've found
- ShareGroups -- said to be intended for this kind of sharing, but it completely lacks the home page design look.
- Passwords on folders -- works, but poorly. Home page images of galleries are hidden until the visitor clicks into the folder and enters the password. Each folder requires reentering the password. Only after accessing every folder with the password does the home page "come alive" as I designed it.
- unlisted and private -- don't work so well for my desired use, e.g. accessing an unlisted gallery won't allow following the bread-crumb trail back up the the parent folder & its other galleries.

This is all quite a pain, especially since this has to be a very commonly desired SmugMug use.

I'm not so interested in work-arounds. This should be simple and straight forward.

Am I missing some obvious things?

Why isn't there a SmugMug help page specific to this "family & friends" set up?

Richard

Markman · August 15, 2013

Richard,

Open up your “Account Settings” menu, then in the left column click on “Privacy”.

The upper-most option in the “Privacy” menu is “Viewing Password”. This is where you can set a password (and a password hint, if needed) that a family member must to enter before being allowed to view your entire site.

Remove the passwords from the individual folders and galleries. If there are galleries that you do not want others to view, make them unlisted or private.

Provide the password to whomever your want to have access to the photos.

I used this method for my family site in the Legacy Smugmug and it worked great. Hopefully, it will work in the New Smugmug.

Hope this helps.

Mark

PBolchover · August 16, 2013

I, likewise, set a password on the whole site, giving a password hint that will hopefully be obvious to family members.

RichardSwe · August 16, 2013

Well, that sure worked. Thanks -- looks to be fine now.

I can't blame anyone for this one --- duh!!

I do wish though that there was a Support Question that directly addressed this "family site" set up. I sure could not find the info.

Thanks ---

CJSmith · August 24, 2013

I agree
This is such a common thing that there should be a tutorial on how to set it up. I'm good with technology, but this is ridiculous.

EDIT: Nevermind. I didn't realize this hid the entire site from everyone. Still lost on how to do this on the new smugmug.

ecco · November 26, 2018

Hi I'm just setting up a family site and wanted to know what people are using for security for a family site where you wish to have some galleries for sharing with family members and also having some galleries that are private for the site owner only to view. Any tips on what has worked for your family site security would be appreciated.

denisegoldberg · November 26, 2018

@ecco said:
Hi I'm just setting up a family site and wanted to know what people are using for security for a family site where you wish to have some galleries for sharing with family members and also having some galleries that are private for the site owner only to view. Any tips on what has worked for your family site security would be appreciated.

You can use a viewing password for the site as a whole.

Any gallery that you set with a visibility of Private (Only me) will be visible only to you.

See help pages Gallery, page, and folder privacy settings and Set a sitewide password.

Setting up a family site

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