Confirmation that JS won't be limited to only Official Customisers

TalkieT · August 18, 2013

Hi guys - I note that at least one of the official customisers is able to use Javascript in the new Smugmug...

http://fastlinemedia.smugmug.com/?te...mer&skin=light

Can you confirm whether this means that

a) Javascript will be opened to everyone once the testing is done
b) Javascript will only be allowed for official customisers
c) Anyone could get Javascript in by paying a 'tax' to have an official customiser work on their site?

It's clear that the new SM CAN support Javascript so I think it's reasonable to get an idea of where you're going with this. I know there have been comments made that JS would likely start with the official customisers, but in the utter absence of any official updates about JS progress, these questions are going to come up again and again.

Cheers - N

Allen · August 18, 2013

I envision that no javascript will be allowed on individual sites but held in a sandbox. The "one copy"
of each script would be kept up to date for everyone. Users would then be able to call a script and only
supply the parameters.

It would be up to each developer to supply their script for approval and keep updates current.

TalkieT · August 18, 2013

Allen wrote: »

I envision that no javascript will be allowed on individual sites but held in a sandbox. The "one copy"
of each script would be kept up to date for everyone. Users would then be able to call a script and only
supply the parameters.

It would be up to each developer to supply their script for approval and keep updates current.

I get how this could make some sense but I see problems if I for example wrote a script to return an image name for paypal submission - if someone else ever used it I now can't functionally change it at all.

Some answers from Smugmug on what approach they are looking at would be helpful. Look how upset long time customers are getting and the crazy conclusions I'm jumping too (since SM refuse to provide any clarity)

Cheers - N

gbear · August 18, 2013

Allen - One of the problems that programmers (or experts like your good self !) have is that they underestimate the ignorance of everybody else. I myself am not the shapest knife in the dishwasher. Ahem. What IS a "sandbox" ?

mbonocore · August 18, 2013

TalkieT wrote: »

Hi guys - I note that at least one of the official customisers is able to use Javascript in the new Smugmug...

http://fastlinemedia.smugmug.com/?te...mer&skin=light

Can you confirm whether this means that

a) Javascript will be opened to everyone once the testing is done
b) Javascript will only be allowed for official customisers
c) Anyone could get Javascript in by paying a 'tax' to have an official customiser work on their site?

It's clear that the new SM CAN support Javascript so I think it's reasonable to get an idea of where you're going with this. I know there have been comments made that JS would likely start with the official customisers, but in the utter absence of any official updates about JS progress, these questions are going to come up again and again.

Cheers - N

As Baldy has stated in a different thread, we just aren't sure yet. We are accumulating a list of features you guys want that used to require JS in Legacy SmugMug. With suggestions like WuFoo forms, we were quickly and easily able to add a content block to the Customizer, so there was no coding needed on the users part.

All we are sure of is this. We want to provide you with the tools you need, in a safe and easy to maintain manner.

TalkieT · August 18, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

[snip]
All we are sure of is this. We want to provide you with the tools you need, in a safe and easy to maintain manner.

You can actually hear yourself right? You KNOW you sound like a politician making promises don't you?

"We want to provide you with the jobs you deserve as hardworking Americans, and we'll do this using robust and sustainable funding strategies"

But you see, I didn't ask if you wanted to provide the tools we need, or if you would do so in a safe and easy to maintain manner. If that was the question I asked then your answer would have been on the money.

Tell me that the differential treatment given to at least some of the official customisers will go away, and your actual customers will have the same capability that the special elite will.

Cheers - N

mbonocore · August 19, 2013

TalkieT wrote: »

You can actually hear yourself right? You KNOW you sound like a politician making promises don't you?

"We want to provide you with the jobs you deserve as hardworking Americans, and we'll do this using robust and sustainable funding strategies"

But you see, I didn't ask if you wanted to provide the tools we need, or if you would do so in a safe and easy to maintain manner. If that was the question I asked then your answer would have been on the money.

Tell me that the differential treatment given to at least some of the official customisers will go away, and your actual customers will have the same capability that the special elite will.

Cheers - N

Fastline is our Alpha tester for JS. Beyond that, I can't give you any answers you are looking for at this time. As I said, we don't even know as of yet.

WinsomeWorks · August 19, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

As Baldy has stated in a different thread, we just aren't sure yet. We are accumulating a list of features you guys want that used to require JS in Legacy SmugMug. With suggestions like WuFoo forms, we were quickly and easily able to add a content block to the Customizer, so there was no coding needed on the users part.

All we are sure of is this. We want to provide you with the tools you need, in a safe and easy to maintain manner.

This is what I do not comprehend about that "list of features you guys want that used to require JS in Legacy SmugMug"... Why do you have to make your paying customers go through all those jobs again (of telling you what they want)? It would make everyone thrilled if you could simply start by adding back (or adding in, as the case may be) all of the 30 things that are listed in your own sticky at the top of the Customization forum: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=135068&page=25 . You can easily tell just by looking at replies in that thread and looking over customized sites that thousands of people are using probably each of the 30 things on the list! If they hadn't wanted them so badly, they wouldn't have bothered implementing them, as it took a little work. But JFriend started that list in 2009, made it as clear & beautifully illustrated & smooth as possible, and tirelessly provided support for the features before, and ever since that.

I myself probably used a third or more of those 30 items, and what's more, I, like many people, fully assumed a lot of these would simply be available as built-in options on the New, great SmugMug (since you asked us before you even created the new Smug what we wanted)... We never dreamed that most of them wouldn't be simply built in--- and we certainly never dreamed we'd lose the ability to even customize them.

Everyone is incredibly busy trying to either make the switch to the New, or just keep their Old functioning while trying to learn what they'll have to do when they make the switch. Why can't SmugMug just start working through the hottest items on the list that's already there in front of you (many of which your customers begged for again anyway in the "Try the new SmugMug" thread that ran for a couple years)? You're well beyond the info-gathering stage as far as "what we want". The info has been there in front of SmugMug for years, and is still there. SM just needs to stop asking repetitive questions of its busy, frantic customers & just make this stuff happen as fast as possible. That's the only way you're going to help your old faithful customers regain trust and remain happy here, and it's sad to me that you're needing us to tell you that.

I thought I was finished, but one caveat: If / when you make these "features" available somehow, just please listen to what people have already stated again & again about each of them. For instance, the "X" (or whatever it is in New Smug) that shows which images are hidden to the public--- evidently it's too hard to see, and doesn't show up in certain parts of the organizer, etc., which renders it either useless or highly frustrating for people who were used to its previous functionality. It wasn't visible previously in some of our tools either, but several of us asked for that to be built into the New Smug, and somehow a lot of tips like that got ignored. Now's the time to change that!

jfriend · August 19, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

As Baldy has stated in a different thread, we just aren't sure yet. We are accumulating a list of features you guys want that used to require JS in Legacy SmugMug. With suggestions like WuFoo forms, we were quickly and easily able to add a content block to the Customizer, so there was no coding needed on the users part.

All we are sure of is this. We want to provide you with the tools you need, in a safe and easy to maintain manner.

If, for one, want to use a site that allows me to do things to my site that you have not thought of yet or don't think are important enough. So, your endeavor to just add all possible features I might want will NEVER work. I don't intend to be stuck in the sandbox of only things you have designed for.

And, for what it's worth, accumulating a list of features that use to require javascript support is NOT working on providing javascript support. That's working on trying to AVOID providing javascript support. You might want to make sure you understand the question that's being asked before answering.

The whole point of JS customization is so that customers can do things you HAVE NOT THOUGHT OF YET or HAVE NOT IMPLEMENTED YET or WILL NOT IMPLEMENT.

I'm incredibly disappointed to see that you're still spouting off about trying to avoid ever offering javascript. Since I've seen that from so many different support people now, I can only guess that that must be what the real internal conversation is about. Way bad.

It is now time for me to go looking for a new way to host my images. If you're now thinking that SM would be fine without customers like me, then you might want to include the 303 customers that I referred to SM in that thinking.

After multiple years of working on the new SM, you can't even say whether you will or won't offer javascript support in the future. That's ridiculous. You deserve to lose a bunch of customers if you're going to treat them that way. Cut the crap and just be honest with us here in public. You either intend to support general purpose JS customization or you don't.

It's a YES or NO answer!

And, saying that you don't know after all this time planning the new SM is just ridiculous and irresponsible. You either intend to support it or you don't. Cut the wishy washy crap.

TalkieT · August 19, 2013

jfriend wrote: »

[snipped your understandably frustrated answer...]

+1 John. It's a real shame SM simply doesn't want to be transparent with customers. There's so many weasel words to describe what they want to do, or might be working on... And if history is anything to go by, that's NOT NECESSARILY an indicator that they won't deliver... But it 100% guarantees frustration in the affected customers because disingenuous answers are almost as bad as ignoring the questions - which they are also excellent at.

To reinforce what John said - Javascript support isn't about enabling a few features that you don't have and might be able to develop, it's about having a toolkit to add things you won't, or can't. (like Paypal support or good foreign currency support - you had 5 years to deliver on that and failed)

Give us the tools, please.

You frustrate me so much... You doubled prices last year, and this entire upgrade has done NOTHING for me except increase my blood pressure, give me a total lack of clarity about whether I should continue hosting with you and even in the best case scenario I'm up for dozens of hours of work to re-do my site.

You only care about customers that can use your product off the shelf - that's clear. At least be honest about it.

Cheers - N

dereksurfs · August 19, 2013

The problem is there are Three possible answers, not just Two. But for those who desperately want JS Now only one answer seems to really be what is being asked for. What if the answer isn't Yes or No, bit rather SM is working on implementing JS in some form, the full method of which is not fully worked out yet? Can you live with that, at least for now? Because that's the clear answer I have heard form Baldy as well the rest SM staff in numerous threads on this same topic recently. Isn't that what you heard as well?

AdamNP · August 19, 2013

Just want to add my voice to the incredible frustration so many people are feeling. It's not even just about the things that are missing and broken with the new SM. It's the lack of communication, and things that sometimes seem to border on outright contempt for customers, some of which have made thousands of posts basically doing SM support for free, and referring hundreds of customers.

I'm frustrated, just in general, by how incredibly amateurish this rollout has been. I'm not going to go look for the thread, but the preview thread for the new SM was posted YEARS ago, I think. This has been in development for YEARS. Then it's released, and is somehow still nowhere near ready, and is still missing basically every feature pros have asked for. There are INSANELY obvious bugs (like gallery descriptions not appearing unless you are logged in, among others). Yes, I know it's fixed. But if I had been doing QA/beta testing, I would have found that in about 5 minutes. It feels like no one tested anything, and it was just released. SM spam in meta descriptions, favicons broken, image alt tags missing.... these are incredibly basic things. The fact that anyone at SM can even utter the term "SEO", when the single most important factor in image SEO (alt tags) are missing, is just... astounding.

Now, my one little case. I can actually deal with all of the other problems. But removing JS support has had the side effect of making Adsense impossible to run. I made several times my annual SM fee off of Adsense last year. Taking that away is totally unacceptable. I was told to make a feature request for it, and I did. No reply, and how long will it be until its done? Months? Years? Never? Who knows, since there are never any answers. It would take someone about 5 minutes to make an Adsense content block. Treating an ad network that half the world uses as malicious JS is just stupid.

I used to have so much respect for SM, I even wanted to work there. There was so much accountability, and transparency. It's so sad to see SM become the complete opposite of everything it used to stand for.

/end rant

(btw, I actually like the new design)

AdamNP · August 19, 2013

dereksurfs wrote: »

The problem is there are Three possible answers, not just Two. But for those who desperately want JS Now only one answer seems to really be what is being asked for. What if the answer isn't Yes or No, bit rather SM is working on implementing JS in some form, the full method of which is not fully worked out yet? Can you live with that, at least for now? Because that's the clear answer I have heard form Baldy as well the rest SM staff in numerous threads on this same topic recently. Isn't that what you heard as well?

When this release has been in development for YEARS, no, that's not really an answer I can live with. Especially with no one at SM being willing to give any sort of dates or timelines. They just said they don't even know the answer yet... that's mind boggling.

jfriend · August 19, 2013

dereksurfs wrote: »

The problem is there are Three possible answers, not just Two. But for those who desperately want JS Now only one answer seems to really be what is being asked for. What if the answer isn't Yes or No, bit rather SM is working on implementing JS in some form, the full method of which is not fully worked out yet? Can you live with that, at least for now? Because that's the clear answer I have heard form Baldy as well the rest SM staff in numerous threads on this same topic recently. Isn't that what you heard as well?

I've been told "working on it" also. But, I'm not hearing working on finishing it so we can release it soon. I'm hearing working on figuring out what we're going to do. That just seems like crap to me and shows a serious screw up in their planning if they build and launch new SM and still don't know what the JS customization plan is.

They planned the entire new SM over 3-4 years and still don't know what their JS plan is? That sounds like my answer right there. It obviously isn't really all that important to them. With it being of that little importance to them, I can no longer even trust that they will actually implement it or that when they do, it will be capable enough to do the things we really want to do. There is zero reason for me to trust them on this topic now. What I honestly believe is that they wish this whole JS customization thing would just go away and their life would be a lot simpler.

And, there's all these tidbits coming out of support that are repeating the exact same message (I've seen something very similar to this multiple times in the last couple weeks). JS support is a pain and we don't like it and we'd rather just implement all the features that you JS people were using so we don't really have to do JS support. There would not be such a uniformity of message if that isn't actually being discussed internally and perhaps even what they really believe internally (or at least what some people believe).

mbonocore · August 19, 2013

jfriend wrote: »

You might want to make sure you understand the question that's being asked before answering.

I understand the question quite well John. As I said, knowing what our customers NEED JS for helps us come up with a gameplan, whether that is by building it into the Customize menu, or providing JS. It's a simple question. Tell us what you need so we can work on a game plan.

jfriend wrote: »

After multiple years of working on the new SM, you can't even say whether you will or won't offer javascript support in the future. That's ridiculous. You deserve to lose a bunch of customers if you're going to treat them that way. Cut the crap and just be honest with us here in public. You either intend to support general purpose JS customization or you don't. It's a YES or NO answer!

Yes, it is a Yes or No answer, but as I said, we simply do not know that yet. I am sorry we don't, but I can't tell you Yes or No, If we don't know HOW we will support JS. As Baldy has stated, we plan on offering JS. Is the way we offer it the way you will be wanting it. I don't know....therefore, I can't tell you yes or no. I apologize we can't give you the answer you are looking for right now John.

dereksurfs · August 19, 2013

jfriend wrote: »

I've been told "working on it" also. But, I'm not hearing working on finishing it so we can release it soon. I'm hearing working on figuring out what we're going to do. That just seems like crap to me and shows a serious screw up in their planning if they build and launch new SM and still don't know what the JS customization plan is.
...
And, there's all these tidbits coming out of support that are repeating the exact same message (I've seen something very similar to this multiple times in the last couple weeks). JS support is a pain and we don't like it and we'd rather just implement all the features that you JS people were using so we don't really have to do JS support. There would not be such a uniformity of message if that isn't actually being discussed internally and perhaps even what they really believe internally (or at least what some people believe).

Yes, good points.

Ok, so let's look at it from a little different angle. What if you had two main groups hypothetically speaking (hypothetical because there are more)? One group wants full, unlimited JS support anywhere throughout their site, no questions asked. The other group want to minimize or even eliminate the headache of supporting custom JS altogether. Neither group really likes deviating from their strong desire and preference. Fair enough so far? On top of that the first group wants what they want yesterday as it rightly should have been in the first place.

Now, given all that do you think there can be any middle ground that could potentially appease both sides at least partially without either extreme being implemented fully, or not at all?

jfriend · August 19, 2013

dereksurfs wrote: »

Yes, good points. Ok, so let's look at it from a little different angle. What if you had two main groups hypothetically speaking (hypothetical because there are more). One group wants full, unlimited JS support anywhere throughout their site, no questions asked. The other group want to minimize or even eliminate the headache of supporting custom JS altogether. Neither group really likes deviating from their strong desire and preference. Fair enough so far? On top of that the first group wants what they want yesterday as it rightly should have been in the first place.

Now, given all that do you think there can be any middle ground that could potentially appease both sides at least partially without either extreme being implemented fully, or not at all?

I don't see how it's possible to be both support full JS and not support full JS (so I guess I don't know what you're really asking).

You either support fairly unlimited JS customization or you don't. Something in between that's limited in a bunch of ways to try to make support happy probably doesn't meet either side's requirements so it would likely be the worst possible choice.

TalkieT · August 19, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

I understand the question quite well John. As I said, knowing what our customers NEED JS for helps us come up with a gameplan, whether that is by building it into the Customize menu, or providing JS. It's a simple question. Tell us what you need so we can work on a game plan.
[SNIP]

You're asking us to tell you all the things that we might need, even the things we don't know about yet?

Cheers - N

mbonocore · August 19, 2013

TalkieT wrote: »

You're asking us to tell you all the things that we might need, even the things we don't know about yet?

Cheers - N

No, when you know what you need in the future, you can tell us. We aren't saying tell us everything now...this is a development process. It is never over. If you need something that we don't provide in 5 months, or 5 years, just tell us and we will look into it.

jfriend · August 19, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

I understand the question quite well John. As I said, knowing what our customers NEED JS for helps us come up with a gameplan, whether that is by building it into the Customize menu, or providing JS. It's a simple question. Tell us what you need so we can work on a game plan.

I thought my answer was quite clear. I need JS so that I can implement the things in my site that you have not implemented or will not implement and I can make them work in the timeframe that I choose. Some of those features are known now, some won't be known until the need arises in the coming years.

That's how my site has worked in the last 9 years and it is already clear to me from those years of experience being a customer that there are many different things over the years that I'd like to do with my site that you don't support and probably never will support.

I've provided countless lists of features to SM over the years. I never found it helped get me features that I as a single individual wanted. SM doesn't select features to implement that way and I get that. So, I want the ability to implement my own site features when I decide to put the time in to implement them.

mbonocore · August 19, 2013

jfriend wrote: »

I thought my answer was quite clear. I need JS so that I can implement the things in my site that you have not implemented or will not implement and I can make them work in the timeframe that I choose. Some of those features are known now, some won't be known until the need arises in the coming years.

That's how my site has worked in the last 9 years and it is already clear to me from those years of experience being a customer that there are many different things over the years that I'd like to do with my site that you don't support and probably never will support.

I've provided countless lists of features to SM over the years. I never found it helped get me features that I as a single individual wanted. SM doesn't select features to implement that way and I get that. So, I want the ability to implement my own site features when I decide to put the time in to implement them.

Understood John...but as I said. We don't have a Yes Or No answer for you yet. You want full open ended JS. I know that. I cannot tell you Yes or No if that will be implemented.

dereksurfs · August 19, 2013

jfriend wrote: »

I don't see how it's possible to be both support full JS and not support full JS (so I guess I don't know what you're really asking).

You either support fairly unlimited JS customization or you don't. Something in between that's limited in a bunch of ways to try to make support happy probably doesn't meet either side's requirements so it would likely be the worst possible choice.

Really? Are you saying No JS would be better than partial JS customization? Or rather anything short of unlimited JS support will not work for you? So at that point it doesn't really matter any more. I'm not trying to invalidate your view as I'm sure there are some who feel the same way. But by the same token can you also understand the desire for the opposite of 'full customization' from a support perspective, whether you agree with it or not?

My point is SM may be willing to work on a middle ground. At least some of the complaints which have been among the loudest have to do with very specific features they need for their business model to continue working in the new SM. For example this might include providing paypal options for self fulfillment, Adsense, etc... How about fixing foreign currency issues once and for all? Could some of these features be built-in so as not to require custom JS in the first place? Then what about partial JS customization support? What might that look like? Possibly a sandbox or approved customizations which could be made more generic for easy reuse?

TalkieT · August 19, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

No, when you know what you need in the future, you can tell us. We aren't saying tell us everything now...this is a development process. It is never over. If you need something that we don't provide in 5 months, or 5 years, just tell us and we will look into it.

Like how I have been asking for international currency support for over 5 years, and then after 5 years a bad, halfway house solution got put in? Or how self fulfilment has been a top request for YEARS and there's been no progress towards it and no acknowledgement that it's something you'd even consider.

They are both REAL WORLD examples of functionality that Smugmug historically treated with incredibly low priority - and took over half a decade to in one case ignore, and in the other case, deliver badly.

Myself and several others have solved both issues with the help of Javascript.

Now yes, if you deliver those features in your base offering, that WILL HELP ME and others.

But suggesting that asking Smugmug for features in a reasonable timeframe is anything but a pointless endeavour is just laughable. Years upon YEARS upon YEARS of experience backs this up.

Cheers - N

jfriend · August 19, 2013

dereksurfs wrote: »

Really? Are you saying No JS would be better than partial JS customization? Or rather anything short of unlimited JS support will not work for you? So at that point it doesn't really matter any more. I'm not trying to invalidate your view as I'm sure there are some who feel the same way. But by the same token can you also understand the desire for the opposite of 'full customization' from a support perspective, whether you agree with it or not?

My point is SM may be willing to work on a middle ground. At least some of the complaints which have been among the loudest have to do with very specific features they need for their business model to continue working in the new SM. For example this might include providing paypal options for self fulfillment, Adsense, etc... How about fixing foreign currency issues once and for all? Could some of these features be built-in so as not to require custom JS in the first place? Then what about partial JS customization support? What might that look like? Possibly a sandbox or approved customizations which could be made more generic for easy reuse?

I was saying that partial JS support won't make support happy and it probably won't make me happy so you may get the worst of both worlds. Is there some other middle ground - I have no idea. I don't even know what SM's real objections are so I can't even play that game. I know that support doesn't like it when people mess up their sites with custom JS and then involve support because their site isn't working. From that standpoint, any amount of custom JS that could do anything reasonable will have that issue.

My particular interest in JS customization is so that I can solve issues in my site whenever I want to both now and in the future without waiting for SM. If I had to wait for SM to do things over the last 9 years I've been a customer, I would have left a long time ago because they didn't come very close to supporting some of the things I wanted to do.

Sure, if they finally (7-8 years after being asked to) get around to supporting self fulfillment, Paypal, Adsense, all possible foreign currencies, etc... in exactly the way that all customers want, then they would reduce the number of customers that would leave without JS customization ways to solve these issues for themselves, but that doesn't solve anything for me personally.

JS customization to me is the freedom to solve my own issues when SM hasn't already done what I need, both now and in the future. I don't plan on investing further in a site that doesn't offer me that capability. That's why I was a passionate SM customer for so long and why I brought them 300+ new customer referrals over the years. From my point of view, that's what made SM unique and powerful. It wasn't limited to just what SM has predesigned a capability for.

mbellot · August 19, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

You want full open ended JS. I know that. I cannot tell you Yes or No if that will be implemented.

I think that's about as clear an answer as we'll ever get.

If they haven't planned to implement full JS customization by now, they never will.

It should have been built into the core functionality of the "new" Smugmug. If it's not there now it's not going to be anytime before SM3.

dereksurfs · August 19, 2013

jfriend wrote: »

I was saying that partial JS support won't make support happy and it probably won't make me happy so you may get the worst of both worlds. Is there some other middle ground - I have no idea. I don't even know what SM's real objections are so I can't even play that game. I know that support doesn't like it when people mess up their sites with custom JS and then involve support because their site isn't working. From that standpoint, any amount of custom JS that could do anything reasonable will have that issue.
...
JS customization to me is the freedom to solve my own issues when SM hasn't already done what I need, both now and in the future. I don't plan on investing further in a site that doesn't offer me that capability. That's why I was a passionate SM customer for so long and why I brought them 300+ new customer referrals over the years. From my point of view, that's what made SM unique and powerful. It wasn't limited to just what SM has predesigned a capability for.

All well articulated points from your perspective.

Since Michael has been very clear about the SM answer at this point, not Yes or No but rather wait, what are your real choices? IMO, it would be a shame to lose your contribution to the SM community. This would especially be true if JS was added back at some point. To what degree that might be no one knows yet. But obvously you have certain goals which aren't being met currently . I think for some the idea of waiting for something which may come is worse than a simple yes or no answer. So I understand why that is asked for. Unfortunately the overall plan has not been fully made which means wait and see.

For those considering alternatives I don't know of too many other optons or sites which offer full JS customization like this, especially for such a reasonable price. I think someone may have mentioned one in a similar thread - photoshelter perhaps? But the cost is much, much higher. So its not really a direct apples to apples comparison. I don't think any direct competitor offers anything like this.

Instead of Legacy SM fading off into the sunset and on to the 'old software' junk heep it seems like some would love to keep it indefinitely. There was talk initially of splitting the two products. But who would maintain the old one? Maybe it could be donated to the open source community?

Probably too much proprietary stuff in it for that though.

mbonocore · August 19, 2013

Statcounter is now available in your account settings, which, afaik, you needed JS for in Legacy.

TalkieT · August 19, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

Statcounter is now available in your account settings, which, afaik, you needed JS for in Legacy.

Interesting, and useful for some people.

Heaping coals on the fire of people suspicious that SM is trying to avoid allowing people to use Javascript.

It took over 5 years to deliver an incomplete, inelegant foreign currency solution and no interest have ever been shown in a self fulfilment option. Please explain why I should feel anything but concern that these aren't going to be do-able in new SM for a long time?

Cheers - N

mbonocore · August 19, 2013

TalkieT wrote: »

Interesting, and useful for some people.

Heaping coals on the fire of people suspicious that SM is trying to avoid allowing people to use Javascript.

It took over 5 years to deliver an incomplete, inelegant foreign currency solution and no interest have ever been shown in a self fulfilment option. Please explain why I should feel anything but concern that these aren't going to be do-able in new SM for a long time?

Cheers - N

I think since launch we have proved we are able to turn feature requests around quickly, and that we really do want to. It's up to you whether you trust us or not, but i think that we have shown that we are listening.

TalkieT · August 19, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

Statcounter is now available in your account settings, which, afaik, you needed JS for in Legacy.

mbonocore wrote: »

I think since launch we have proved we are able to turn feature requests around quickly, and that we really do want to. It's up to you whether you trust us or not, but i think that we have shown that we are listening.

You're right, you have shown that in some very simple cases, you have turned around features quickly since the recent launch. That is fair, and I'm impressed by how quick these have been.

However, to be fair, they're barely features. They require very little if any back end work.

The major functionality I am harping on about has been stuff that for over half a decade Smugmug has consistently said is incredibly hard to develop. I'm sure if I went searching I could find quotes to support that.

With assistance from those in the customising community, the two major features I needed (paypal / self fulfilment) had basic functionality developed and deployed in days using Javascript.

There are a HEAP of things that you won't build yourselves that I currently do (Random borders for gallery and category thumbnails, adding categories into the featured galleries block with different backgrounds etc etc) but it's the two killer features I keep harping on about because they work well with some simple Javascript, and SM has consistently said that they are incredibly hard to do.

So, forgive me if I don't view changing something to support statcounter as an indicator that the important features to many are going to be developed in a reasonable timeframe. Remember also that the SM foreign currency support is awful. You guys still don't get what is important to non-US pros. You never have and I reallllly don't think you ever will.

THAT'S why javascript is important - it lets those of us who have needs you don't even understand, let alone have the capability or capacity to develop, build them ourselves.

I really think Smugmug would do a better job if you accepted that your understanding of non-US pros is extremely limited, and faced up to the fact that trying to develop built in solutions to the various Javascript hacks is an approach that prioritises your ease over customer capability.

Cheers - N

mbonocore · August 19, 2013

TalkieT wrote: »

You're right, you have shown that in some very simple cases, you have turned around features quickly since the recent launch. That is fair, and I'm impressed by how quick these have been.

However, to be fair, they're barely features. They require very little if any back end work.

The major functionality I am harping on about has been stuff that for over half a decade Smugmug has consistently said is incredibly hard to develop. I'm sure if I went searching I could find quotes to support that.

With assistance from those in the customising community, the two major features I needed (paypal / self fulfilment) had basic functionality developed and deployed in days using Javascript.

There are a HEAP of things that you won't build yourselves that I currently do (Random borders for gallery and category thumbnails, adding categories into the featured galleries block with different backgrounds etc etc) but it's the two killer features I keep harping on about because they work well with some simple Javascript, and SM has consistently said that they are incredibly hard to do.

So, forgive me if I don't view changing something to support statcounter as an indicator that the important features to many are going to be developed in a reasonable timeframe. Remember also that the SM foreign currency support is awful. You guys still don't get what is important to non-US pros. You never have and I reallllly don't think you ever will.

THAT'S why javascript is important - it lets those of us who have needs you don't even understand, let alone have the capability or capacity to develop, build them ourselves.

I really think Smugmug would do a better job if you accepted that your understanding of non-US pros is extremely limited, and faced up to the fact that trying to develop built in solutions to the various Javascript hacks is an approach that prioritises your ease over customer capability.

Cheers - N

I definitely understand where you are coming from, and your two scenarios are discussed almost daily, from what I even hear, and I don't even work in the main suite. All I can tell you is where we are at today, and I have said that many times before. I know it is not what you are looking for at this very moment, but that is all I can tell you at this very moment.

Confirmation that JS won't be limited to only Official Customisers

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