Menu bar links are absolute not relative

Ferguson · April 29, 2017

I went to demonstrate how to do a custom domain with relative links so your site works with https (with the nickname) and separately with your custom domain (with http). Except mine didn't.

It turns out the menu, when used with "page I choose", generates absolute links. It should generate relative links, so that your current server and protocol "stick".

If you use "URL" instead and put in a relative link it works fine.

I have not tried it with the option to generate sublinks automatically.

Obviously there is a work-around, but I think there is so much confusion for people over http/https and custom domains, that if you would make this respect their initial choice (i.e. in reference not during creation) it would be a lot simpler for people.

The darn wordpress mentality of absolute links has littered our world; just say "Nothing is absolute, everything is Relative". Einstein will thank you.

leftquark · April 29, 2017

Hi Ferguson,
This is a tough one for us because we've built it this way based on customer feedback. Since a visitor can land at both nickname.smugmug.com and yourcustomdomain.com there's an expectation from the site owner on what the visitor will see. We received strong feedback that site owners wanted to ensure their visitors always ended up at their custom domain and that it looked unprofessional for them to be able to browse around the nickname.smugmug.com when they should be browsing a custom domain. If we hear feedback differently, we're more than happy to change them back to relative links.

Ferguson · April 29, 2017

How would someone ever land on your nickname site to begin with, without an explicit attempt to put them there (by the owner)?

Until and unless SM fixes the lack of HTTPS support, people who might need to (or just want to) allow HTTPS viewing of a site with custom domains are stuck -- there's no way to do that (absent the workaround mentioned) is there? If one uses menus.

That said, I just realized you are doing the same thing in folder gallery links -- if you have a folder of galleries, it forces you out of the nickname and onto the custom domain, and there doesn't seem a workaround available for that.

So back to my question: I understand the rationale if one was landing on the nickname all the time. But how can that come to be? If someone didn't build links to the nickname, only to their customer name, why would not relative links always work?

Or is something inside SMugmug, some search feature or similar, throwing people momentarily into the nickname?

leftquark · April 29, 2017

The most common case is related to the progression many photographers go through in their photography career: they start on smugmug with no custom domain, share links with their friends/family/facebook/DGrin and as they get more serious in photography decide to add a custom domain. There's still nickname.smugmug.com links in the wild and they want any visitors to be moved to their custom domain.

Ferguson · April 29, 2017

Account option?

I really think this is going to become more of an issue if you can't offer https for people, it's the only way those who find some need or expectation (e.g. of clients) to get https. Except it won't "stick".

I'm happy with my custom domain generally, and I do not have a specific need for https myself. But all it's going to take is some key player to start giving browser warnings for http web sites, and a massive load of us will be looking for alternative ways to get https. This is the easiest, well, short of completely removing the custom domain.

leftquark · April 29, 2017

The goal is to get everyone onto https. CloudFlare, for example, announced last week an option to do this that we're currently investigating. We're also working with CloudFront to see if they can support https.

Ferguson · April 29, 2017

If you get that fixed, this is almost completely moot.

Menu bar links are absolute not relative

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