How to display keyword searches as a gallery

AstacusAstacus Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
We have a smugmug site (http://rjbwild.smugmug.com) that we use to record various birdwatching trips.Beuase we keyword the species and genus, there's a nice list on the left had side and if a viewer clicks on one of these, all relevant keyworded images are shown. But they are shown in a 'large image' on per row format, and I'd prefer a smal gallery, say 4 or 5 per row.

Is this possible?
I've experimented but can't seem to get this to work

Thank you

Rob
Tagged:

Comments

  • JtringJtring Registered Users Posts: 673 Major grins

    It's possible. I do something like what you seem to be after on my site. My regular galleries have one layout (Collage Landscape) but I want my keyword galleries in another (SmugMug style). It appears you want the reverse, but the process for getting there is the same.

    The critical fact is that keyword galleries (and search galleries), use your default gallery preset. If that concept is not familiar to you, check out https://www.smugmughelp.com/en/articles/353-save-gallery-settings-as-a-preset. That help file will describe how create and use a gallery preset, as well as describing how to make (or change) the default preset.

    So how do you make this all work? Here's one sequence. Some of this may be familiar. Since I don't know your background, I'll describe things in lots of detail, perhaps more than you need.

    First of all, you want to have a preset for the style you use for your regular galleries (e.g., https://rjbwild.smugmug.com/Garden-Birds/Robins/ ). I observe this and your other regular galleries use SmugMug Style. To save a preset for this type of gallery, go to one of these regular galleries, enter Settings, and toggle some innocuous setting on and off. A safe choice might be "Right Click Message" in the Photo Protection Tab. By going on, then off, you haven't changed anything, but you have brought up a little dialog section at the bottom of the Settings box that lets you save the current settings as a Gallery Preset. Insert a name, do not click the box "use as my default for new galleries", and SAVE.

    Next, you want to create a new preset that you will make the default ... the default that will get used for your keyword galleries. Go to the Organizer and create a new gallery. You are going to use this for setup and testing. During the initial setup, go to the Appearance tab and for Gallery Style up at the top, select "Collage Landscape". Make whatever other setup selections you might want to show in your keyword galleries. That little dialog box that lets you save the current settings as a Gallery Preset should be there. Insert a new name, DO click the box "use as my default for new galleries" this time, and SAVE. You will now have an empty gallery. To keep going, you need some pictures in there, and its best to make it look like a keyword gallery. So go back to Settings. Now a Smart Rules tab will be there. Select it and hit setup. The dialog box starts with just what you want: a gallery that collects everything with a given keyword. (To read more, see https://www.smugmughelp.com/en/articles/348-create-smart-galleries-based-on-keywords .) Enter a keyword that will produce a gallery with lots of images (e.g., "brazil"), and save.

    Now take a look at your new gallery. You may want to fine tune. In particular, you may have too may or too few images in each row. To work that, enter into the Customize Design tool. Move your mouse over the pictures. A big blue frame should surround the picture area. At the upper left is a little box with a wrench icon. Click the wrench. A box labeled "Gallery Styles" should appear. Click "Collage Landscape" and another dialog box will replace the first. Adjust settings as you wish: smaller or larger images, more or less spacing between images). You can see the changes in real time in the background. Save when you are happy. This changes the settings for ALL Collage Landscape galleries, but since you generally use SmugMug style, this is only going to apply in places where the Collage Landscape is used, as it will be on keyword galleries.

    Now try one of your keyword gallery links and see how it looks. Problems? Go back to the test gallery you created. If you want to adjust settings, save the settings as a new preset. (I don't think SmugMug lets you edit presets or replace an existing one, but you can try). If you want to change some of the layout details, repeat the fine tuning I described in the previous paragraph.

    When you are fully happy, you can delete that setup/test gallery, but it might be good to keep it around, unlisted, for future iterations.

    When you create a new regular gallery -- visits to places in Scotland perhaps? -- use the preset you created in the first step. You can't just accept the default. That's now your Collage Landscape settings for the keyword galleries.

    And finally, you might want to clean up the list of presets. Along the way, you may have created some extras. In Account Settings/Me/Gallery Presets you will find a list of presets with the tools to delete unnecessary ones.

    Hope this helps.

    Jim Ringland . . . . . jtringl.smugmug.com
  • AstacusAstacus Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
    What a helpful and detailed answer! I’ll experiment today. Thank you so much Jim.
    Much appreciated
    Rob
  • AstacusAstacus Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
    Update - well, that worked brilliantly, exactly as you described. Thank you again!
  • JtringJtring Registered Users Posts: 673 Major grins
    edited October 12, 2022

    You are most welcome.

    One other note for you or any one else who blunders into this thread in the future. I realized after I hit send the other day that I probably should have mentioned this.

    While the Customize Design tool, when applied to the base keyword page (mine is https://jtringl.smugmug.com/keyword ) is of no help in working the image layout on a keyword results page (example: https://jtringl.smugmug.com/keyword/cypripedium/), it is useful in one way. Those keyword results pages inherit the layout of the base keyword page. The only change is that the keyword list block gets replaced by a gallery block (using the gallery preset and gallery template defaults). Everything else carries over. So if you want to add, remove, or change content blocks -- other than the gallery one -- on the keyword results pages, you can do so via the base keyword page. Of course that changes the base keyword page too.

    Jim Ringland . . . . . jtringl.smugmug.com
Sign In or Register to comment.