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Multiple Passwords and Multiple Categories
Haigh
Registered Users Posts: 64 Big grins
Hi, I´m a new Smugger and already a happy one. I´m a standard user as most of my photography is for personal use but wish to move to a pro account once I manage to organize my images with public interest.
For now my doubts concentrate around friends and family usage.
I love the fact tha Smugmug does not require family and friends to create accounts but the current setup requires them to know the correct password for each gallery. I freqently host events where different groups of friends/family mix in one event. I would love to have each group of friends use one password to access all the galleries that pertain to them. That way they can come to the site and always use the same password.
1) Is there any way I can have multiple passwords for a single gallery?
In that way B-day would be available to groups 1,2 and 3 and Christmas would be availiable to groups 1 and 4 for example.
2) Can galleries belong to more than one category? I think I understood category organization for the homepage and I would love to have categoreis for each group of friends. That way B-day would be seen in the gategories for Groups 1,2 and 3 and Cristmas on Categories for Groups 1 and 4.
I don´t know if this is available or if there is a workaround to get the same results. If there is not, I don´t believe implementing the solution would be too dificult. Simicolons could be dealt with in the password field and control click in the category dropdown to allow multiple passwords and multiple categories.
If the development team wants to get fancy they can implement independent statistics based on the password used to access each gallery/image.
Robert
For now my doubts concentrate around friends and family usage.
I love the fact tha Smugmug does not require family and friends to create accounts but the current setup requires them to know the correct password for each gallery. I freqently host events where different groups of friends/family mix in one event. I would love to have each group of friends use one password to access all the galleries that pertain to them. That way they can come to the site and always use the same password.
1) Is there any way I can have multiple passwords for a single gallery?
In that way B-day would be available to groups 1,2 and 3 and Christmas would be availiable to groups 1 and 4 for example.
2) Can galleries belong to more than one category? I think I understood category organization for the homepage and I would love to have categoreis for each group of friends. That way B-day would be seen in the gategories for Groups 1,2 and 3 and Cristmas on Categories for Groups 1 and 4.
I don´t know if this is available or if there is a workaround to get the same results. If there is not, I don´t believe implementing the solution would be too dificult. Simicolons could be dealt with in the password field and control click in the category dropdown to allow multiple passwords and multiple categories.
If the development team wants to get fancy they can implement independent statistics based on the password used to access each gallery/image.
Robert
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You can use gallery redirects for this.
In fact, gallery redirects might be the answer. I've not tested it, but I think that you can password a redirect gallery, and you need to enter this password before you go to the target gallery.
In this way, you can set up a set of gallery redirects for each of your groups of friends, with the relevant passwords, and have them all point to an unpassworded-but-hidden target gallery. Someone who knows the target gallery URL would be able to get to it directly, but random people wouldn't be able to find it. Or you could even give a different password (known to all of your friends) to the target gallery, but this has the disadvantage that people would need to enter 2 passwords to view your photos (and the password caching might not work).
Welcome to Dgrin!
PBolchover has all ready given you the answer to your questions. Check #69 of our advanced customization faq for the link to the gallery redirect code he's talking about:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=52811
Right now, there's no other way to realize what you would like to do.
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
Where did you get that name from?!?!?!?
Anyway, thanks for the info in Gallery Redirects. They will solve half of the problem (and require me to upgrade to power user) but will not deal with the issue of passwords.
I have heard great things about SmugMug and am surprised this funciotionality does not exist. Has nobody thought of/asked for this? This seems to me like the obvious approach to the family/friends photo website for people concerned with images publicly displayed on the net. Am I the only one with this need? It seems like such a basic functionality that I almost can´t believe it´s not implemented yet (via hacks or oficially).
Smugmug attracted me exactly because of it´s advanced security options without much hassle for the viewers (like creating accounts). For me it´s smugmugs great diferential and if these funcions were availiable it would make it the best solution in town for personal photo sharing.
Speaking of oficial implementation, it also seems *very* straight forward do do, with great functionality benefits to home and pro users and no drawbacks for existing users. The implementation would cause no change to the sites of all users because they have only one password and one category per gallery, and so would not cause avalanches of complaints like the 'vanity url' and 'float bar sizes' changes did and like the soon to come shopping cart change will cause [get ready Andy, Baldy and crew]
Will look deeper into redirects though.
Thanks
Robert
Is this understanding correct?
Any thoughts on my idea of implementing multiple passwords and multiple categories? Or thoughts on to why nobody wishes to use the system the way I do?
Robert
PS: aquaticvideographer - post your suggestions here and not on PM. That way everybody can benefit from your thoughts. That´s the whole point of forums
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=97411
In short, I ended up making duplicate copies of all of the photos I wanted to share, and put them in an unlisted/passworded/hide owner gallery that I send out the link and password to folks who I want to see those specific pics but not my entire site. The big picture is that I want some folks to see some pics, and others to see the whole site - but I don't want to have to put seperate passwords on every single gallery.
Not sure if this info is useful to you or not, but I do share your frustrations with the amount of customization allowable by SmugMug. I am beginning to have seconds thoughts about my membership here, though I do like the look of the site once it is up and running.
- Jason
I highly doubt that multiple passwords will ever happen. But have you looked at using sharegroups ? This is exactly what they are for.
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
I disagree that "they are exactly what they are", here is why:
Sharegroups allow custom grouping of galleries creating the equivalent of a specific category with a link to it. They area a workaround for the multiple category request in that they create a group of galleries allowing a specific gallery to belong to more than one group but they do not address the security/privacy issue. Even with sharegroups, passwords are still set at the gallery level and so different groups of friends would have to use the same password to access a gallery, even if it belonged to different sharegroups (one for each group of friends).
The functionality I want allows each group of friends to have one permanent password which they can use to access any gallery I assign to their category/sharegroup. With multiple passwords a gallery could belong to more than one group, allowing each to access it with their specific password (through their specific category/shargroup or gallery redirect). Category passwords also don´t do the trick because they would require the gallery to not have a password, which violates my security needs.
I can also imagine uses for pro users. A school photographer could have galleries passworded so that each class has access only to their own class pictures while the school could access all class galleries.
This option would give owners concerned with security an exteremely hassle free solution for their viewers.
You said you highly doubt multiple passwords will ever happen.:cry :cry I´d like to understand why you belive so:
a) They are too dificult to implement (doubt it, nothing´s impossible for you guys)
b) They would confuse users (arguable, but your users are smart)
c) They would not add any funcionality (I hope i´ve made myself clear on the explanation of the funcionality)
d) The functionality they add is not interesting (I hope you don´t belive this)
e) You just don´t like the idea (please please like my idea)
f) Something else I didn´t think of....
Robert
Your best work-around today would be to create multiple copies of your gallery and give each a different password. If I recall, there is a third party program that will let you duplicate galleries without having to re-upload.
Is there a reason that you don't just use unlisted galleries and then only send out the links to the people that you want to have them? Unlisted galleries are often harder to find than passworded galleries are to break into because gallery ID + security key is a pretty hard thing to guess and is often less guessable than a gallery password. I'm not trying to talk you out of your feature request or your reason for wanting it, just trying to see if some other solution could work for you.
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sure, it does. If you make all the galleries you want to share unlisted and remove the passwords, then they can be shared with different groups of people without any issues.
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
Many reasons:
Unlisted galleries without passwords mean viewers have to have an e-mail with the link to the sharegroup. Remebering an easy address to the homepage and browsing to the gallery is soooooooo much easier for the viewers. Having galleires unlisted defeats the purpose of a homepage. I want to show off my home page (once I actually get it done). I photograph a lot and I´d like friends to come back to the home page after events where they see me with a camera and browse to see what´s new. This way they also see my public galleries with nice pics. I don´t want to keep sending spam reminding everybody that the pics are up and the address is blah blah blah. And I don´t want them to have to store an old e-mail just to keep the link.
Additionally I don´t like unpassworded galleries for personal images. I understand the safety of keys in urls but for some reason I just don´t feel as confortable. Feeling and comfort are not rational things.
But the main reason is user experience and the "branding effect" associated to going to my home page and checking for new stuff, browsing public galleries, posting comments, etc. I want to build a community of fans starting with my friends. I think I´m just like the majority of serious amateurs who does a lot of family/friend stuff but also has images he´d like to show off publically and dreams of going pro one day
While they reconsider my ideas I´ll look into using cloned galleries or reducing the number of separate viewer groups and hence separate password needs. But I won´t go to sharegroups because I don´t want e-mails and long urls. But I still believe multiple passwords are simpler. As I also believe multiple categories are simpler than gallery redirects (even though they can produce the same effect).
Robert
The reply do jfriend above explains my views on unlisted and unpassworded galleries and why multiple passwords give us very different funcitionality from sharegroups.
Robert