Smug Tip of the Week: Get Organized With Categories
Categories for Unlimited Organization
- Do you have a lot of galleries?
- Are your viewers are having a hard time finding the galleries they want to see?
- Do you want to create “sub-galleries?”
We have a solution for you: Custom categories and subcategories! They will allow your viewers to find their galleries quickly and easily… and it’s already built in to your SmugMug account.
Three Customizable Layers
Your site is organized in a simple nested system, like this:
CATEGORY –> SUBCATEGORY –> GALLERY –> IMAGE
Your images get put into Galleries, and Galleries are placed into Categories. If you want, you can also add an optional layer between Categories and Galleries, called Subcategories. They allow you to subdivide a category (like “Weddings” or “Sports”) into smaller groups (Like “2011″ or “Spring Season”), so your viewers can easily find the pictures they’re looking for.
But remember that Subcategories don’t exist until you create them. We’ll get to that next.
Make Your Own Categories
You’re not limited to the default Categories that you see in that list. Feel free to create your own Categories and Subcategories at any time! Go to your Control Panel, and look under the Customize tab, then click on the Category or Subcategory link, whichever you’re looking to create.
Or if you prefer to do it on the fly you can also create them when you make new galleries.
Remember that empty Categories and Subcategories (ones that don’t have any galleries assigned to them) don’t appear on your site, to help to keep things tidy. Imagine if you had 50 empty Categories on your homepage!
You can have some galleries in Subcategories, and some directly in a Category. They’ll sort themselves in the appropriate boxes on your site like this:
Look here to see all the details about using Categories and Subcategories.
Moving Galleries from one Category to Another
You can move existing galleries to different categories or subcategories from your Gallery Settings. Categories are under Essentials, and Subcategories are found under Extras.
You can move several galleries at one time, using the Multiple Galleries tab at the top of the page. Just be careful: Selecting All will move all of your galleries to the one Category and Subcategory that you choose. There’s no “undo” button, so just be sure that this is what you want to do!
Arranging Your Categories On Your Site
Did you know that you can change your homepage to display categories instead of all of your individual galleries? It’s just a simple mouse click in the upper right corner of the display box.
Note that you can also switch between auto-sorting your Categories or arranging them manually. In the upper left corner of your display box, you can change from “most recent” to “position”. That will allow you to arrange your galleries in any order you wish. Under the “position” link are several simple sort options, as well as some quick moves. You can organize your category, subcategory and gallery display pages in this way.
Enjoy organizing and don’t be shy about sending us an email if you need help!
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I love what one can do with the Categories – Sub Categories – Galleries. I still wish there was one more layer (and if I got that, then I’m sure eventually want another!).
I am displaying way too many Categories on my home page (www.CreatorsPalette.com) because of the need for organizing – the Horticultural section is the worst offender.
I am tempted to turn off the Categories section on the home page except I would not be able to easily get into a newly created category until I add something to my drop down menus.
I would like a “Section” level which lets me split my site into “mini businesses”. For example main page would have 1) Weddings/Family Portraits?Maternity 2)Senior Portraits 3) Nature or the Great Outdoors 4) Horticultural 5) Personal.
Each of these would then have a page similar to the existing home page with the Categories shown, key words for that section. Each “business” section could be found directly with printed and QR Code links on business cards or other printed matter. Thus I could have a Wedding business card, Senior Portrait post cards, Horticultural card, etc.
Right now alternatives I can think of are more complicated to my daily work flow or much more expensive such as: multiple SmugMug sites; a front end website pointing to specific Categories on my SmugMug site; turn off the Categories on the home page and create a much more robust menu system.
I am open to suggestions.
I agree with Ron L.
I too have needed a 3rd level of categories. An example would be:
> Top Level Sports category
> Then different sports categories (football, softball, baseball etc.)
> Then another category of Teams or Years
> Then those specific galleries.
This would be awesome!
Thanks,
d
I agree with the two previous posters. A “Section” level would be nice.
Actually, adding one more category would be a perfect addition, especially when dealing with large multi-day events. Any more than that isn’t customer friendly.
I have also found the need for more than two layers in my SmugMug “tree”. I got around the inherent limitations of SmugMug by jury-rigging the Sub-category names using the same technique I had to use in Microsoft Outlook’s Categories. Instead of limiting the Sub-category names to one or a few words, separate the levels using an obvious punctuation mark and develop the outline functionality by repeating the initial part of the Sub-category name for each of the levels following the punctuation mark. When doing searches, just remember to enclose the string in quote marks or the search may stop at the first punctuation mark. See example below:
*Health
*Health > Wellness — Peachland Wellness Centre
*Health > Wellness — Physical Fitness
*Health > Wellness — Physical Fitness — VolksSport
It would be nice if we could disable/hide the suggested categories in the drop down box. I only want to see my categories and not have to search through the undesired cruft.
Hey guys, thanks for the awesome feedback – I’ve made sure our product team has seen this.
Just adding another happy customer that wishes for an additional level. 2 Levels is really difficult to work with.
+1 on the additional level.
I would also like to see more control like Flickr has. If you look at that model Collections can contain collections or sets. Sets can contain photos. You can also assign photos to different groupings so one photo can be in multiple sets.
With your model I can’t do:
weddings/2009/someones-wedding/ceremony
weddings/2009/someones-wedding/reception
weddings/2009/someones-wedding/photobooth
weddings/2009/someones-wedding/sneakpeak
OR: (have photos from above sets in differently organized sets as in below)
clients/some-family/2009/sally-3-months
clients/some-family/2009/sally-6-months
clients/some-family/2010/sally-9-months
clients/some-family/2010/family-portrait
clients/some-family/2011/joes-wedding/gettingready
clients/some-family/2011/joes-wedding/ceremony
clients/some-family/2011/joes-wedding/reception
clients/some-family/2011/joes-wedding/photobooth
Unless you address these issues like Flickr has users will never truly be able to organize their photos.
So basically, upload and group by a specific upload tag.
Then organizing a photo navigation structure to fit our needs which is any structure we deem necessary.
(Easy for clients to find and browse their photos)
(Easy for random people browsing to browse by category)
You guys are very close to getting this right.
John
Thanks for the additional (and exquisitely detailed) feedback, John! The additional level(s) has been a top request and we appreciate it.
I would like the option of placing the subcategories in the same box next the the galleries, instead of being segregated in a separate box above the galleries in that category.
I am also in favor of another level of organization!!!
Two thoughts.
1. I’d love the ability to move galleries and subcats around in an AJAXy, batch way. Selecting multiple galleries via drop drop at top of Settings works, but drag and drop would make our lives peachy.
2. Changing cat and subcat for a gallery changes the gallery’s url and thus ruins the old url that might have been given to a client years ago. I suspect that the gallery number is unchanged (yes?) so the ideally one could give them a direct link at the get go, and not worry about the location of the gallery. Anyway, my point is that there are consequences to organizing and reorganizing and I have a sense that some warnings on the Settings page might be warranted, though I’m not sure what those warnings or FYIs should exactly be.
It would also be nice to show the categories as a tree on a left nav (like the old windows explorer). Since it looks like a lot of people out there are using categories with many sub levels, this will soon get too bulky to show all on the home page at once.
+1 On additional level and tree.
I shoot lots of football, and one team in particular and their galleries are grouped in with others and using sharegroups is great but not once on the site.
I have to agree, we really need to take these suggestions seriously, speediness of implementation is a major factor when you want to compete with other sites and keep your members happy that, I want to know that I made the right choice bys signing up and am not limited in any way!
plus, the sooner we add more categories (at least one) the less new members have to re-organize their work again…..
Wondering if the additional level has been sorted out yet? I am trying to organize my Family photos and am having a heck of a time!!! Also find the naming of categories ect a little confusing. Oh well, LOVE everything else about it
Hi, you’re always welcome to shoot our Support Heroes a message if you need some help or advice about organizing your site. We’re always happy to hear what you want to do and make some suggestions! http://help.smugmug.com/
Any chance we’re going to get that additional subcategory level? I would REALLY appreciate it, as it would enable me to subcategorize much more efficiently. It would be my number one request.
Hi Carolyn, you’re definitely not alone and we’d love to bring lots and lots of levels of categories to be sure that you have everything you need to stay organized. Thanks for your feedback and we’re working on some exciting new stuff in the next year. Just watch this space!
That’s great to know! I’m looking forward to it. I take so many photos, that the current level of categories just doesn’t work that well. I’ve stopped posting to a large degree because I have to create too many sub-categories, and my Galleries have to be too large.
Waiting patiently on the additional level! Thanks for listening to us and coming thru. Can’t wait for the changes this year.
I’m please with what I’m reading that a solution may be on the way. I too have the same needs for another layer.
Is there an update as to when there will be the addition of another layer to categorize photos? I’m up there with all of the others in saying it would be extremely beneficial. When will this new feature be available?
Hi Noelle, we really aren’t permitted to give any insight as to what we’re working on and when we’re hoping to release them. But we do understand the top need for more layers of organization. Thank you for taking the time to weigh in and share your feedback!
Thank you. Just curious. In order to do what I need to with my website, the extra layer is CRUCIAL. I’m trying to select a photo sharing site as soon as possible, and I’d love to use SmugMug over Flickr, but Flickr has the extra options for organizing photos and sharing them on slideshows.
Is there anyway to choose what photos go into an embedded slideshow? That could solve some problems. The issue I have is I only want certain photos from a gallery of photos, and without a subgallery (for a lack of a better word), the slideshow for that gallery grabs ALL of the photos.
Noelle, thanks for fleshing your situation out a bit. Here’s what you can do:
1. Collect just the photos you want for the slideshow into a new, unlisted (private) gallery.
2. Grab slideshow code for that second gallery and embed it into whatever website you want.
This way you can keep the original gallery, but virtual copies of the photos you want for your slideshow will live in a second gallery that only you can see.
Here’s info about Collecting Photos if you’ve never used this feature before: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93310
I do hope this helps but feel free to ping us again if you still are stuck or if you have questions.
+1 This. I don’t care for the Tree Like structure. I need a way to have multiple groups (multiple artists).
I agree with John Bauer. I find I’ve stopped uploading or using SmugMug because I now have such a massive collection of images that I would be unable to categorize efficiently, without having HUGE categories and cumbersome galleries which are difficult to search. People lose patience going through very large galleries, so I really feel the need to have more layers for easier breakouts of specific groups of images. I love SmugMug and the helpful team, but it’s really not working for me now. I haven’t had time to search for another site, but it makes little sense for me to be paying for a professional website that I cannot shape as needed. There have been hints that things would change, so I’ve been waiting to hear that, but I am definitely losing money as a result of my frustration with the system. I can see from numerous responses that I am not alone. . . Can you let us know whether or not this will be resolved in the foreseeable future, so we can plan accordingly?
Thank you!
Carolyn
Just adding support for the above great comments.
Agree strongly that flickr like structure where photo can be in multiple entities is important. Also many levels is critical in helping folks find things. Why limit the number of layers in the structure? I can think of more layers for the example below such as multiple days….
An example of this structure: Event; EventYear; EventDate or Even Sublocation (or both); even participant.
(i.e. – ExampleRace,
ExampleRace2009 (could contain all or not)
Race Start
Middle of Race
End of Race
Participant 1 (photos from all 3 locations above)
Participant 2
Participant n
………………
or as others identified if you do events, weddings, portraits, … you can add that as a top layer to avoid as they said having multiple smugmug accounts.
The report has proven useful to myself. It’s quite useful and you’re naturally quite educated in this area. You get opened my personal eyes to be able to various views on this kind of subject using intriguing and sound content material.
I just joined and am overall happy with the site. However, I ran into the need for one more subcategory as well. For example:
Category: Basketball
Subcategory: 2012-2013
*Section*: Varsity
Gallery: gamename
As I add photos from more trips I am finding the need for another level – or twoooooo
Thanks
SMUGMUG TEAM: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE listen to your customers!!! We REALLY need more levels of subcategories!!!
My family all the time say that I am wasting my time here
at net, however I know I am getting knowledge everyday by reading such pleasant posts.
I’m assuming that as soon as you good SmugMug folks come up with enhancements to the Levels problem, that you’ll be sending out a notice. Soon I hope.
Cheers and Good Luck,
Andy