Galleries Exist! 2 2

[Get Marwood & I]

I spent some time this morning looking through the galleries which you will find here:

 

Some of you might think that silly of me - pointing out what should be obvious / known to all - but it amazes me how many members are unaware of certain areas and functions of the boards. 

Some members have made a fantastic job of uploading their collections - notably @AJD who has some fantastic books posted. But I suspect that many people are missing out on seeing these due to the clumsy formatting and architecture of the Gallery function which hides away in the main task bar.

They're a bit like the journals section - so awkward, that you can easily just give up as you're never quite sure what you're looking at and whether you've seen it all. Does anyone agree?

This is the landing page for the Galleries:

 

Horrible isn't it.

Andy's galleries can be found under 'Other Themes', whatever that means.

Click on it and you get this:

 

Andy's latest album 'AJD's other' is at the top as it is the most recently added to. Click on it:

 

So, the software doesn't tell us when the album was created.  The default setting (there are always 1,000 different view settings) does not show the most recent addition. And there is no link / umbrella cover for all Andy's other albums that I can find. You have to go to his profile page to find that.

When you look at an image, you find system error messages like this:

 

I've flagged these to the admin team by PM and got no reply (on a separate point, Arch at least tried to help me when I enquired after setting up some pence albums)

So what is the purpose of this post? Well, I wanted primarily to promote the existence of the Gallery section and the great albums that many people like Andy have created within it. But I also wanted to express a little dissatisfaction with the rotten clunky software. Like the journals disaster migration, I feel that CGC just switched the Gallery function on 'because it was there'. There is little evidence of anyone structuring it or managing it to suit our purposes. Maybe if we had a little interest in this, and raised the profile, some improvements could be made

Anyway, the Galleries. They're there - they're awkward as hell to navigate - but they contain many hidden treasures. Go looky! 

 

If anyone from admin should read this:

• System error message to look at
• Consider setting the default position of each album screen to the most recently added image (they are currently set by 'caption' - what does that mean?)
• Add the members other galleries to the architecture somehow so we can see / be aware of all their albums (like the journals perhaps - one journal under which all 'entries' sit)
• Tidy up the landing page - add more sensible titles (Top Pop CGC Comics? Are 'For Sale' for sale? etc) - make it more appealing / inviting
• Date the albums
• Add the number of views to the album, not just the images within them

 

 

 

[AJD]

Glad you like them Steve. I would recommend it to people. It's very nice to be able to see my collection in a way that rows of white boxes makes much harder.

[Get Marwood & I]

5 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

If anyone from admin should read this:

• System error message to look at
• Consider setting the default position of each album screen to the most recently added image (they are currently set by 'caption' - what does that mean?)
• Add the members other galleries to the architecture somehow so we can see / be aware of all their albums (like the journals perhaps - one journal under which all 'entries' sit)
• Tidy up the landing page - add more sensible titles (Top Pop CGC Comics? Are 'For Sale' for sale? etc) - make it more appealing / inviting
• Date the albums
• Add the number of views to the album, not just the images within them

 

Re the 'Recent Gallery Additions' on the main page, the top entry was added in October 2018 and the one below it '3 hours ago'. So the feed is picking up something else - a comment or a like perhaps - rather than a new image addition. Which doesn't seem right:

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, AJD said:

Glad you like them Steve. I would recommend it to people though. It's very nice to be able to see my collection in a way that rows of white boxes makes much harder.

If all this thread does it get them more attention, we've won 

[AJD]

2 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

Re the 'Recent Gallery Additions' on the main page, the top entry was added in October 2018 and the one below it '3 hours ago'. So the feed is picking up something else - a comment or a like perhaps - rather than a new image addition. Which doesn't seem right:

 

Yeah. It does that whenever you edit the description.

 

[oakman29]

5 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

If all this thread does it get them more attention, we've won 

I agree the galleries,  and journals dont get enough love. There are some amazing dedicated collectors here.

[Get Marwood & I]

8 minutes ago, oakman29 said:

I agree the galleries,  and journals dont get enough love. There are some amazing dedicated collectors here.

There are - what do you think of the software / format Dave? Easy, awkward or other?

[Get Marwood & I]

....playing around in the test area...

 

I like that you can add notes to the image which appear when you hover over them:

[oakman29]

32 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

There are - what do you think of the software / format Dave? Easy, awkward or other?

Kind of awkward,  but what can you do.

[Get Marwood & I]

5 minutes ago, oakman29 said:

Kind of awkward,  but what can you do.

Protest! 

To be fair, probably nothing. A few cosmetic tweaks maybe if we're lucky. But at least we might encourage a few more people to use them.

[Get Marwood & I]

7 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Consider setting the default position of each album screen to the most recently added image (they are currently set by 'caption' - what does that mean?)

 

Seems that the test galleries are pre-set at 'Recently Updated'...

 

...and the proper 'Other Themes' galleries are pre-set at 'Caption', the definition of which I now understand ('caption' being the image title):

 

So my numbering system (suggested by Arch) will work in the main area if I go ahead. 

[MGsimba77]

Never even noticed it was there. 

I'm always using the mobile version to navigate this site. It requires some scrolling to even see it. Thanks 

Edited August 5, 2019 by MGsimba77

[Get Marwood & I]

26 minutes ago, MGsimba77 said:

Never even noticed it was there. 

I'm always using the mobile version to navigate this site. It requires some scrolling to even see it. Thanks 

You're welcome MG. Nice Spider head  

[thunsicker]

[[Template gallery/front/view/imageInfo is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by thunsicker

[Get Marwood & I]

12 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

[[Template gallery/front/view/imageInfo is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

 

 

Yup. I mention that error message in the first post. I've reported it to admin and heard nothing. That's not unusual though, as Tom once said, as the admin team pass by less often than Halley's comet.

 

[thunsicker]

1 hour ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

Yup. I mention that error message in the first post. I've reported it to admin and heard nothing. That's not unusual though, as Tom once said, as the admin team pass by less often than Halley's comet.

 

I assume you tagged @Scott =).  I think he's actually more engineer than admin, though I'm not sure.

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, thunsicker said:

I assume you tagged @Scott =).  I think he's actually more engineer than admin, though I'm not sure.

Scott's off the gig - been assigned elsewhere I think. Dena is in the chair / our principle admin contact, and I've pm'd her 

[bc]

Having set up a gallery a few years ago, it was purely trial by fire.

Awkward is giving them too much praise.

I must have had to rename the pics at least 4 times before they sorted in the desired order. For a series that only had 2 digits, you have to name them _01, _02, _03 etc for them to collate in the proper order. For a 3 digit series, you need to use _001, _002, _003 which was frustrating at best. Otherwise, it orders them strictly by ASCII character reference - so you'd get something like _10, _11....then a _1 would show up, then you had the twenties and then #2 would show up.

It was most frustrating.

I like the gallery feature, hopefully your post will draw some much needed attention to them.

[Get Marwood & I]

42 minutes ago, bc said:

Having set up a gallery a few years ago, it was purely trial by fire.

Awkward is giving them too much praise.

I must have had to rename the pics at least 4 times before they sorted in the desired order. For a series that only had 2 digits, you have to name them _01, _02, _03 etc for them to collate in the proper order. For a 3 digit series, you need to use _001, _002, _003 which was frustrating at best. Otherwise, it orders them strictly by ASCII character reference - so you'd get something like _10, _11....then a _1 would show up, then you had the twenties and then #2 would show up.

It was most frustrating.

I like the gallery feature, hopefully your post will draw some much needed attention to them.

I agree, I think they have great potential. But not being able to delete images, the difficulty placing them in order, adding new ones subsequently, and the lack of overarching album connectivity (and ordering) renders them virtually useless for showing off large detailed collections. They're very much like the new journals - 90% great but the 10% kills them dead. If you can't structure pictures logically, they just become a random dumping ground which viewers will give up trying to navigate. 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Get Marwood & I
Gallery Shmallery

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 8/4/2019 at 6:33 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

That smiley face should be your next avatar.