Feedback for new India Images section

... More on the mysterious audio & video issue: I've actually found back the old audio & video galleries, at http://www.indiamike.com/photopost/s...ry.php/cat/511.

Funny enough, audio tracks there still lead you to the old pages, that play. (They don't in the new galleries.)

However video files there lead to the new pages, where they don't play

Well, I guess it's being worked on. Just came across it.

... Ah, more interestingly still, I can get to my old gallery pages there (and probably to others*): http://www.indiamike.com/photopost/s...r/5654/cat/500.

* Certainly and of course: http://www.indiamike.com/photopost/.

Remember when I mentioned I'd edited some pics' descriptions two weeks ago? They are in their edited form there.

(I understood what you said Nadreg about having had to migrate the pics over a few weeks. It's no issue to me, I can edit them again, and it's just a handful of pics. Just hope too many others didn't have any edits go missing. But then maybe not many users will edit their pics' info all that often.)

Those pages seem to still be actively functioning btw? I can discern new comments/ratings to my pics there (by the drop-down ordering menu at bottom of page that we discussed before, anyway you said you were looking at introducing something similar to the new galleries), that weren't there before the migration.

Nadreg, something drastic that only occurred to me just now (and sorry, since with today's server trouble you must have enough on your mind and just now taking a breath and a cup of coffee): But there must be tons of posts here going "here see this pic of mine or someone else." Also often not just frivously meant, but to graphically illustrate something.

If those don't redirect (and I guess my pointing above to the two different URL structures for them spurred the thought), they're now all redundant.

I find it hard to check on now, with today's server glitch, when the new gallery pages also became inaccessible; but some preliminary searches suggest that yes, it leads to 404 errors.

Try e.g. my post with a link to one of my pics at Day trip from Diu, now leading to the 404 error at http://www.indiamike.com/photopost/s...55/ppuser/5654. (It's of course not about me being concerned about a link to one of my precious pics not working any longer, but it would be a dramatic structural error.)

Again, it may just be because the database isn't fully operational yet, or went through some major trouble today; but if that's not it, it would be disastrous.

The pages should redirect now. The link you posted should redirect to the new section.

Was just gonna post my correction: It does now again redirect.

So was probably just because of today's glitches. Phew. I just had this sudden Oh-my-god sinking feeling...

Well, enjoy that cup of coffee, or prosecco or whatever you're having (Today's joke by a popular comic here: F&S [the protagonists, a duck and some other bird] survived the '11 crisis: "That's when we had to revert to beer, instead of prosecco.")

Any options for bulk editing to add existing photos to a gallery?

I just tried doing it with individual photos but the process is awfully time consuming.

Secondly, is it possible to post the same photo into multiple galleries?

Thanks

??????

I don't like it! It was much better before when you could see the latest posted photos in order of when they were posted for up to the last 14 days. Also you could rate the photo. You can't now. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Ananda,
It is still possible to view the photos in chronological order. Click on the box at the very top of the screen which says "Sort by", then choose "Date" in the drop-down menu (which is set to "Ratings" by default).

Ok. Thanks!

I still say there should be an easier way to find a specific member's gallery. Too much clicking around once you're on the Images page. Yes, I know you click on Members' Gallery but there are almost 400 pages here http://www.indiamike.com/india-image...mber-galleries and those images are not in alphabetical order according to member name.

Why make things more difficult or change things in a way where there's more clicking around instead of less?

Also,

You can now just "like" a photo (or not, if you don't. If you repent later, you can unlike it again. It's just underneath any pic.) I think it was introduced to remove the randomly competitive aspect of the former rating system from 1-10; Nadreg had long announced he wanted to change it this way, and for that reason. I'd have to say I agree.

I think Nadreg mentioned before on this thread that the current Member Galleries set-up is just temporary, and that he means to replace it by something more accessible.

I guess he'll be taking along a lot of suggestions here, and trying to incorporate those.

Yes, I am planning on building that functionality once I solve the main navigation issues. I agree that moving the images one at a time is quite time consuming.

No, unfortunately there is not.

The Member's gallery category is really a "catch-all" category and is a relic of the previous system. Previously, the only albums that were allowed were the site specific albums, i.e. Members Galleries, People and Faces, Wildlife, etc. Now, the galleries are user based, and a user can have multiple galleries.

In addition to having user-based galleries, there is the ability to tag images. There are four types of tags: Category tags, State tags, City tags, and user-defined tags. If you look on the left hand side of the images section, you will see the top 10 entries shown under each tag type.

When I migrated the images from the old section to the new section, I created a default user-specific gallery for each user called "<username>'s photos", and all the images for that user were added into that gallery. In order to preserve the information associated with the old section, though, I created category tags in the new section based on the old gallery names (Wildlife, View from my Room, Member's Galleries) and assigned the images from each of those old galleries with the corresponding tags.

I completely agree with you that Member's Galleries is confusing. Maybe I should do away with this tag completely, as it's too generic, and instead have a separate Members Galleries page, where you can see an alphabetically sorted list of galleries by username.

OK. So, the main takeaways I will be concentrating on over the next few days, based on user feedback and questions, are:

1. Ability to quickly access your own photo galleries:
   I like Sama's suggestion about adding a "My Photos" link to the Quick Links section. The link will take you to your profile, which will show you the galleries you've created, along with a sampling of your most "liked" pics.
   
2. Ability to view latest images in thumbnail format:
   I will add a "View Thumbnails" link next to the "Recent 1 day, 7 day, 14 day" section, which will show the latest images in a thumbnail format, modeled after the way a members photo gallery displays now.
   
3. Ability to view Members Galleries in alphabetical format:
   I described this functionality in the post above. Basically, an alphabetical listing of user who have images uploaded, which will link to the user's profile pages where the individual galleries will be shown.
   
4. Fix Audio/Video Files Import issues: The audio and video files from the original galleries were not transferred properly.

If there are any other items you guys feel are important to have, please post in this thread.

Fix the audio & video files issue if you can, pretty please?

Plus, good search function to directly search the photo galleries, so incorporated into that section (the old one had it).