[djrichards]

Originally Posted by ScottW23

I think that's an oversimplification. There may be certain aspects that are easier in other products, but overall, PhotoPost is a much more powerful application and offers much more customizability and functionality than anything else out there. It's also extremely fast and stable, and supported by paid developers -- these things are important to most site owners.

If you can list specific "important features" that you think PhotoPost doesn't have, and other products have, please do. It may be that you're unaware of PhotoPost's latest capabilities.

I really don't want to turn this into a big PP gripe session on the vB site but I can't let such statements by someone with such a vested interest in a product stand without at least a response.

I don't think there's any oversimplification to my post. I was simply stating facts that many others will support. And I think I have a pretty good grasp on PP's latest capabilities. Please let me know if I'm wrong on any of the following points because I've looked everywhere I can think for answers (even PP "support") and I can't find acceptable answers.

In a nutshell, I think that PP, (like many other businesses) needs to realize that "power" and "functionality" do not automatically translate into a product that a broad spectrum of users (or admins) will find "useable". Just because something makes sense to a programmer doesn't mean that it does to an end-user. I think PP has a long way to go with regard to their user interface and it seems to be a product that was cobbled together and evolved over a period of time with no real emphasis (or even care) towards the end-user experience. But that's just my opinion, of course. I can certainly see where PP is fine for some people. There are things I like about it but there are many more things that I don't like.

As for specific "important features" I can quickly think of a few.

1. The ability to have unlimited albums within albums. PPs restriction to one level of sub-albums severely limits the user's ability to organize their photos.
2. The inability of users to set the photo that they want as the "cover" for their album in the user album index. It's always just the last photo uploaded.
3. The concept of "categories" versus "albums" makes no sense to most end-users and is not easy for them to figure out. Having to upload to their personal albums, then "assign" to a category instead of just being able to upload to a global album with permissions set by usergroup is just a silly approach IMHO. Not at all obvious to end users and difficult for them remember if they use the gallery only infrequently.
4. The file scheme and naming convention for file folders is atrocious. It's simply a nightmare for admins. Why can't you simply allow real names (such as by user ID)?
5. Having the folder number included in the links provided for photos is a bad practice IMO. If a photo gets moved it will break any forum links to it.
6. The "Manage Albums" admin page is almost completely unuseable to me. There seems to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to the user display order. It seems to be by forum join date but I'm not even certain of that. The simple ability to sort the display order would make it immensely more useful. IMO, it should just display a sorted list of users with links to their albums instead of every album that exists. It's impossible to find anything in a large gallery.

That's at least a few of my gripes and there are more. Add all that to what is probably the most obtuse user "support" I've ever experienced and it all equates to a bad experience.

Sorry if it's hard to hear but I'm certainly not the only person saying such things.

Respectfully,

DJ Richards