Importing Photopost into vb3.7

[ScottW23]

Then why is it that PP isn't NEARLY as easy to use or admin as some of the free scripts, and doesn't even have several important features that others have?

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.

[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

[MPDev]

Defining that "broad spectrum of users" isn't quite so simple. Some users want a photo sharing site like smugmug, others look towards sites like Facebook, others want a Hot or Not website. Many want just what PhotoPost provides - a forum-like structure to which post images. Others want a simple gallery (fortunately we provide templates for the last two types).

As for your list, I won't disagree that some of those items could either be useful or be further developed (although #2 has been an option for a long time - you can set the album cover of an album). #3 is just saying that there is a feature you dont care for (and dont have to use) - many asked for this exact feature, so we provided it.

http://www.photopost.com/forum/1237765-post19.html

What a great example of a post from a customer who is happy with their support. I post this simply as an indication that not everyone feels the same about our support. When you have more than 10,000 customers, well, lets just say I haven't always been happy with the support from vBulletin either.

As I said, I do think some of your suggestions are good ones - since no product is ever perfect, we are always looking for feedback to find ways to improve our product.

[djrichards]

Originally Posted by MPDev

Defining that "broad spectrum of users" isn't quite so simple. Some users want a photo sharing site like smugmug, others look towards sites like Facebook, others want a Hot or Not website. Many want just what PhotoPost provides - a forum-like structure to which post images. Others want a simple gallery (fortunately we provide templates for the last two types).

As for your list, I won't disagree that some of those items could either be useful or be further developed (although #2 has been an option for a long time - you can set the album cover of an album). #3 is just saying that there is a feature you dont care for (and dont have to use) - many asked for this exact feature, so we provided it.

http://www.photopost.com/forum/1237765-post19.html

What a great example of a post from a customer who is happy with their support. I post this simply as an indication that not everyone feels the same about our support. When you have more than 10,000 customers, well, lets just say I haven't always been happy with the support from vBulletin either.

As I said, I do think some of your suggestions are good ones - since no product is ever perfect, we are always looking for feedback to find ways to improve our product.

Thanks for the response. But I think you didn't read my post well enough and missed a couple of my points.

You simply cannot do what I duscuss in #2. Of course, you can set the cover for individual albums. What you don't provide the ability to do is to set the photo that will be displayed for users in the user index. It always defaults to the last photo posted. Period.

As for #3, I'm not saying I don't like the feature. What I don't like it's implementation. I DO have to use it if I want to provide global albums in the main index such as "Automotive Events" or "Pictures of Our User" for users to post pictures in. If you provided the option to either create a global album with permissions OR the categories, I'd have no problem with it.

What I'm talking about is the ability to simply create an album/folder/category that shows up on the main index and allows users to directly create albums and upload pictures IN ADDITION TO having their personal albums. I'm saying that the method of getting their photos into the categories is foreign to end-users. Most people are accustomed to just being able to create new albums and upload pictures directly into them within their own albums but can't just do the same thing within a category. They have to remember a completely different method and take the extra step to create, upload, then edit their album and assign it. It's just kludgy IMO and makes no sense to me. Like I said, I don't care if it's there as a "feature". It's a perfectly fine and necessary function. I just think there needs to be a more straightforward way for users to create albums and post pictures within the categories.

As for PP support, posting an example of one user who was made happy and pointing fingers elsewhere doesn't really address the large numbers of customer complaints I've seen about PP support. It just comes across as "there's nothing wrong, everything's fine, you're just wrong...". You can do better.

Of course, not every customer will always be happy. But the percentage should be quite high. I see suggestions for PP improvements and complaints about the product and support all over the net. But what I haven't seen is anything resembling a true commitment to resolving customer complaints. Most of the time it's something along the lines of "Well, we can't make everyone happy..."

I also haven't seen anything that suggests to me that PP is truly interested in end-user input. It's always more of a defensive response than a real outreach. Just saying that "we're always looking for feedback to find ways to improve our product" isn't enough.

Example:

Customer: Hi. Can I...?
PP Support: No
Customer: Then how would I...?
PP Support: We don't provide that feature.
Customer: Do you plan to?
PP Support: Don't know. Maybe. You can submit a suggestion --here--.
Customer (at suggestion link): Hi, I think you should...
PP "Suggestion Line": We don't provide that feature...

Hence my "obtuse" comment. What I expect from support is a response more along the lines of:

"We don't currently support that feature but I'll forward this discussion to our developers so that your concerns and needs are considered for inclusion in future versions. Could you elaborate upon your idea/suggestion/need further so we understand clearly what you're looking for?..."

As a better and more specific example, a couple of months ago your main website page had a message from one of your executives (can't remember who) saying something to the effect of "We're always looking for new and fresh ideas for our products. If you have an idea for improvements or new features, I want to hear them. Click --here-- to send me a message with your suggestions."

I clicked the link and detailed several items of concern to me. The response was not from the company executive but from "Mr. Support" saying "We don't provide those functions. You can submit your suggestions --here--"... Truly frustrating to say the least.

As for your statement regarding the number of PP customers, I believe that "more than 10,000 customers" actually represents the number of people who have bought PP licenses in the past. I'd be more interested in knowing how many actual ongoing customers exist. That's a more important metric.

For myself, I may decide to keep my license and use PP as a standalone product for my own personal gallery but I'm moving my vBulletin forum users away from PP as soon as possible. I feel the product isn't up to my expectations, nor those of my users. And I feel that PP's feedback, support, and development mechanisms are significantly broken with no real interest on the Company's part to consider that this is even a possibility.

Regards,

DJ Richards

--------------- Added [DATE]1229719482[/DATE] at [TIME]1229719482[/TIME] ---------------

Just for the record, apologies to Vbulletin.org for turning this into a big PhotoPost discussion.

I won't continue this discussion any further here.

DJ

[MPDev]

I'm sorry that your customer service experience was less than satisfactory; I can only hope that by passing this post around we can work to improve our communication and improve the customer experience for users like yourself.

As I pointed out, we do get a good number of compliments on our customer service and support; we are not a large company and cannot afford a large staff, but we do try to do our best with what we have. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement and we'll attempt to do just that.

Happy Holidays.