TimeTexasChris

4 hours ago, Marc Stridgen said:

I removed the login details. Never post login details on an open forum. Please ensure you change the password on that account you posted. Glad to see you have the resolution there

Thank you for the help and for removing the login. I deleted the account as soon as TI created a separate account.

Thank you very much! This is a huge help and I truly appreciate your time.

NM, I added a Test Image gallery to the Hrotsky Club.

Marc

Here is a link to the board.

https://bespokenlounge.watch/board/

*****Removed*********

So I guess I didn't actually answer the question you posed Tracy. I don't get that behavior. In the main Gallery, I do get that option because I can set up albums there. But I don't know how to get albums set up in a Club I guess. It isn't in the Club-->Gallery Settings. That only lets you allow Albums, but doesn't provide anywhere to add albums. It doesn't appear to be in the Club-->Manage Club settings from what I can tell. I seem to be missing something somewhere.

I would be happy to do a zoom with someone and share my screen and we can walk through it. That may be easier.

Also, your site looks really great!

And maybe that's the issue, I haven't seen anywhere to actually add an album. I can set up albums in the main gallery, but can't see how to set up albums in the clubs. I can add multiple galleries within a club, but not an album.

I did forget because it is simply the file folder.

Thanks Marc. Here is the step by step showing the settings and the process of trying to insert a photo into the gallery. From what I can tell, there is never an option to create an album or add an album at any point in the process.

Here is the Club settings where it shows that albums are allowed in the image test gallery

Here are the options under the Allow Albums option.

Here is the club menu, showing the Images gallery where I go to insert the image.

Here is the screen when you click to add an image.

Here are the options after clicking on the image to edit details (2 images to show all options):

This is after clicking + and adding an image.

Here is the image inserted.

I think the biggest issue is consistency with the galleries. The main gallery easily allows you to set up albums.

When you go to gallery settings in Clubs and add a Gallery, it lets you select a box for "Allow Albums" but I don't see how to create albums within the administrator console nor does it give you the option when you add photos to the gallery.

Also, consistent tagging could allow member photos to be used in image panels on the main site and in the clubs to rotate through related photos. For instance, if they post a photo of a dessert, and there's a club devoted to desserts, it would automatically populate an image scroll in the dessert club.

People use social media to post photos. To get those people to start using a forum as opposed to social media, the best way is to make it easy and consistent to post photos. That eases the transition, and then you also have the discussion forums/clubs/etc. to keep them engaged.

So from the usability standpoint, I think the galleries could be better implemented so they are consistent across the site including clubs. I think the tools are almost already developed, just a matter of getting them working consistently across the forum.

I'd be interested in helping develop a strategy for better implementing photos within the forums, but I don't know if there's interest to do that. I will take a stab at laying out a photo management implementation tomorrow or Tuesday.

Thanks, I do appreciate the time.

Sorry y'all, I've been out of town and just got back. I'll revisit the discussion here and respond today.

Thanks,

Chris

6 hours ago, Jim M said:

When you go to add an image to the Gallery, it will ask you if you want to create a new album (or if you have an album, place the image in an existing album). You will want to ensure that you allow your member groups to create albums as well 🙂 .

Thank you for the response! And that does work in the overall Gallery, but within a Club, that option doesn't come up. It is shown in the options in the administrative panel under clubs as an option you can allow - attached. But when I go to add a photo, it never provides an option. Now I can add a second gallery within the club, but that then gets unwieldy as I would like multiple albums within a single gallery. The second photo shows the "Image" gallery that I added is now included in the menu.

Is it possible to have a single gallery in the Menu, with multiple albums under that gallery - similar to the main gallery? It seems the galleries in the main site are treated differently than in the clubs. But I could be missing where you can add an "album" to the "gallery" within a club even though the option is available under the club settings>gallery settings.

Thanks!

When setting up a gallery in the club, it asks if albums are allowed, but I don't see how to actually set up an album. I'm sure its simple and I'm just missing it, but would appreciate some help.

Thanks!

As a little more information, it seems there's some support gaining for alternatives to Instagram due to the recent changes to make it  more like TikTok. A lot of people, at least in the watch community are looking at alternative social sites like WatchCrunch and Vero.co (IG clone without the ads and algorithm driven feeds).

In any event, seems like an opportunity for dicussion forums to make some inroads for forums that are photo/IG heavy with some tweaks.

So I wonder if this might be a part of the issue:

I've been poking around and it does allow members to have folders devoted to them. But under the settings for the gallery when setting up a folder, it has the following, and I'm wondering if by having this set as Use Default, then I don't know what the default tags are. So maybe I should create Preset tags for all of the categories? Not sure, just thinking this may be why it shows a Tag option in the gallery, but it doesn't let you click on it and include a tag.

Thoughts on that? And is there somewhere to set system tags so that it allows people to select the proper tag?

Thanks again!

Thanks Marc, it still limits tags unless posting in the Club. I went where you directed, but I'll have to get the guy who set this up originally to provide all of that information. I have no idea what any of that is. Will probably be later this week. 

Thanks

Chris

Marc:

Not sure what I'm doing, but I think I got it upgraded.

Let me know what else you need on my end - I really appreciate the assistance!

Chris
 

Before providing my suggestions, I just want to say that I'm extremely non-computer savvy and I'm also impatient. Using Invision, I've been able to 100% set up a really nice looking forum myself, which is essentially a miracle. So kudos for everyone involved with Invision for creating an intuitive and easy to use forum software.

The forum I am setting up will likely be photo intensive. It seems to me and many others that Instagram is becoming increasingly video/reel driven, which makes for a terrible experience. I think this is an opportunity for forums that are heavy on photos to regain a foothold in the social media scene and pull people away from Instagram. Not entirely, but there is definitely frustration and as everyone here can attest, forums are far superior to Instagram for most things. But for sharing photos, which many people want to do, Instagram is still a great and easy to use platform. Bridging that gap might go a long way to increasing engagement.

A few suggestions.

Gallery - allow Members to have their own photo gallery which is automatically created when they upload a photo. This would be like going to someone's account and seeing all of their posts on Instagram and I believe really create a sense of "building" something within the community which would make them more likely to stay involved. This is especially true if people are looking to move their photo posting off of Instagram.

Further to pulling people away from Instagram, if a post on Instagram could automatically feed into their member gallery, or vice versa, that would help the transition.

As mentioned, my site is for watches and the clubs are set up to highlight specific brands. Allow the photo tags to be used to post the proper photos for specific clubs. This would allow for the photos to be tagged in a Members gallery or the general forum to also be used within specific clubs, etc. as part of a photo carousel.

In any event, thank you again. Hopefully some of these suggestions are things others would find useful as well and maybe find their way into the software at some point.

Cheers!

14 hours ago, Marc Stridgen said:

With the tags, please check that one a default unaltered theme and test to see if that works. It looks  like you are hitting a bug there.

With the links, I would need to know what link you used and where you posted it. It looks to be like its being pulled by the site you are posting it on, rather than something your site is doing 

Thanks Marc. I switched to the default invision theme and still had the same issues. If you want to try it, the site is https://bespokenlounge.watch/board.

As far as the link, it was sent as a message in Instagram. So it is likely pulled from Instagram. Just weird that it pulled a random subforum description, so figured maybe I had something set incorrectly where it thought that was the site description.

I appreciate the help very much. Unfortunately, I'm extremely inexperienced at this. But I have to say the fact I have been able to create a board 100% on my own is downright incredible, these small issues aside.

Marc,

No worries, thanks for the response!

Also noticed something else interesting - not about photos.

I wanted to send a link to the site, so I copied the link and pasted it in. It (very nicely I might add) included the logo of the site with the link I sent. However, it also included subtext from one of the forums which isn't a main part of the forum. How do I change what it shows when I post a link? I'd prefer just the logo and maybe a byline or something rather than the contents of a subforum.

Screenshot to clarify. The text at the bottom is simply a description from one of the subforums, not a description of the site.

And thank you!

Marc:

Thank you very much for the response. I will definitely add those to the suggested adds.

As far as the tags, it seems inconsistent. If I'm in a club and I post a photo, I can add a tag. If I just post to the gallery, I can't. Ideally if a member posted a photo in the gallery, they would be able to tag it and then it could show up in images for that club.

In the club forum there is a forum for photos and I can include a tag. In the regular gallery, it gives me the option to "Set tags on all" but when I select it, there's nowhere to enter the tag. I can only hit save.

In any event, not a huge deal unless I could then use the tags to rotate photos within the club. But here are some screenshots below to show what I mean. Sorry for the size...but hopefully this helps.

Thank you!

Here is the option provided in the member gallery - no tag, just save:

Here is the option in the club forum for photos - provides a space to insert the tag:

There is no option to tag a photo in the regular forum for photos, you can only tag that entire thread as a tag, not specific posts/photos.

Is there a way to organize the Gallery by Member. I realize it identifies the member, but it would be nice to have it organized so each member had their own "folder" of all of their photos. Maybe it does this, but I just have a setting wrong a far as viewing the gallery.

2nd, it seems when i upload a photo in a thread, it is inconsistent on letting me add a tag.

Also, is there any way to have a photo posted to Instagram be automatically added to a members gallery? Or maybe the opposite...right now it seems you can select to send it to IG chat/message, but can't add it as a post. Ideally it would go from IG to the member gallery, but either would be ok.

Final question, is it possible to have each club show different tags specific to that club? If so, I'm apparently doing it wrong.

Thanks in advance!

Another question...is it possible to use a different theme within the club than the overall forum theme?

Thank you. That works for the forums but not the Pages from what I can tell. Any thoughts?

Nevermind, found it in the other menu. For pages look at the menu at the bottom of the Page.

Thank you!

Completely new at this, but I've been trying to set up a club and have tried a few different things like adding pages, forums, images, etc. But if I add an element (for instance a page),  how can delete it if I decide I want to do it a different way?

I've tried looking through all the Manage Club Options and various Club Moderator and Site Administrator settings and don't see a way to delete a page.

Thanks!