product review :: new SmugMug gallery header
Yesterday a change was rolled out to all SmugMug sites allowing the use of a cover image at the top of galleries using specified layouts. Most of the galleries on my site use the Collage Landscape style, one of the styles including this new change.
My first view of the change was accompanied by shock. There were two changes implemented, a change in format for the breadcrumb wherever it is used, and the addition of a cover image for specified galley styles. By default in existing galleries, the cover image was off. The breadcrumb change was universal though; for my purposes it needed a little tweaking.
The breadcrumb is the line starting with an icon representing home followed by the names of folders and the gallery that is being displayed. The change to the breadcrumb involved breaking it into two lines with the folder structure shown on the first line and the gallery title shown larger and on a second line. The default gallery title size and the size of the slideshow and buy buttons was too large for my taste, drawing my eyes to the header instead of the photos. A bit of CSS was needed and available to change the size.
My next step was to enable the cover image in some galleries. I was quite surprised that with the cover image enabled the original size of the title wasn't as glaring. Even so, I prefer a slightly smaller size so I left the size-changing CSS in place. That was even more important to me since folders and journal-style galleries don't support use of the cover image - I needed a consistent size that made me happy in both types of displays.
Some photos aren't suited to be cover images since too much pattern obscures the text from the gallery description; others are perfect. With the right cover image there is a bit of polish added to the display.
I like it!
