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Microstock Photography Forum - General => Symbiostock => Symbiostock - Technical Support => Topic started by: Pilens on June 03, 2013, 03:05

Title: Darn Categories
Post by: Pilens on June 03, 2013, 03:05
Hey,
is there a way to delete those darn standard categories permanently? I mean, I delete those build-in categories I don't need/want but after the next update they are there again. Is there an easy way around deleting them every time again?
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Leo Blanchette on June 03, 2013, 03:24
I spose we could build in something...or just take them out all together. You should make a pole :D
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: ajt on June 03, 2013, 03:39
Maybe when they are created, theme could query database, and create all categories only when theme is first time installed  by new user?
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Leo Blanchette on June 03, 2013, 03:41
if its that annoying for people I could just loop through them at creation and update a site option that they've been initially created. Then on next installs it will check - and if its already done the process it will skip it.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Pilens on June 03, 2013, 03:59
if its that annoying for people I could just loop through them at creation and update a site option that they've been initially created. Then on next installs it will check - and if its already done the process it will skip it.

Leave them in for initial install. It helps people setting up their site. For next installs an option to skip re-creation of build-in categories would be great.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Kerioak~Christine on June 03, 2013, 04:01

Maybe just include a few that everyone is likely to need - food, people, nature to get new members started and then let them add their own?  Most of us seem to have developed our own category lists to suit our own needs, those who like them have added more than those who don't.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: ajt on June 03, 2013, 04:14
And what do you think about throwing out that sentence about "hidden gems" and category list below it?

It may look like this:
http://ajotte.com/?s=australia&submit=Search&post_type=image (http://ajotte.com/?s=australia&submit=Search&post_type=image)

Sure, it will move people to another site, but at the same degree from other sites to mine :)
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Kerioak~Christine on June 03, 2013, 05:29
I think leave the category list in but put some wording that indicate there are results below it - it might be the only time potential clients look at the category list and they might see something they want to come back to
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: plrang on June 03, 2013, 07:35
I changed it this way http://stock.imagerion.com/?s=tokyo&submit=Search&post_type=image (http://stock.imagerion.com/?s=tokyo&submit=Search&post_type=image)
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Pilens on June 03, 2013, 11:59
And what do you think about throwing out that sentence about "hidden gems" and category list below it?

It may look like this:
[url]http://ajotte.com/?s=australia&submit=Search&post_type=image[/url] ([url]http://ajotte.com/?s=australia&submit=Search&post_type=image[/url])

Sure, it will move people to another site, but at the same degree from other sites to mine :)


I changed it this way [url]http://stock.imagerion.com/?s=tokyo&submit=Search&post_type=image[/url] ([url]http://stock.imagerion.com/?s=tokyo&submit=Search&post_type=image[/url])


Yes, you two are right. This needs attention on my site as well.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Kerioak~Christine on June 03, 2013, 12:30
I have given up, it can stay looking as it is.  I can't get my site to look how I want it with the background and rest white - well can get the background  it is getting everything else lined up that is the problem
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Poncke v2 on June 03, 2013, 12:42
I actually like the category list. I use it. But I wish there was a quick way to bulk assign categories on more then one page at a time. Is there a way to display more images per page?
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Amanda_K on June 03, 2013, 13:01
I had my own categories that I had set up and some of them are very similar so it's a bit of a pain to go through and delete them every time making sure I delete the defaults and not my own that I put extra time into optimizing.  It would be super cool if it checked and didn't put them back in after the first install.

Pilens, maybe you could add a poll to the top of this thread with three options to see which way people are leaning?

1) No categories automatically created
2) Only create the categories on the first install of Symbiostock
3) Leave things as they are so they are re-created each time
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Kerioak~Christine on June 03, 2013, 14:14
You can display more images per page when processing by clicking on screen options at top right of page and choosing your number.  Don't forget though that if you are bulk changing things you will miss out on SEO, whether items are exclusive or not and whether they have model/property releases or not and changing titles so they are different to everywhere else.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Poncke v2 on June 03, 2013, 14:42
You can display more images per page when processing by clicking on screen options at top right of page and choosing your number.  Don't forget though that if you are bulk changing things you will miss out on SEO, whether items are exclusive or not and whether they have model/property releases or not and changing titles so they are different to everywhere else.
Thanks mate, that solved a lot of my issues. LOL.

Now, there is another problem tho. When I search for lets say Food on my images page, it only brings up one image, but there are at least 15 images with the keyword food. So I cant really quickly batch edit the images.

However, when I search for food in my portfolio, it does bring them all up.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Kerioak~Christine on June 03, 2013, 15:05
Cannot help with that one - I am doing every image individually, a bit slow but seems to be paying off with search engine results
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Pilens on June 03, 2013, 16:40
OK. After multiple requests I finally created the poll.  :)

(My first one. I am impressed how easy it was. Nice job Tyler!)
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: cathyslife on June 03, 2013, 17:23
You can display more images per page when processing by clicking on screen options at top right of page and choosing your number.  Don't forget though that if you are bulk changing things you will miss out on SEO, whether items are exclusive or not and whether they have model/property releases or not and changing titles so they are different to everywhere else.
Thanks mate, that solved a lot of my issues. LOL.

Now, there is another problem tho. When I search for lets say Food on my images page, it only brings up one image, but there are at least 15 images with the keyword food. So I cant really quickly batch edit the images.

However, when I search for food in my portfolio, it does bring them all up.

If I remember correctly, you aren't supposed to use a keyword that is the same as a category head. I don't remember the reason, though. Maybe because search can't distinguish between the category page and the image keyword? Something like that.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Poncke v2 on June 03, 2013, 18:07
Cheers !!!! Makes sense
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: THP Creative on June 03, 2013, 20:22
if its that annoying for people I could just loop through them at creation and update a site option that they've been initially created. Then on next installs it will check - and if its already done the process it will skip it.

Yep, this needs to be done. I brought this up a few weeks ago, but glad its being talked about again. So painful to have to delete all categories again on every update.

In your implementation Leo can it just check if categories exist at all (or on the first install ALONE add them all) and then not add them. What I mean is, I have SOME of the symbio categories, but I have deleted others or changed their name. So I don't want it to add categories I have deleted, thinking "well I checked for this category and he doesn't have it, so I will auto add it". I think just a blanket "does he have categories? Yep, then I wont add any at all" approach is the best solution.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Leo Blanchette on June 03, 2013, 20:25
Hey guys, its obvious where the vote is headed :D I'll have that implemented by next release. Also I have another marketing feature I have to implement due to a past obligation - so that will be fun.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: klsbear on June 03, 2013, 21:20
I actually like the category list. I use it. But I wish there was a quick way to bulk assign categories on more then one page at a time. Is there a way to display more images per page?

It's not exactly bulk editing for categories but I found it easier to assign categories in the "Quick Edit" mode. Process to draft mode then if you select "Quick Edit" instead of "Edit" it opens a smaller screen.  You can assign categories and you can also copy and paste a keyword list if you want to do make changes.  The little "dots" in the lower right let you enlarge the keyword screen.  Just update the data then you can go back later to make the other changes for descriptions, SEO, etc.  Sounds cumbersome to open images twice, once in Quick Edit and again in Edit but I found I was able to slam in the categories quickly, especially for series.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: pling on June 03, 2013, 23:43
You can display more images per page when processing by clicking on screen options at top right of page and choosing your number.  Don't forget though that if you are bulk changing things you will miss out on SEO, whether items are exclusive or not and whether they have model/property releases or not and changing titles so they are different to everywhere else.
Thanks mate, that solved a lot of my issues. LOL.

Now, there is another problem tho. When I search for lets say Food on my images page, it only brings up one image, but there are at least 15 images with the keyword food. So I cant really quickly batch edit the images.

However, when I search for food in my portfolio, it does bring them all up.

If I remember correctly, you aren't supposed to use a keyword that is the same as a category head. I don't remember the reason, though. Maybe because search can't distinguish between the category page and the image keyword? Something like that.


If you have the keyword "gold" and a category for "gold" you would have ended up with the slugs gold and gold-2

Go through and rename categories "slug" that share the same name as your keywords to for example change "gold" to "gold-images"

If you create a new categories like "Christmas", it will automatically call it "christmas-images".

But the default categories came with installation are all using singer word slug, therefore if you using the default category you have to modify the "slug" to solve the search result issue.

May be Leo can edit the "Slug" for the default categories to solve this for new symbiostock user.
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: cascoly on June 04, 2013, 14:20
You can display more images per page when processing by clicking on screen options at top right of page and choosing your number.  Don't forget though that if you are bulk changing things you will miss out on SEO, whether items are exclusive or not and whether they have model/property releases or not and changing titles so they are different to everywhere else.
Thanks mate, that solved a lot of my issues. LOL.

Now, there is another problem tho. When I search for lets say Food on my images page, it only brings up one image, but there are at least 15 images with the keyword food. So I cant really quickly batch edit the images.

However, when I search for food in my portfolio, it does bring them all up.

If I remember correctly, you aren't supposed to use a keyword that is the same as a category head. I don't remember the reason, though. Maybe because search can't distinguish between the category page and the image keyword? Something like that.


that was a problem early on, but no longer -- I just checked  using 'oregon' which I have as both category & keyword and searches by category & by keyword return the proper results ( I have many images taken in Oregon that do not have the category Oregon since it's not relevant to the particular image)

poncke -- when I do a search on the image page all the expected images come up too, so if that's still a problem, there's something else going on..
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: cascoly on June 04, 2013, 18:53
btw, if you want to see how others are using categories, check http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp (http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp)

this demo page uses the newer cards, but there were still some bugs in the cards which are being fixed.  note that any unused categories don't show up.  none of these categories changes after an update
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Kerioak~Christine on June 05, 2013, 00:53
Hi steve, page just says
No headers for report
Title: Re: Darn Categories
Post by: Leo Blanchette on June 12, 2013, 00:30
Wow, this must have been important to people. Quite a few votes.

Fixed it.

When you update (and toggle) your theme, categories will spawn one more time. Then you can delete them. Toggle theme again...no categories.

BTW - The new version is available. I didn't make a big announcement this time :D


YAY!