Shozam Community

I absolutely love the look of these albums!  I bought Gallery Wizard for this very reason but now no longer use it.  As a pro photographer my clients want their gallery displayed online but they don't want just any one viewing their pictures so they get password protected... unfortunately Gallery Wizard and now Shozam don't offer this.

 I really think you missed out on cornering a huge area of the market as every one of my pro buddies is looking for something similar!  There really is nothing out there that does this.  It's a real shame.

Surely password protecting individual albums can't be so difficult to write into your program?

 Many of us have asked about this. It was explained in a few earlier posts that it is a "server" function wherein we would have to password protect the entire gallery rather than just an album. One of the posters was trying to figure out a java script that could be put into the gallery (or album) through the shozam html tag. Haven't seen where he has reposted about it though.

Of course! It would have helped if I'd conducted a search before posting - sorry!

 You know, it's such a shame.  I, along with many many other photographers are using another FREE album creater but if Shozam! put this one thing in it I have no doubt we'd ALL move over to them.  It would be a great USP, don't you think?

 The fact is, I'm now about to spend £25 a month getting someone else to host my photographs just so I can securely password protect my clients pictures and provide ecommerce facilities.  The first album creator to provide this function in their software will (I have no doubt) gain hugely out of it... I just can't understand why it is so difficult to achieve.

 I agree. Password protection would be a definite plus for Shozam. At this point it is the main reason I have no people pictures in my gallery. I have been trying to password protect gallery/albums on my webhost but have run into many glitches along the way (such as images not showing up, getting around the login/password, etc.). If I can get this working I will post how to achieve it in "tips and tricks".

Maybe this is just me making way more work than really necessary...

 Why not have separate galleries for different sessions, and have those on password protected pages? My insufficiently-caffinated brain would think that it would be a plausible workaround.  That's not to say that I'll still think that way after another cup of coffee... but at the moment it sounds good.  LOL

 Actually I don't think that's all that bad of an idea. I already have two galleries, one only has one album, and the other gallery has 6 or 7. The single album gallery uses paypal options but the other doesn't. Since it's suppose to be fairly simple to password a folder on my webhost your idea would be feasible.

Leahfay, you are absolutely right. As I mentioned in previous posts on this topic, this is the best way to achieve password protection.

• Set a password protected folder on your server (seek assistance from your Web host if you are unsure how to do this)
• Upload gallery into that folder

I just did this on one of our servers. I created a directory called "private" and set it up to be password protected. I uploaded a test gallery in that folder. The gallery can be viewed at:

http://go.shozam.com/private

Trying to access it will bring up a screen requiring username and password. Enter the following values:

• User name = shozammer
• Password = shozammer

This will grant you access to see the gallery. We use and recommend Web hosting provided by 1and1. It makes it pretty easy to manage such password protected folders:

http://help.shozam.com/default.aspx?page=6Upload-Basic-Hosting.aspx

Sorry Razvan, but I don't think you understand.... I know I can password protect from the back end and I have no problems doing that BUT I have to password protect the entire Shozam gallery with one single password.  I can't do each individual album with seperate passwords.  If I did the entire gallery ALL my clients would be able to access each other's albums and I don't want this.  I want each individual album to be private to that particular client (and anyone they divulge the password to).

As for creating a single gallery for every client... it wouldn't look particularly nice as I would still need a page listing all the albums from where my clients can choose theirs and click on it.  I love the first page of Shozam where it lists the albums down the side - looks really good and professional.  If I went down the route of creating an individual gallery for each client this page would be a wasted extra and I would still have to make my own version of it to hold the links to each individual album.

I still think you really are missing a trick here - there are hundreds (if not thousands) of photographers out there going to third party hosting because they can't get a gallery on their own site that allows password protecting of individual albums.

 I just successfully password protected (to some degree at least) an individual album inside a gallery. At least on my webhost I can password protect ANY folder, either for the www or ftp. Since shozam builds many folders under the gallery (ie 1,2,3,4 etc which are individual albums) all I had to do was password protect folder #1. Now this is not the simplest task on my "host" because if I wanted several people to be able to access that album I have to set up user accounts for each (not really a problem). The only minor glitch I did see was when I went to my gallery a window popped up asking for login/password while the icons for the albums were loading. This happened several times. I cleared my browser's cache and it seemed to work fine with no ill effects on the gallery or other albums. I assume most web hosts make it fairly simple to do this. My biggest issue with this is the way shozam builds it's folder structure, folder 1, folder 2 etc. It just made it a little bit of work to figure out which album it was I wanted to password protect and also there was one album that doesn't exist anymore. I assume shozam does not delete albums that don't exist when generating a gallery after making alterations.

At first people wanted to showcase their pictures!!! lol Now they want to hide them!!!

What`s going on ???

Advanced HTML seems to be kicking in now from people using shozam!!! If they wish to password albums up thats good,but at the same time I`m thinking about what perverts and people will do if the function is added to this software....

Folk might use Shozam for sharing HI TECH child porn.

First of all , I'm a previous WGW user now on Shozam.  I have thought about passwording in either medium and although it could be good but although the server based back door is maybe a bit more time consuming (by a minute or two, depending on your host, mine's good) but it is just as effective.  With Shozam, as with the server, you would (if Shozam allowed) have to create multiple users and multiple passwords if you want more than one user name with access.  Personally, I protect via the server and provide my clients via email, their username and password.  I have each client with their own gallery in their own folder. This way, each gallery is in its own passwrod protected folder so only the right people with the right access a have direct link to their photos without going to the webpage, clicking on the gallery, their album etc. 

Individual album passwording would be good, however on a professional level, I don't think it looks good. Here's what I mean...  Think of having clients or prospects looking at your site wanting to see your work.  You have 10 albums in your gallery but 7 are passworded for only the client.  Constantly having password popup windows appear and not being allowed access would be frustrating for a prospect and the time they spend on your site would probably be shortened dramatically due being "Access Denied."  What I suggest is having your main "Public" albums in one gallery, this way anyone can go to your site and they can click on any album and view any picture.  Provide clients with a specific link via email or even a client directory on your site so they can acces through their own door per se.  Since your passworded albums are for people with passwords (fancy that) create their own gallery with their photos only. 

This would enable several things

1. Each client has their own password, own gallery and personal access.
2. Public clients and prospects would feel welcome to view anything without being asked for passwords that they don't have access to.
3. Clients would feel more "Special" (if that matters to you) to have their own direct entrance and gallery, rather than have acces through the public gallery.
4. Rather than modifying your whole gallery with every public and private album in it, you can edit your public gallery as 1 and each client individually. 

I know there will be people who disagree or just want an all in one program to do their every whim.  Shozam is only two weeks old and people need to understand that somethings we may never have and some things will come at a later date.  That's what updates are for.   I don't mind having to tweak things to make it exactly the way I want, that's what seperates each of us; what we have and what we can do with it.

Cheers

Instead of making accusations, you should take some time to look at many photographers' websites where prints are sold you will discover that each customer has their own album from which to choose prints, which is a digital means to provide privacy to a customer.  A password provides the client privacy to view their photographs without the rest of the world looking over their shoulders.  It's no different from photogapher providing 4x6 proof prints to the bride and groom...he would be violating the customer's privacy if he were to show them to anyone else.  If bride/groom wish to show them to everyone in the world, that is their decsion, not the photographer's.

Personally, I found your remark/implication about child pornagraphy not only extremely distasteful, but completly out of bounds for this forum.

I believe its too hard to satisfy everybody's needs about password protecting the directories. The server side solution is really nice but yeah, need a little bit of help for those who are not related to hosting software...

Nevertheless, there are good programs on the market, that you can use to password protect the directories and are plain easy to use. The best of them are from CoffeeCup Sofware. Just take a look and compare wich one of them is best for you. 

http://www.coffeecup.com/website-access-manager/

http://www.coffeecup.com/password-wizard/

I know you would like to have the password feature in Shozam and not spend money on another program right? Well, it's hard to get all the good stuff in a single package, and security matter... well, it's always complicated, but not impossible. I think we might have this feature in a major upgrade from Shozam.

Can you name a program as useful as shozam, easy to install, easy to use, etc.? I've used many but not all of them come even close. Sometimes you have to team up with different programs to have things done and working. Yes, all in one solutions are good most of the times... but sometimes, you have to team up with different stuff and so far, I can't complain, I have things up and running as I like.