Replace standard Wordpress Gallery block and legacy [gallery] shortcode handler, opening galleries using PhotoSwipe
Wordpress has come a long way to be a fully featured content editor system, but the default gallery does not keep up with it. And while there are many plugins with various features, I did not find a small and simple one putting the focus on enlarged images.
PhotoSwipe is a great basis and thus core component of my th23 Gallery plugin, which replaces the Wordpress default to output galleries into a way containing all key information required while maintaining a simple and easy markup.
th23 Gallery is built with some few goals in mind:
- Unintrusive way to focus on images
- Leveraging PhotoSwipe / Lightbox-like overlay
- Navigation between images in all galleries in a post via intuitive swipe, keyboard or mouse activity
- Compatibile with modern blocks and legacy shortcodes
- Simple markup and styling for thumbnail preview images (polaroid-style)
- Plain styling for medium / large preview images allowing for theme based style
- Minimized footprint on page loading
Upload extracted files to your wp-content/plugins directory
No options required - install, activate, enjoy :-)
Image subtitle in lightbox is image caption (defined in gallery), image description (as in the media library) or image title (as in the media library) - in this order, whatever is given first
Only optional setting is the option to define a default preview image size for new galleries via the Settings / Media page in the admin panel
Note
There is a known inconsistency in core WP not showing this default correctly in new galleries - but it is taken correctly upon saving/including the gallery and upon further edits as well
th23 Gallery works out-of-the-box and does not require any special handling - right after activation all embedded galleries will use PhotoSwipe to enlarge pictures.
Note
Polaroid-style works only on galleries which have set the preview image size to Thumbnail
Note
Previously inserted galleries might require a review to ensure link to media file and preview image size are set to work as expected - especially when also using the plugin on legacy [gallery] shortcodes.
Q: Can you provide options to change x, y or z behaviour in PhotoSwipe?
A: Yes, I could, but this plugin is supposed to be simple - in case you want many individual customization options, have a look at this open source alternative by Arno Welzel
Feel free to raise issues or contribute code for improvements via GitHub.
You are free to use this code in your projects as per the GNU General Public License v3.0. References to this repository are of course very welcome in return for my work 😉