Introduction to Gutenberg Gallery Block Features
Handling galleries in WordPress used to require advanced knowledge, back in the day when you had to do it using the classic WordPress editor. Thanks to the Gutenberg editor and the power of simplicity ushered by its blocks, anyone can easily jump into the driver’s seat and start creating their own galleries.
Don’t believe us? Not a problem – we’ll show you what you can do with the Gutenberg gallery blocks. As a bonus, we’ll also let you know about some other gallery blocks you might like, so stay tuned.
Gallery Block’s core function is to allow sharing of a group of images in a gallery-style format on your site. This is similar to the image gallery in the classic WordPress editor, although there are a few completely new options that come with Gutenberg editor. These include a possibility of adding image caption directly on the image, as well as gallery columns and crop images setting. We will talk about all these settings in more detail below.
You can choose your images in the same way that you can in the classic editor – by selecting pre-existing images in the Media Library, or by uploading new ones from your computer. After you’re done with the images selection, you can click the Create a new gallery button to insert your gallery onto the page.
Once you’re finished with creating your gallery, you will notice that there are some options that are the same as the ones in Image Block, such as align or change block type. Gutenberg Gallery Block shows you the full potential of the latter option. If, for example, you decide to transform Gallery to Image, all pictures will line up individually, one below the other.
Image Captions
It is totally up to you whether you want to use this option or not, but in case you plan to use it, you will be happy to know that each image can have a caption on its own. The caption usually appears at the bottom of every image with a semi-transparent background. The color of the text and background depend on the theme you’re using.
Gallery Columns
We have to note that in Gallery Block, you don’t have the ability of choosing the size of the pictures. Instead, they change proportionally to the number of columns that you wish to have in your gallery. The biggest column number that you can put is the same as the number of pictures that you end up adding to your page or post. In other words, this number is infinite. Nevertheless, be mindful of the fact that after adding more than 6 columns, your pictures may appear smaller than you’d like them to be.
Crop Images
If you plan to use images that contain different aspect ratios, like portrait or landscape, then make sure that the Crop Images setting is on. This will ensure that all your photos fit automatically within the column number you’ve picked. You can find this setting right underneath the column number.
The picture on the left below shows you how your gallery will look with the Crop Images setting turned off, while on the right you can see how your pictures will look like when it’s on.
Of course, there are some situations where it would be better to turn off this setting. For instance, you should do this in case of having one column galleries, or if you want to show your images in their original size.
Link Images
Just like Image Block, Gallery Block also has a Link To setting with three different options. You can display the image without any link, you can link to a specific page on your website (although this option is rarely used nowadays), or allow it to open the image file by itself.
If you’re not satisfied with your picture selection or their arrangement, you also have an Edit option. In this way, you can remove any file from the list, or drag and drop your files to reorder them.
If you love the Gutenberg editor and galleries are what you need, there’s no reason to limit yourself to the gallery block that comes with the editor natively. There are many third-party plugins out there you can use to extend the capabilities of Gutenberg.
Qi Blocks for Gutenberg is one of them, with 81 different blocks available across the free and the premium version. The plugin gives you four different types of gallery blocks, every one of them available for free. Let’s take a quick look at what they are.
Cards Gallery
An interesting way to display your images, the Cards Gallery block lets you stack images atop one another and shuffle them left, right, or both sides, to browse them. The block lets you use as many images as you want, and it lets you choose their scale and how much of them is visible before they’re highlighted.
Image Gallery
The Image Gallery block is your regular block for displaying images in WordPress. It has a customizable number of columns and allows you to set up image pop-up view effects, as well as set proportions. Pretty much everything you need for a straightforward image display.
Masonry Image Gallery
Do you want to spice up your image gallery to make it more interesting and dynamic? How about using the Masonry Image Gallery block to break the uniformity of how your images are displayed? You’ll be able to set image sizes, spacings, and even lightbox previews.
Pinterest Image Gallery
If you’re a fan of Pinterest-style image galleries, the Pinterest Image Gallery block is something you’ve been needing without even knowing it. This block lets you choose predefined responsive settings or pick each setting to suit your unique vision for a Pinterest-style image gallery.
Conclusion
That is it for our Gutenberg Gallery Block overview. As you can see, the process of adding pictures to your gallery is completely simplified thanks to Gutenberg’s intuitive interface. Go ahead and try out all the useful options that come with it. While you’re at it, why not look into some alternatives to the native block, such as the ones provided by Qi Blocks for Gutenberg? The more choices you have, the better you’ll be able to express yourself!
We hope that you found this article to be helpful. If you liked it, please feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
