WordPress Gallery Themes & Plugins

SoCal WordPress

Galleries, sliders, featured content,

and slideshows

August 16, 2011

Hosted by:

Presenters: Natalie MacLees and Noel Saw

SoCalWP.com

Tonight’s Host Sponsor

www.mediatemple.net

Twitter @mediatemple

Other Sponsors

Turnkey content subscription plugin and payment system for WordPress

WordPress: In Depth Second Edition

Tonight’s Agenda �  WordPress In-Depth 2nd Edition by Que book give-away

�  Media Pass Content Subscription Plugin Demo

�  WordPress gallery themes demo by Noel Saw �  Theme Forest: Anan and Photoshot �  Graph Paper Press: Sidewinder and Workaholic

�  WordPress gallery plugins demo by Natalie MacLees �  Smooth Slider �  NextGen Gallery

�  15 minute general Q&A

�  Wrap-up and Upcoming Events

�  Drawing for two free WordPress books and networking

Who needs a WordPress Gallery?

�  Graphic Designers

�  Photographers

�  Fine Artists

�  Illustrators

�  3D Modelers/Animators

�  Architects

�  Anyone who’s in a visually creative field

Gallery Themes vs. Plugins �  Themes are all-inclusive: includes entire page layout,

design, and gallery/slideshow functionality �  Usually they’re paid themes

�  Includes some documentation and support �  Possibly more learning curve

�  Plugins provide functionality and work with existing WordPress sites �  Keep the design/layout you want �  Many are free but you might have to pay for premium

support �  Plugins might have incompatibility problems with your

theme

Gallery Theme: Anan �  Buy at Theme Forest (affiliate link)

�  Full Screen home slideshow either single image or slideshow

�  Multiple inner page slideshows using gallery custom post types. Fairly intuitive to learn.

�  Easy to upload logos on navigation bar

�  Built with Jquery

�  Make take longer to load on slower connections for visitors

�  Example site: BeautifulDayPhotography.com

Gallery Theme: Sidewinder �  Buy membership at Graph Paper Press (affiliate

link)

�  Wide screen home page slider �  Visitor can jump on position to view that photo �  Navigation bar has gallery category links at top of

page

�  Inner page galleries rely on posts and attached images to that post which may not be obvious to new users

�  Example site: LauraGracePhotography.com

Next up… �  WordPress Gallery Plugins:

�  Smooth Slider

�  NextGen Gallery

Galleries and Slideshows

Southern California WordPress Meetupsocalwp.org | @socalwp | #socalwp

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Featured Content:

Smooth Slider


Smooth Slider

•SEO-friendly

•Non-coder friendly

•Premium support available

•Content choices


Smooth Slider

•Image choices

•Text choices

•Link choices

•Control slide order

•WPMU compatible


Room for Improvement

•Image-only slideshows

•One per page

•Settings

•CSS/JavaScript

•Mixed content


Smooth Sliderin Action


Non-coders:Using SmoothSlider

•Install and activate plugin

•Add posts, pages, custom post types, or media to sliders by visiting the edit page and selecting options in the SmoothSlider module

•On the SmoothSlider setting screen, select colors, fonts, etc. The admin preview shows you what your slider looks like


Non-coders:Using SmoothSlider•After your SmoothSlider is created

and styled, you can place it on your site:

•Use the SmoothSlider widget in a widget area of your site

•Use the SmoothSlider shortcode [smoothslider id=x] to put the SmoothSlider in a post or page


Coders:Using SmoothSlider

•Create a custom CSS theme for your slider by putting a new theme folder inside of wp-content/plugins/smooth-slider/css/skins

•***Keep a backup - your theme will be deleted when the plugin is updated


Coders:Using SmoothSlider•Place the SmoothSlider into any of

your template files using a template tag:

•<?php get_smooth_slider(x); ?>

•<?php get_smooth_slider_category(‘slug’); ?> (dynamically create a SmoothSlider from a post category)


Galleries and Slideshows:

NextGen Gallery


NextGen Gallery

•Upload choices

•Image modifications

•Organization options

•Display options


Room for Improvement

•Non-coder customizations

•Documentation


NextGen Galleryin Action


Non-coders:Using NextGen Gallery•Install and activate NextGen Gallery

plugin

•Upload photos and create galleries.

•Organize galleries into albums

•Edit photos: add tags, resize, watermark, add titles, add descriptions, adjust thumbnails, rotate, etc.


Non-coders:Using NextGen Gallery

•Once your photos are uploaded and organized, you can display them on your site in a few different ways:

•Widgets in widget areas of the site

•Shortcodes to display them in posts and pages


Non-coders:Using NextGen Gallery

• Shortcodes:

• [slideshow id=x w=x h=x]

• [album id=x template= extend or compact]

• [nggallery id=x template=caption or carousel]

• [singlepic id=x w=x h=x float=left or right mode=web20 or watermark]

• [imagebrowser id=x template=caption or exif]

• [nggtags gallery=‘slug’ or album=‘slug’]

• [random max=x]

• [recent max=x]

• [tagcloud]


Coders:Using NextGen Gallery•Create custom displays for NextGen

Galleries:

•Inside your theme, create a nggallery folder

•Default NextGen Galleries can be found in wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/view

•Copy the file you’d like to modify to your nggallery folder inside your theme


Coders:Using NextGen Gallery•Create custom displays for NextGen

Galleries (continued):

•Keeping the same file name will override the default NextGen template

•Alternatively, rename the file to create a new custom view (e.g. gallery-customview.php)

•To use a new custom view: [gallery id=x template=customview]


Questions?


Wrap-up & Upcoming Events �  Advanced Photoshop for web designers workshop

this weekend

�  WordCamp LA September 10th: WordCamp.LA

�  Upcoming joint meeting – Developers’ Hackathon:

September / October - Details TBD

+

Thanks for joining us!

Special thanks to our sponsors:

Contact: SoCalWP.com Nataliemac.com | [email protected] NoelSaw.com/+ (Google profile) | [email protected]