As I restart the different CMS sandboxes on my server, I wasnt originally sure what kind of things I wanted to test, or what kinds of content display I wanted to think about (in terms of design). However, there is the matter of needing to find a replacement for a series of galleries on one of the websites that I have worked on.
Ever since I found the Gmedia Gallery for WordPress, I havent stopped wanting to incorporate it in any WordPress website I work on. I feel that such things call for a professional looking photo gallery.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/grand-media/ (this plugin’s page, as seen on WordPress.org)
Unfortunately, there are some real world factors which have lead to this WordPress plugin ceasing development. The plugin’s owner and developer Serhii Pasiuk is located in Ukraine. With the ongoing conflict, its easy to understand how this plugin has not updated in over a year. At some point, this plugin will likely break in some new, future version of WordPress core.
In little slices of effort, I have been trying to find some solutions. I want a solution that creates some sort of “folder” style organization of photos into galleries. With Gmedia, the albums could have as many or as little photos in it that I wanted and it embraced tagging alongside leaving space to alt-tag my images. Many of its gallery styles and types were good about making sure the alt tags could be picked up by a screen reader.
So far, it is a mixed bag as far as the alternative WordPress plugins that I have found so far. Im trying not to get too deep into anything too expensive, tied to a subscription model. Also, the amount of AI stuff being shoved into every type of technology and website is just insane right now, and Im not here for it.
So, to compare…. here are the specific galleries that need replacing. Look over them with a mobile device so you can see the difference of behavior:
https://codeasily.com/portfolio/gmedia-gallery-modules/albumsview/ – Albums View is what I use for my Custom Works galleries. It lets me serialize (paginate) the galleries as I separate things by time period. Trying to keep some control over how large the individual galleries get.
https://codeasily.com/portfolio/gmedia-gallery-modules/phantom-pro/ – Phantom Pro has been useful for one of my smaller sized galleries on the same website.
I was also testing the waters with the Flipgrid to see how it might look for displaying images by a certain tag or doing something related to the year that a certain mask was made.
Until I find a gallery experience I am happy with, Im just gonna keep plugging gallery plugins into this website, and adding display pages to let me look at them. Please view the navigation menu (at top). Im hoping for that seamless feeling between the desktop version of these gallery displays, vs that same experience in mobile portrait mode.