Jetpack 2.1: Tiled Galleries

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Posting photo galleries on your WordPress blog is a fun way to share your experiences with the world, but do plain old thumbnail grids truly express your artistic side? No, they don’t. That’s why we’ve added tiled galleries to Jetpack.

Tiled galleries allow you to create beautiful photo mosaics for your blog posts. Just activate the Tiled Gallery module (and optionally set the tiled layout as the default) to create gorgeous galleries in seconds. Your friends will envy you, and your enemies will fear you.

You might be thinking, “Are tiled galleries the only new feature in Jetpack 2.1? If they are, that’s certainly understandable, because it’s an amazing addition to an already feature-rich plugin.” No, tiled galleries are not the only new feature; we’ve also added a slideshow mode for galleries. Just choose Slideshow from the Type dropdown when creating your gallery, and you’ll instantly have a dynamic photo display. Slideshows and tiled galleries both look amazing on mobile devices, and they both integrate seamlessly with the Carousel module.

In addition to giving you new ways to show off your photographs, we’ve spent a lot of time fixing bugs, too.  Photon, Infinite Scroll, Publicize, Sharing, and the Contact Form modules have all been given some TLC, and the Custom CSS editor has been updated. For a complete list of changes, see the changelog.

Update: Jetpack 2.1.1 has been released to fix a bug that was preventing updates from Jetpack 1.9.2 and older.

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Christopher Finke

Chris's hobbies include cooking, woodworking, and writing short bios about himself.

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Comments

  1. Alessandro Degiusti says:

    perfect and beatifull!!!

    Like

  2. Dave Z says:

    Sweet, updating now. I forget – did we enable the ability to zoom/enlarge/expand non-gallery photos yet? Thanks!

    Like

    • Christopher Finke says:

      Carousel doesn’t apply to non-gallery photos, so clicking on the photo will open whichever link you chose when you inserted it into your post.

      Like

  3. kazinvan says:

    Great idea, though I’m having some odd effects when using the new feature. For example, I get scroll bars under some images, which is obviously not a nice look.
    http://photokaz.com/2013/01/a-frosty-morning-nikon-d800-macro-with-focus-stack
    http://photokaz.com/2012/12/lynn-valley-hike-north-vancouver

    Mike

    Like

    • Christopher Finke says:

      That’s definitely not intended; we’ll work on it.

      Like

    • Christopher Finke says:

      Looks like it’s a conflict with your theme’s CSS and the “small” class, which sets the width to 226px no matter what. We’ll make our classes Jetpack-specific in the next update.

      Like

      • kazinvan says:

        That’s great, thank you. Seems like a common word that a lot of themes may use. Appreciate the prompt response.

        Like

  4. Tilo says:

    Love it!

    Like

  5. Alessandro Degiusti says:

    I can not see the module settings (Settings> Media), do you have anything to do with using the Spanish version of wordpress?

    Like

  6. kazinvan says:

    One more issue, the gallery no longer fills the content space. When I was using the gallery previously with a three column layout it would fill the content space. Not I would say it fills about 2/3 of the width and the thumbnails are smaller. The layout is nice, but why are the images smaller? Can this be changed in the settings?

    http://photokaz.com/2013/01/a-frosty-morning-nikon-d800-macro-with-focus-stack/

    Mike

    Like

    • Christopher Finke says:

      It’s supposed to fill the entire width, but it defaults to 500px wide if the theme doesn’t define a content width, which it looks like yours doesn’t. You could try adding

      if ( ! isset( $content_width ) )
          $content_width = 610;

      to your theme’s functions.php.

      Like

  7. Mauro (@Pureinfotech) says:

    Is like you guys read my mind of what I wanted next!
    Thanks,

    Like

  8. southasianlifecom says:

    Is there an ability to add Facebook Comments instead of the default WordPress comments? And also modify the right sidebar to add a widget for social sharing? Awesome Gallery by the way!

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      There are no current plans to add Facebook Comments or a sidebar social sharing widget to Jetpack, but we like hearing about the features you’re interested in. Thanks for the questions and the note about the gallery!

      Like

  9. Terence O'Neill says:

    Great improvements. Quick clarification, is Carousel mobile ready with these updates?

    Like

  10. unistellar says:

    Is this coming out in the next release? I am on 2.0.4 and I don’t see any of these options.

    Like

  11. Geoffry says:

    Are these fab galleries responsive for mobile themes?
    Thanks!

    Like

  12. Chris (@BatmanNewsChris) says:

    Awesome update! I’m not seeing the “Slideshow” gallery option though. It just lists “Default, Tiles, Square Tiles, Circles”.

    Like

    • Christopher Finke says:

      I should have mentioned that the Shortcode Embeds module needs to be enabled for Slideshows to work.

      Like

  13. kieranleodoyle says:

    Is there a way to increase the overall size of the gallery on a page? as in to make it fill more of the page?

    Like

  14. Catherine Breeze says:

    I’ve updated to 2.1 but don’t see Jetpack Tiled Galleries.

    Like

  15. jimmiepdx says:

    I usually include one, maximum 2 images in every blog. Is it possible to have all the images in each blog be part of the gallery? Also I have activated the function in the settings but I would like to know what is the next step. Does the gallery go into a separate page? Should it be a widget and if so where should it be placed? If the questions appear naive I am one such. Thank you.

    Like

  16. Matt says:

    Wow, this is amazing for photo-centric blogs. It’s great that you are keeping up the Jetpack feature releases for self-hosted sites.

    I also had to change my functions.php to define the content width for the theme. The larger tiles make a big difference.

    Would be nice if the slideshow size could be adjusted (larger, of course!). But the tiles with the Carousel are a magic combination. (And, I love the captioning style too!).

    Like

  17. Brad Dalton - wpsites.net says:

    Would be nice to link the thumbnail images in the gallery to a custom URL.

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      Thanks for the suggestion. Since Tiled Galleries works together with the core gallery feature built in to WordPress, we’ll probably stick with how it is designed to work when it comes to linking.

      Like

  18. alabamaaffiliatesradio says:

    Could you guys add a new feature to WordPress or Jetpack the allows you to use a full image as a background option instead of the tiled version for example as you scroll down the page the picture doesn’t move or change. I hate the tiled look.

    Like

  19. unmaker says:

    It’s a great and useful gallery, but how I can define the width of the gallery it only use a part of the post section in my site?

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      Tiled Gallery widths match the $content_width variable which can be set in your theme, however, note that setting is for the width of the entire post. Currently, there is not a way to change the width of a tiled gallery separate from the width of a post, but it’s in our plans to try to come up with ways to improve how it works in a future update.

      Like

  20. Tilo says:

    How can i define the width of the “gallery-row”? I want the mosaic wider than now.

    Like

  21. Mark Green says:

    In have tried to put this code in:

    if ( ! isset( $content_width ) )
    $content_width = 650;

    but where exactly does it go ?

    Thanks

    Mark

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      It goes in your theme’s functions.php file which you should be able to find in the Appearance → Editor section in your dashboard. Be careful when editing source code, and always make a backup first. 🙂

      Like

  22. Harigae Yoshiyuki says:

    Is this available only in English version ?
    ( I’m using JP version)

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      We rely on volunteers for many of our translations. You can find out how to participate here and the Jetpack translations are here. Once a language is translated, it is included in the next major release of Jetpack. I checked for JP, and I found that it is already 100% translated, so you will see those updates appear in version 2.2.

      Like

  23. Velda says:

    Reblogged this on Legend of Velda and commented:
    I have no words for the awesomeness of the new Tiled Gallery Jetpack Module. I can’t say how many times I’ve sat there playing tetris with images trying to make them lay out neatly together. This does it Automattically! And yes, this was already available at WordPress.com. I’d seriously considered moving a few of my WordPress.org blogs here *just* for the sake of making prettier galleries. Well, that and the WordPress.com reader, and the awesome reliability and support… well, you get the idea 😉

    Like

  24. Khürt Williams says:

    Incredible! I’ve had a “2012 — The Year in Photos” blog posting sitting in draft mode because I wanted a way to do EXACTLY what this Jetpack update does. It’s like the WordPress developers are reading my mind.

    Like

  25. shirls 雪芬 says:

    I love this new feature!! Playing with it all day today! So beautiful! Thanks heaps for the hard work!

    One question though, I understand how the images layout is automatic. Is there a way I could somehow control it a bit more? For example, I have two large panoramic images plus a few standard size images added to the gallery. The panoramic images shrink to very small size that they are ‘buried’ in the tiles, it loses the panoramic effect.

    Thanks for your help! 🙂

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      The only way to adjust the tiles is to change the order of the images in the gallery. You do make a good point about panoramic images, and we’ve decided to add it to our planned future updates to see if we can get panoramic images to go full-width more often in the future.

      Like

  26. Mark Green says:

    Thanks Sheri, does it follow a specific piece of code, or replace part of it?

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      You can just add it. Notice the conditional statement—it will only use the new value you add if $content_width isn’t already defined by your theme.

      Like

  27. The Write Stuff by John G. says:

    You guys rock!

    Like

  28. Tharindu says:

    Nice!! I’ve enabled this through the Jetpack settings but I cannot see it in the Gallery Settings nor the Media Settings page. Any help?

    Like

  29. strawberryquicksand says:

    Okay, I’m confused. I want to use this feature, but don’t even know where to start! Where is the step-by-step for dummies that I need?! lol

    Like

  30. Geoffry says:

    Does the new gallery features work in template pages if I copy and paste the shortcode? Thanks!

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      Yes, but note that you must have either checked the Settings → Media option to make all galleries tiled by default or you must use the correct parameter in your shortcode (such as type=”rectangular”) if you haven’t modified your Settings → Media options.

      Like

  31. Robbi McMillen says:

    I was wondering if it would be possible to set the height on the slideshow (all of my images are 980×310), but there is an additional 40px in height at the top and bottom, rather than the 28px at the sides. Many thanks! 🙂

    Like

  32. Dave Z says:

    I’ve been using the new galleries a few days now and I’m wondering if there is some sort of performance penalty related to them?

    For example, when my page loads for a second the images are stacked vertical and maybe in different sizes before they assemble into place. I’ve never seen this behavior from the original gallery presentation. Also, some of the images are obviously larger than thumbnails which would be more bandwidth intensive (but probably worth it).

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      It does take additional processing for the tiled gallery script to rearrange the images and stack them into place. I don’t see them assemble for my galleries like you have described, but I do think that could happen if you have a very large number of images in a gallery or if you are on a very slow internet connection.

      Like

      • Dave Z says:

        I’m wondering if there’s enough processing that this might be a liability in how Google measures load time? Or maybe it doesn’t impact load and arranges after it’s in? Are the thumbnails larger in size than the traditional thumbnails? Hm.

        Like

      • Sheri says:

        I don’t think the processing time to rearrange the images into tiles is enough to worry about. After checking an example page on your site, I found that you loaded 535.7KB of JavaScript alone just for just the one page load, and only 3.7KB of that was the tiled gallery script. You may want to load less things overall as everything you’re adding to your pages is probably what is adding up and causing slow loading in this case.

        Like

      • Dave Z says:

        A good deal of my ad-related Javascript is loaded asynchronously, fyi. Also, while I do agree my site could be better optimized (by taking a pay cut), I’ve never see this slow loading of full size images or prior galleries. Wonder if there could be some js conflict and/or if images are cached, etc. Also, are the images actually resized to these new dimensions or is it the full sized image? Anyhow I know we’ve taken this offline to discuss, thanks for your assistance!

        Like

  33. Daniele Maugeri says:

    I’ve set the witdh with adding the ifset in function how explained up here, but tiles are really big now, and columns doen’t work with ‘rectangular’ mode. How can I set the image to be smaller?

    Like

    • Sheri says:

      When using the rectangular mode (or tiles), you cannot set the number of columns yourself—the columns are decided by the gallery. You can set the size of the gallery, but not the individual images, by changing the $content_width setting in your theme (using the function you mentioned).

      Like

  34. Christopher Wulff (@cwulff) says:

    Is there a way to force slideshow as the default rather than tiled?

    Like

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