How to Add a Flickr Widget in WordPress

Do you want to add a Flickr widget in WordPress?

By creating a Flickr widget you can show images, videos, and even entire albums on your WordPress site. This is an easy way to keep your content fresh and engaging and grow your followers on Flickr.

In this article, we will show you how you can add a Flickr widget to your WordPress website.

How to Add a Flickr Widget in WordPress

The easiest way to add a Flickr widget in WordPress is by using Photonic. This plugin lets you show content from lots of different websites and platforms including Google Photos, SmugMug, and Flickr.

To show content from Flickr you’ll need an SSL certificate. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress website.

After that, you’re ready to install and activate the Photonic plugin. You can see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for step by step instructions.

Upon activation, head over to Photonic » Settings. You can then go ahead and click on the ‘Flickr’ tab.

Once you’ve done that, click on the ‘Flickr settings’ link.

To start, you’ll need to connect Photonic to your Flickr account by creating an API key and secret. To get this information, you’ll first need to create an app on the Flickr website.

Creating an app sounds technical, but don’t worry. You don’t need to know any code, and we’ll walk you through every step.

It’s a good idea to create the key and secret in a new tab, so you can easily switch between the Flickr website and your WordPress dashboard.

In a new browser tab, head over to the Flickr API page. On this page, click on the ‘Apply for your key online now’ link.

You can now type in the email address and password that you use for your Flickr account.

Once you’re logged into your account, you’ll need to let Flickr know whether you plan to use the Flickr widget for a commercial or non-commercial project.

If you’re creating a personal WordPress blog or small business website, then you can click on the ‘Apply for a non-commercial key’ button.

On the next screen, give your app a name by typing into the ‘What’s the name of your app’ field. Your site visitors won’t see the name since it’s for your own reference only.

There is also a ‘What are you building’ box where you can let Flickr know how you’re going to use the app.

After typing in all of this information, it’s a good idea to read Flickr’s terms and conditions carefully. If you’re happy to go ahead, then simply click on the ‘Submit’ button.

Flickr will now show an API key and secret that you can use to connect the Flickr website to the Photonic app.

Simply copy the key and secret, and then switch back to your WordPress dashboard. You can now paste these two values into the ‘Flickr API Key’ and ‘Flickr API Secret’ fields.

After that, simply scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the ‘Save page Flickr settings’ button.

At this point Platonic has access to the Flickr website. The next step is giving the plugin permission to access your Flickr account.

To do this, head over to Photonic » Authentication in your WordPress dashboard. You can then click on the ‘Login and get Access Token from Flickr’ button.

This takes you to a screen where you can type in your Flickr username and password.

Once you’ve done that, just click on ‘Sign in.’

Flickr will now show some information about the actions that Photonic can perform, and the data it will have access to.

If you’re happy to grant Photonic these permissions, then you can click on the ‘OK, I’ll authorize it’ button.

After clicking on this button, you’ll be sent back to the WordPress dashboard automatically.

On this screen, you’ll see a new Access Token and Access Token Secret. To add these tokens to Photonic’s settings, simply click on the Save Token button.

WordPress will now take you to the Photonic » Settings screen with the Access Token and Access Token secret already pasted into the right fields.

After that, there are a few more settings you’ll need to configure.

To start, you may want to set a default user. Photonic lets you show content from your Flickr account, or any other public account.

In a later step, we will show you how to display different Flickr accounts when creating the Flickr widget.

However, you may want to set a default account. For example, if you only plan to show content from your personal Flickr account, then setting this as the default can save you time. You can always override this setting if you need to.

To set a default user, open a new tab and then head over to the Flickr account that you want to use. You can then copy the URL in your browser’s address bar, which should be something like ​​https://www.flickr.com/photos/username/.

Now, switch back to your WordPress dashboard and paste the Flickr URL into the ‘Default user’ field.

Once you’ve done that, you can customize how Photonic shows the content inside your website’s Flickr widget.

To start, you can click on the ‘Media to show’ dropdown and choose whether to show Photos only, Video only, or Both photos and videos.

After that, you can choose how big the thumbnails will appear in your Flickr widget.

When a visitor arrives at your site, Photonic will show a thumbnail preview of all your images and videos, as you can see in the following image.

Visitors can see a larger version of each image or video by clicking on its thumbnail.

Photonic has a few different layouts, but the following image shows an example of how the larger versions may look on your website.

To change the size of the thumbnails, simply open the ‘Thumbnail size’ dropdown and then choose a value from the list.

Next, you can choose the size of the image that appears when the visitor clicks on a thumbnail. To do this, just open the ‘Main image size’ dropdown and then choose a size from the list.

Are you planning to show videos in your Flickr widget? Then you’ll need to open the ‘Video size’ dropdown and choose how big the video lightbox will appear on your website.

A lightbox is simply a popup window that shows the video content, similar to a video player. While the lightbox is open, visitors won’t be able to interact with the rest of the page.

There are some more settings that you may want to look at. However, this should be a good start for most WordPress websites.

When you’re happy with the information you’ve added, scroll to the bottom of the screen and then click on the ‘Save page Flickr Settings’ button.

Now that you’ve configured the plugin, you can add a Flickr widget to any post, page, or widget-ready area.

For this example, we’ll show you how to add it to a page or post, but the steps are similar for any widget-ready areas.

To start, simply open the page or post where you want to add the Flickr widget. Here, click on the + icon and then type ‘Photonic Gallery’ to find the right block.

Once you click on the Photonic Gallery block, it will add the block to your website.

After that, go ahead and click on Add Photonic Gallery.

This opens a popup where you can choose where Photonic should get its images and videos from, such as Instagram or Google Photos.

Since we want to add a Flickr widget in WordPress, click on ‘Flickr.’ Then, go ahead and click on the ‘Next’ button.

You can now open the dropdown menu and choose the type of content that you want to show.

This could be a single photo only, multiple photos, or even entire Flickr albums, image galleries, or collections.

After choosing an option, you’ll need to specify the Flickr account where Photonic should get the content from.

The easiest option is to simply get the photos or videos from the default username that you added to the Photonic settings. To do this, just click on the ‘Current user’ radio button.

Want to show content from a different Flickr account? Then click on the ‘Another user’ radio button instead.

This adds a new field where you can paste the URL of the Flickr account that you want to use.

Another option is to show images and videos from a Flickr group. To do this, simply click on the ‘Group’ radio button.

Then, in a new tab head over to the group that you want to use. You can now copy the URL, which should look something like https://www.flickr.com/groups/group-name.

Now, switch back to the WordPress dashboard and paste the URL into the ‘Group name’ field.

After choosing an option, go ahead and click on the ‘Next’ button.

On the next screen, you’ll see a preview of all the different images and videos that Photonic will show in your Flickr widget.

If you don’t want to show all of these images and videos, then you can filter the content based on how it’s tagged on Flickr.

In the ‘Tags’ field simply type in the tags that you want to use. If you want to use multiple tags in your filter, then simply separate each tag with a comma.

Now Photonic will only show images and videos that have these tags.

If you type in more than one tag, then you’ll need to choose whether to show all the media that has one of these tags, or only media that has all of the tags.

To do this, open the ‘Tag mode’ dropdown and click on either ‘Any tag’ or ‘All tags.’

Just be aware that the thumbnail previews on this page won’t update automatically. If you make any changes, then the preview may not show the images and videos that will be included in your finished Flickr widget.

When you’re happy with the changes you’ve made, click on ‘Next.’

On this screen you’ll see all the different layouts that you can use for the Flickr widget such as Square Grid and Slideshow.

Simply click on the layout that you want to use and then click on the ‘Next’ button.

On the next screen you’ll see some settings that you can use to customize how the images and videos are displayed in your Flickr widget.

You may see different settings depending on your chosen layout. For example, if you’re using a Circular Icon Grid or Square Grid layout, then you’ll be able to choose how many columns to include in the Flickr widget.

Meanwhile, if you’re using a Slideshow layout then you’ll need to choose whether to show the thumbnails above or below the slideshow.

Once you’re finished going through the settings for your layout, click on the ‘Next’ button.

The popup will now show the code that it will add to your website. If you’re happy to go ahead, then click on the ‘Next’ button.

Photonic doesn’t show Flickr content inside the post editor, so you’ll need to click on the ‘Preview’ button to see how the widget will look to the people who visit your website.

Once you’re happy with how the Flickr widget looks, you can go ahead and update or publish this page as normal.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add a Flickr widget in WordPress. You can also go through our guide on how to create your own podcast or see our expert pick of the best business phone services for small business.

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