Have you tried creating an image gallery in WordPress just to find that the built-in functionality is lacking some important features? Yes there are several WordPress gallery plugins promising to deliver, but most of them are difficult to use and make your website very slow. Well your search for the best gallery plugin is over. In this article, we will show you how to easily create responsive image galleries in WordPress with Envira Gallery.
Why Envira Gallery is Better?
If you run a photography or portfolio site with a lot of photos, then you already know the troubles that come with creating an image gallery (site speed, lack of organization, browser compatibility, device compatibility, and difficult setup).
When Thomas Griffin, a well-reputed WordPress developer, announced the release of Envira Gallery, we asked for a review copy. Mainly because our clients and users often ask us for recommendations of best ways to create a WordPress gallery.
As soon as we installed the plugin, we realized how easy it was to use. The second thing we noticed was the speed. Unlike other gallery plugins, Envira was extremely fast while still coming packed with features such as responsive design, lightbox and slideshow functionality, custom CSS etc. Not to mention it has other add-ons like protection which helps you protect your images, tags which help you organize all your images, deeplinking, fullscreen, supersize, and more.
Now that we’ve established that Envira is indeed very good, let’s take a look at the process of creating an image gallery with Envira.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
Adding a Responsive Image Gallery with Envira Gallery
Since Envira is a paid plugin, the first thing you need to do is purchase Envira Gallery. There are different plans available for different budgets and needs. Once you have purchased the plugin, you need to install and activate it. See our guide on how to install plugins in WordPress.
Upon activation, the plugin will add a new Envira Gallery menu item in your WordPress admin sidebar. To create a new gallery, you need to go to Envira Gallery » Add New.
You can upload photos or images from your computer or select them from your WordPress media Library.
Once you have selected the images, you will be able to see the image thumbnails.
You can rearrange images by simply dragging and dropping them in the order you want to display.
You can also insert image meta data such as title and alt tag by clicking on the pencil icon on each image.
Envira allows you to add HTML in the image title. You can also add a link to any page or website in the Image Hyperlink field.
Once you are satisfied with the metadata, you can click on the Config tab to configure your image gallery settings.
You can choose how you want to display this particular gallery. You can select columns, gallery theme, gallery lightbox theme, etc.
The base plugin only comes with one gallery and lightbox theme. However you can install additional themes which are available addons from the plugin website.
On the Lightbox tab, you can configure settings for the lightbox used to display the full images when they’re clicked.
You can choose title display, arrow display, hide or display lightbox gallery toolbar among other settings.
After setting up your lightbox settings, scroll down to the bottom of the lightbox tab to the thumbnails section.
These thumbnails appear below the lightbox when a user clicks on an image. It allows users to browse the gallery by clicking on a thumbnail image.
Once you are satisfied with your gallery settings, you need to hit the Publish button to make this gallery available.
After publishing, you will be able to see the shortcodes that you can insert into a post, page, or widget to display your gallery.
Adding a Gallery Directly in a Post, Page, or Custom Post Type
Envira allows you to add galleries directly from your Post edit screen. Simply create a new post/page or edit an exiting one. You will notice a new ‘Add Gallery’ button above the post editor.
This will bring up a popup showing the galleries you have created with Envira Gallery. Select the gallery you want to add and then click on Insert button.
You will notice the Envira Gallery shortcode appear in the post editor.
You can now save or publish your post. Visit your website to see your responsive WordPress gallery in action.
Depending on your licensing plan, Envira Gallery also comes with additional addons that you can install to extend the functionality. There are 30 addons available at the time of writing this article.
We hope that this article helped you create responsive image galleries in WordPress with Envira. For questions and feedback you can find us on Twitter or you can leave a comment below.
R Taylor says
We have read this several times and watched the videos and still can’t figure out how to add caption and have it actually show when published. We have Pro but are screen is different, example when it says to “add gallery” (block beside “add media”) our version doens’t show it this way. We aren’t sure if that is where are issue starts or not.
WPBeginner Support says
Envira has likely updated their interface since this article was created so you could check with Envira’s support. More than likely there could be a styling issue where your theme does not show the caption for some reason.
Admin
Marilyn Pongracz says
An Envira tech person got back to me, and I had to disable Essential Grid to make it work in the Highend Theme.
Marilyn Pongracz says
I tried a gallery and it was easy to create, but with some long and some short captions, it didn’t look very good. Lightbox didn’t work, either, even when I disabled my theme’s lightbox. Then I tried disabling Envira, and my theme’s lightbox won’t work.
Kenny Lambert says
Envira is a piece of rubbish – would not work on my website and even though I have deleted the gallery and the plugin this [envira-gallery id=”91″] still shows on my homepage and I can’t get rid of it
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Kenny,
Envira uses shortcodes to display galleries. You have to add these shortcodes to display galleries and you can remove them by simply editing the post and page and removing the shortcode. Hope this helps.
Admin
William says
thanks to Envira for the gallery option. Save a lot of time.
Amber says
I love the Envira Plugin, but I can’t figure out how to have the gallery images link to the attachment page/post – it just links to the image, which is great if using lightbox (which I don’t want to do)…any ideas?
Editorial Staff says
The best way to get support for Envira Gallery is through their customer support system
Admin
Rohit Kumar says
I have been using theme “Being Hueman” on my blog but images are cut off. you can visit my blog and see yourself. I am not able to fix it and moreover, I have not seen any help on google so I have to write this comment to seek your help.
Regards,
Rohit Kumar
WPBeginner Support says
Please see our tutorial on how to crop and edit post thumbnails in WordPress.
Admin
WPBeginner Staff says
Shortcodes are not enabled by default for widgets. To enable shortcodes in widgets please add this code in your site’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.
add_filter(‘widget_text’,’do_shortcode’);
Mathias says
How can I insert the shortcode for the gallery into a widget in my sidebar? It did not work when I copied the short code into a text widget in my sidebar. thanks
WPBeginner Staff says
Envira Gallery works on any standard compliant WordPress theme. It is not an eCommerce plugin itself, but it works with most popular eCommerce plugins and themes.
Elise says
Hi! I’m creating a site for an art gallery. I would like to use the Envira plug in. Can you recommend a good theme to use or purchase that would go well with the Envira plug in? And at some point I would like to add ecommerce, does Envira support that or is that a theme issue?
Roma Cantuaria says
Hello. I’m trying the Envira Lite right now. The design is perfect and the program is very easy to use. However, I’m facing two problems. Firstly, my photos are taking too long to load. Secondly, even after the page is completely loaded, a kind of loading icon under my gallery continues to appear. I’d like a little help from you guys.
The link to my gallery: http://www.casasemparede.com/teste-7/
Kaley Perkins says
Just bought the plugin but never saw a place to enter the code for the 20% off. Not a big deal for sure with all of the AMAZING value you provide, and QUITE possibly user error on my behalf being so eager to get it downloaded and working, but heads-up.
Stephen Starr says
I’m testing Envira Lite, on a custom these. Not sure where this code belongs:
You can also place this gallery into your template files by using the template tag(s) below:
if ( function_exists( ‘envira_gallery’ ) ) { envira_gallery( ‘467’ ); }
if ( function_exists( ‘envira_gallery’ ) ) { envira_gallery( ‘posada-life-in-picture’, ‘slug’ ); }
Here’s my gallery that doesn’t have the lightbox function:
http://posadalife.stephenbstarrdesign.info/posada-life-in-pictures/
Adam says
I tried the lite version and i added photos and used the short code for my gallery. Now, I get a loading wheel and the photos don;t load.
http://humanebroward.com/animal-assisted-therapy-team-photos/
WPBeginner Support says
Its working fine on our side, we can see your gallery and photos. Seems like you resolved the issue you were having.
Admin
Clare Chate says
Hey there, the two main features I’m currently looking for in a good gallery for my clients, is
(1) Categories / Folders (that may be a given, excuse my ignorance!
)
and
(2) Social media sharing on images
Does this one have those options?
WPBeginner Support says
It allows you to enable Tags using the tags addon. Using this feature you can allow users to sort gallery into tags. For the time being, there is no social sharing on the images.
Admin
Clare says
Thankyou for the info!
Clare