Simple Image Gallery 
Version
2.2 (last update on Nov 6, 2012)
Rating
Compatibility
Reviews
219
License
GPLv2 or later
Non-Commercial
Type
Date Added
5 December 2006
The plugin can turn any folder of images located inside your Joomla! website into a grid-style image gallery with cool lightbox previews. And all that using a simple plugin tag like {gallery}myphotos{/gallery}.
So for example, if we have a folder called "my_trip_to_Paris" located in images/stories/my_trip_to_Paris, then we can create our gallery by simply entering the tag {gallery}my_trip_to_Paris{/gallery} into some Joomla! article.
The galleries created are presented in a grid using a polaroid-like background for the thumbnails. When your visitors click on a thumbnail, they see the original image in a lightbox popup. The thumbnails are generated and cached using PHP for better results.
So let's briefly see what are the main advantages of using Simple Image Gallery: a) You don't need to have an additional gallery component to display a few images, b) you don't need to tell your visitors "to see our photos from Paris click here" and c) you focus more on content writing and less on administering the images!
The plugin is ideal for news portals wanting to display some product images, for example, inside their articles. Or for people who quickly wanna show their summer vacation pictures. With Simple Image Gallery, you can have as many galleries as you want inside each article.
Please note that if you want to create a gallery from a subfolder located inside your "image gallery root folder", simply adjust the plugin syntax to reflect the remaining path (after your set "root folder"), e.g. {gallery}folder/subfolder/othersubfolder{/gallery}. Make sure you write the path to your target folder without any slashes at the beginning or the end of your path.
Simple Image Gallery utilizes "Slimbox" (developed by Christophe Beyls), which is a more modern implentation of the famous "Lightbox" script, based on Mootools (1.1/1.2 for Joomla! 1.5) and jQuery (1.4 for Joomla! 1.6/1.7/2.5). "Slimbox" generates the nice popups that display the original images in a gallery.
You can see a demo of the plugin here:
http://demo.joomlaworks.net/simple-image-gallery
Simple Image Gallery is a Joomla! plugin developed by JoomlaWorks, released under the GNU General Public License.
Images
I absolutely love this plugin. First of all it is extremely convenient to use when you have a folder with many images in it and you need to post them quickly and wholesale. With only one set of tags--{gallery}folder path{/gallery}--you can post an entire folder of images, which are automatically thumbnailed perfectly. Very elegant-looking. Image thumbnails load quickly. Great plugin. We use this plugin to post company holiday and event pictures on our intranet portal. Thanks to developer!
Really great, simple to use, lightbox looks very sophisticated. The ability to include it in a content item makes it powerful and flexible to use it anywhere on your site, not only as 'one big component' like RSGallery.
One minor issue: the alt-text already is displayed on the thumnail, including the tags. Looks strange.
Other issue is that I found the on-the-fly thumb generation too slow, even when only about 15 images in the gallery. To solve this, I tweaked the showthumb.php a little. When a page is first loaded (typically by myself during testing) the generated thumbnail is stored on the server in a separate directory. Next time the item is loaded, my 'smartthumb.php' will first try to load the pre-generated thumbnail. It's working really fast now for all my other visitors...
Suggestions for new features:
Although the strenght of this mambot is its simplicity, the ability to add a per-image caption would be really great.
I also would suggest an option to center the thumbs. When using images with different aspect ratios, it can look a bit messy sometimes when all are lef-aligned. Or can I do this via the css?
But, all in all, a great plugin that I will use a lot on my photograhpy site. Oh yeah, did I mention the lightbox is really cool? :-)
One minor issue: the alt-text already is displayed on the thumnail, including the tags. Looks strange.
Other issue is that I found the on-the-fly thumb generation too slow, even when only about 15 images in the gallery. To solve this, I tweaked the showthumb.php a little. When a page is first loaded (typically by myself during testing) the generated thumbnail is stored on the server in a separate directory. Next time the item is loaded, my 'smartthumb.php' will first try to load the pre-generated thumbnail. It's working really fast now for all my other visitors...
Suggestions for new features:
Although the strenght of this mambot is its simplicity, the ability to add a per-image caption would be really great.
I also would suggest an option to center the thumbs. When using images with different aspect ratios, it can look a bit messy sometimes when all are lef-aligned. Or can I do this via the css?
But, all in all, a great plugin that I will use a lot on my photograhpy site. Oh yeah, did I mention the lightbox is really cool? :-)
Im working with a Rockettheme-Template ("Firefrog") and this Gallery, which looks great and has a marvelous user interface, is not working. No black screen, no well designed thumbs. The template im using is professionally made. Joomlaworks says on the troubleshooting-Info "Just revert to the default template of joomla". Well, easy to say, but after some 100 hours of developing an individual website with joomla..... Better would be to give some information where on the css changes have to be made. I hope there is a good answer too to that, so I can please our visitors with this wonderful tool too.
I wanted to say this is by far in my opinion the best image solution. Once i installed it i thought i had a problem with it and emailed the author. He responded within a couple of hours with an answer. Excellent!
I would have one suggestion if possible:
Sometimes i use it for single pics. I would love to be able to enter a description in the {gallery} code and have it appear in place of the nice message. Other than that it is perfect for my needs.
I would have one suggestion if possible:
Sometimes i use it for single pics. I would love to be able to enter a description in the {gallery} code and have it appear in place of the nice message. Other than that it is perfect for my needs.
Just so simple, trouble free and the output is great.
No problems installing or usage by "non technical" authors which is what I want.
Suggestion: Keep it simple, don't get sucked into trying to be an all singing dancing solution. It's not a full gallery its a "Simple Image Gallery"
No problems installing or usage by "non technical" authors which is what I want.
Suggestion: Keep it simple, don't get sucked into trying to be an all singing dancing solution. It's not a full gallery its a "Simple Image Gallery"
It looks great on the demo site but it does work on either of my sites, installed and published the mambot and added the {gallery}myphotos{/gallery} code to a news item and nothing. Tried the default template and still nothing.
Clearly more issues than whats available in the troubleshooting guide.
This plugin not as easy to use as it sounds.
Clearly more issues than whats available in the troubleshooting guide.
This plugin not as easy to use as it sounds.
Product looked great and was perfect for my needs, only i couldn't get it to work.
After looking and changing permissions of the recommended files, it turned out the problem was caused by another plugin MultiThumb. Altered the preferences on that and now Simple Image Gallery works great!
I'm happy!
After looking and changing permissions of the recommended files, it turned out the problem was caused by another plugin MultiThumb. Altered the preferences on that and now Simple Image Gallery works great!
I'm happy!
Love it, entirely.
Feature Request: I am displaying images with irregular aspect ratios. Is it possible to make it so that thumbnails display in the center of their space, rather than at the top/left corner. That way, tall/skinny or short/wide thumnails will be more evenly distributed on the page.
Thanks loads for a great tool.
Feature Request: I am displaying images with irregular aspect ratios. Is it possible to make it so that thumbnails display in the center of their space, rather than at the top/left corner. That way, tall/skinny or short/wide thumnails will be more evenly distributed on the page.
Thanks loads for a great tool.
Thanks for the guys at joomlaworks for this great mambot
The installation is easy and the configuration too.Anyone can use the Simple image gallery including newbies to joomla.You don't need to knew programing for make this gallery run .
Thanks a lot for this joomla works
I'm waiting for the next release with printing ability for the images thanks for that Fotis
They really listen to their users and their need they are a great
People that are happy with joomlaworks products please donate to then so they can keep it up with such great products and visit their page they have more great stuff over there
Those who think adding a printing feature for the images give me a hell yeah !!
The installation is easy and the configuration too.Anyone can use the Simple image gallery including newbies to joomla.You don't need to knew programing for make this gallery run .
Thanks a lot for this joomla works
I'm waiting for the next release with printing ability for the images thanks for that Fotis
They really listen to their users and their need they are a great
People that are happy with joomlaworks products please donate to then so they can keep it up with such great products and visit their page they have more great stuff over there
Those who think adding a printing feature for the images give me a hell yeah !!
What a great plugin. It does exactly what it says it will and is very easy to setup. The configuration options are explained well and I had my gallery published in a content item in under 5mins. Thanks for the effort of creating this plugin.
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