DC Gallery
Introduction
DC Image Gallery is a completely free Joomla content plugin that lets you embed beautiful, modern image galleries anywhere in your articles using a simple shortcode.
With just one line of code like {dcgallery source="images/my-folder"}, you can display your photos in seven different stunning layouts – from a classic grid and Pinterest-style masonry tiles, through smooth sliders and carousels, to eye-catching 3D coverflow, card transitions, and a full gallery with thumbnails.
The plugin uses well-known, high-quality libraries: GLightbox for elegant lightbox popups, Macy.js for perfect masonry layout, and Swiper for fluid slider and carousel animations. Resources are loaded conditionally – only the scripts needed for the chosen display mode are included, keeping your pages fast and lightweight.
You have full control over the appearance directly from the plugin settings and per shortcode. Choose the default mode, number of columns, image proportions, spacing, loop behavior, and even customize navigation button colors and hover effects. Everything is responsive and looks great on mobile devices.
DC Image Gallery is perfect for portfolios, photo blogs, company websites, real estate listings, product showcases, or any Joomla site where you want to present images in a professional and visually appealing way – without writing a single line of HTML or CSS.
The plugin is stable, secure, with automatic parameter validation and safe defaults. It works smoothly on Joomla 5 and Joomla 6, causes no conflicts with other extensions, and is fully open-source.
Installation is quick and easy: download the zip file, install it via Joomla Extensions Manager, enable the DC Image Gallery plugin in the Content group, set your global options if needed, and start using the shortcode in any article.
If you are looking for a powerful, flexible, and truly modern free gallery solution for Joomla with multiple display modes in one plugin, DC Image Gallery is an excellent choice.
DC Gallery 2.2.0 — Changelog
New features
- Image cache — new option to enable or disable image caching in the plugin settings.
- WebP support — separate option to generate cached images in WebP format.
- Two cache sizes — separate optimized images are generated for thumbnails and lightbox.
- Pagination — added for normal grid and tiles layouts.
- Load more button — configurable button text.
- Images on start — configurable number of images displayed initially.
- Images per load — configurable number of images added after clicking the button.
- Pagination settings can also be overridden directly in the shortcode.
Image cache
- Original images are never modified.
- Thumbnail cache files are stored in cache/thumbs/.
- Large lightbox images are stored in cache/large/.
- Generated filenames include image dimensions, for example image-400-300.webp.
- Changing thumbnail or large image dimensions automatically creates new cached files.
- Manual cache cleanup is not required after changing image sizes.
Shortcode examples
Tiles gallery with pagination:
{dcgallery source="portfolio" mode="tiles" pagination="1" limit="8" loadmore="8" loadmore_text="Show more"}
Normal grid with pagination:
{dcgallery source="portfolio" mode="normal" columns="3" pagination="1" limit="12" load_more="12"}
Performance settings
- Use image cache — enables generation of optimized thumbnail and large images.
- Generate WebP — saves generated cache files in WebP format.
- Thumbnail width / height — defines the preview image dimensions used in gallery layouts.
- Large image width / height — defines the optimized image dimensions used in the lightbox.
- Pagination — enables the Load more system for normal grid and tiles layouts.
- Load more button text — defines the text displayed on the pagination button.
- Images on start — defines how many images are displayed when the gallery is first loaded.
- Images per load — defines how many additional images are displayed after clicking the Load more button.
Improvements
- Lightbox now opens the optimized large cached image instead of always loading the original full-size image.
- Tiles layout has been rebuilt using native CSS columns.
- Multi-column masonry layout is now available from the first page render.
- Removed the dependency on Macy.
- Removed the temporary one-column layout flash during gallery loading.
- Removed unwanted row gaps in the Tiles layout.
- Shortcode documentation in the plugin administration panel has been updated with the new pagination options.
Compatibility
- Legacy max_width and max_height settings are still supported.
- Legacy settings are interpreted as thumbnail dimensions.
- Old webp/ and thumbs/ directories are no longer used.
- New cached files are stored only inside the cache/ directory.
DC Gallery
- Version:
- 2.2
- Developer:
- Pawel Nosko
- Last updated:
-
Sep 19 2026
4 weeks ago - Date added:
- Mar 25 2026
- License:
- GPLv2 or later
- Type:
- Free download
- Includes:
- p
- Compatibility:
- J5 J6
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