Did you know that you can dynamically build image and video galleries in WordPress using Google Drive™ as the physical storage location for the actual images and videos?
For example, whenever I add (or remove) images and videos inside of a specific Google Drive folder they are automatically added or removed from this very page each time the page is displayed or refreshed.
If the viewer is on a desktop computer, an attractive mosaic tile layout is created automatically each time the page is viewed. If on a mobile device, the layout will adapt to the screen size of that device.
When you click on an image, or a video (the last element in the gallery is a video), it pops up in an attractive lightbox display.
If you add content to the “description” area of a picture element in Google Drive, that information is displayed in the lightbox.
I have set this gallery to load items alphabetically by file name. I can imagine numerous ways to “manually order” your gallery, one way would be to prepend numbers or words to the file names. In this instance I’ve prepended the word “Video – ” to all videos and “Picture – ” to all pictures.
How is this done?
Using a plugin called: Image and Video Gallery from Google Drive.
Once you’ve got it setup it’s incredibly easy to use. There is a Google Drive gallery block that you can add to any post or page. Once you’ve set the block as your content type you can navigate within folders and subfolders to find the folder containing the items you want to show off.
Additionally, you can choose to display images and videos ordered by date/time uploaded or by their file names. The plugin creates the gallery image layout all on its own.
I won’t lie and tell you that configuring the plugin to work with Google was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. There is a bit of fiddling around with creating a google app/project, getting the right settings in the right places to authorize it, etc… The instructions provided by the plugin were reasonably clear and easy to follow. I think I got it working in about 5-10 minutes.
Use cases
- A small theatre group can easily create image galleries for their current and/or past shows and display them in various creative ways.
- Maybe they have a photographer coming during dress rehearsals, as soon as they upload their favorite photos to the google drive they can be live on the website.
- If the social media person wants to create a post to share on Facebook that highlights the best moments from their last season, they can easily do that.
- If their archivist wants to catalog all of the official photos taken at performances for posterity and show them to the world, they can make that happen.
- Maybe a historic preservation commission wants to display different galleries related to each specific historic district, or architectural examples from different periods within the community, or to display a collection of postcards from the 1800s…
Whenever you have a collection of items that you would like to easily update and display online (without taking up storage space on your website) then this may be your answer.
