WordPress Image & Gallery Features Explained

Here’s a post i wrote earlier about WordPress 3.5 which is due for release on December 5th 2012.

I’ve been using the latest beta version of WordPress on my local computer and updating on a nightly basis (bleeding edge nightlies).

One of the best new features of 3.5 is the new media functions.

Inserting images

Inserting images is now faster and easier than previous versions of WordPress.

Uploading new images to your media library has certainly improved in recent versions with the drag and drop function and there’s more goodness coming soon in WordPress 3.5.

Once you do add new images to posts, pages and your media library, you’ll be able to choose them for insertion a lot easier. This saves time and creates a better user experience.

Insert Media

The media features in WordPress are getting better and better in every new version of the software.

Once the Insert Media Window pops up, you have 3 choices:

Upload Files
Use images from Media Library
Add a url to externally hosted images

Upload Files

Drag and drop files from your local computer

Media Library

Once you click the Media Library link, you get to choose from all your previously uploaded media files. This makes using images in posts and pages a better experience as its far easier to find and insert the images you want.

Select a single image or multiple images for insertion into a page or post.

Align Images Side by Side

From this screen you can align a single or multiple images left, Center, Right etc.

So whats the big deal about this new feature?

You can align multiple images on top of each other or side bay side.

Neat trick that was only possible in previous versions by adding CSS code.

Link To

Choose to link your images to an Attachment page, Media File or no Link.

Again, whats the big deal here?

I couldn’t test this properly but check out the new attachment page and see what you can do with it. I think this new page will include fields to better display images on attachment pages. May also be theme specific.

Create New Gallery

Its faster and easier to create and insert new galleries in WordPress 3.5.

Simply select the images you want included in your gallery from the media library and click Create a New Gallery.

Next you can add a description for each image which will be displayed in the gallery.

Choose how you want to link your images: Either to:

An Attachment Page or
To the Image File

Click Insert Gallery and this is a sample of what you’ll get.

Editing Gallery Images

I did notice that once the image gallery was inserted into a post, i could edit the images which wasn’t the case with single images.

This makes it super fast and easy to make changes to images included in a gallery.

You cane edit gallery images quickly and easily as well as:

change the description of each image in the gallery
remove or add images
increase or decrease the number of images in each gallery column.

One thing i noticed wasn’t possible on the beta version is changing the Link To from Attachment page to Media File.

Examples

Maybe by the time you view this image gallery, WordPress 3.5 is installed and active.

WordPress 3.5 Media Wireframes

Download PDF

Pro’s and Con’s

Keep in mind, at the time of writing this article, WordPress 3.5 was still in beta and at least 3 weeks away from being officially released.

Cons

I couldn’t click single images after inserting theme into a post
Couldn’t properly test the attachment page either
No small window on each single image for editing
Couldn’t change the Link To from Attachment page to Media File when editing gallery images
When inserting gallery of images linked to the image file, the native gallery carousel didn’t work

Pro’s

All the really cool features mentioned in this post already create a better user experience which i think will prove to be very popular with WordPress users.

No need to install the the multiple Galleries plugin. But what do you do if you have already installed this plugin?

Conclusion

None of the con’s above are a problem because the new functions work so fast its a breeze and no time is lost. I’m sure all the new features will be working properly before December 5th.

Thanks to all the WordPress developers and everyone that worked on making the latest version of WordPress, 3.5, the best yet!