The screenshots gallery in the Plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. Directory has now been updated on WordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.
This work started about two months ago as a three phase plan. I started it as a core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. first exploration, not just as a local Plugin Directory patch. The idea was to move reusable pieces upstream in Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/, lightbox captions and a masonry style for the Gallery block, because those improvements could be useful beyond WordPress.org.
We first explored the masonry solution in Gutenberg because it felt like the right long term home for this kind of feature. The feedback was that this approach should not land in Core in its current form and is better kept in plugin or theme territory until a cleaner browser level CSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. masonry solution is available. Since that path did not have a clear near term timeline, the Plugin Directory work kept the compatible masonry behavior scoped to WordPress.org instead of leaving the old screenshots gallery in place for several more years.
I still believe this was the right direction to explore. The Plugin Directory already had a real UX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. problem, the related task had been open for around nine years, and the current approach preserves compatibility without blocking a future upstream path.
Why it matters
The third phase became the practical and compatible path forward. This work was tracked in WordPress.org PR 622. The Plugin Directory now server renders screenshots with core Gallery and Image blocks, uses the standard WordPress lightbox, and keeps the remaining behavior isolated.
Existing galleries are not affected, styles are scoped, the behavior is opt in, and the implementation can be adapted as the upstream work evolves.
How the gallery works
This matters for plugin authors because screenshots come in different counts and very different proportions. The gallery looks at the image count and available dimensions.
Visually uniform sets get a cleaner grid layout, while mixed sets use a masonry style layout so tall, wide, and panoramic images can keep their natural proportions without hard cropping important interface details. Captions stay connected to the images and help explain the interface or workflow.
What is next
This work also closes the main part of a long running screenshots UI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. task connected to Meta Trac 2273, which had been open for around nine years. Related work also includes Meta Trac 8083. I do not see the gallery as finished forever though.
If you maintain a plugin where screenshots still feel awkward, please share the plugin slug or a link in the comments. Real examples are especially useful, because they help show where the current layout still needs work. Ideas for the next iteration are welcome too. I would like to keep improving this on top of the current Gutenberg based foundation while preserving compatibility as upstream solutions evolve.
Thanks
Thanks to @dd32 for the help, review, and guidance inside WordPress.org, to @bor0 for helping near the final stretch, and to @thilinah for the follow up checks. This was fun, but it also turned into a proper little endurance quest 🙂
+make.wordpress.org/plugins/
