Simple Image Gallery PRO is a really useful extension for Joomla which makes adding image galleries on to your Joomla website really simple. The extension is easy to setup and very customisable.

In today's post will be looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the Simple Image Gallery Pro plugin...

Difference between Simple Image Gallery Free and Pro

The key advantages of the PRO version of the Simple Image Gallery extension is that you have the possibility of:

• Using 5 popup-creation engines (Slimbox, thickbox, greybox, litebox and lytebox).
• Adding captions to thumbnails and images.

The good news is that if you don't need any of the above options, you probably won't need to spend the €12 on the Pro version and can download the free version.

Getting started with Simple Image Gallery Pro

This extension installs like any other plugin. Once it is installed, there are lots of default options to configure:

One of the great things about this plugin is that these options can actually be changed for each specific album you create if you want to.

Adding the album to an article

To add an album inside an article, you need to upload the images you want displayed into a folder (in this example "folder1") inside the default gallery folder. Once the images have been added to the folder by FTP, add this code to the article text:

{gallery }folder1{/gallery }

Example of Simple Image Gallery Pro in action

Here is an example of an automatically generated gallery using Simple Image Gallery Pro with thumbnails and captions enabled on the photos:

{gallery}example:200:200:{/gallery} - This gallery is temporarily offline until the latest version of SigPro is released which works in Joomla 1.5. Here is what is looked like in Joomla 1.0:

Strengths of this plugin

• Extremely quick way to insert image galleries.
• The choice of 5 popup engines ensures you will be able to find a gallery which is compatible with your template.
• Adding captions to images is very easy as it is done through placing a labels.txt file inside the images folder.
• Documentation accompanying the plugin is thorough.

Draw backs of this plugin:

• Images inside a gallery sometimes display in a line under each other rather than displaying in a tight grid next to each other.
• It is not possible to setup specific alt tags on individual images (alt tags are an important SEO factor for on-page optimisation).
• Thumbnails are automatically generated and have long file names like 70abe97f0118bcdf2cd70a459c98fb5c.jpg this is another missed opportunity in terms of on-page optimisation.

Conclusion

The Simple Image Gallery Pro extension is a fantastic way to create great looking image galleries quickly. If however you want to have to complete control in optimising an image gallery for search engines and are ready to spend time creating a gallery manually, you should consider an extension like Ninja ShadowBox or YOOlightbox. One thing is certain, Simple Image Gallery is a great time saver.

Ally June 18, 2008 Votes: +3	You are spot on about the variety of pop-up engines mean that template conflicts are easier to overcome. My favourite feature (only discovered after I'd been using it for a while) is the ability to have a single image opening a gallery. This isespecially useful when I need to link to a .ppt slideshow. Save the slideshow as individual jpg, resize, upload and have the 1st slide embedded in the page with a label saying "click here for slides"It saves having all the slides visable on the page!! report abuse vote down vote up
David T June 18, 2008 Votes: +1	The function to open a whole image gallery from a single image can be useful yeah! It's a great tip to use it to show PPTs - nice idea! In the past I've used Slideshare.net to embed powerpoint presentations in Joomla... But using SIG Pro is a nice alternative! report abuse vote down vote up
Ally June 18, 2008 Votes: +1	A couple of my clients have slideshare blocked by the corporate firewall, so can't access any embedded presentations report abuse vote down vote up
David T June 18, 2008 Votes: +0	It's funny you should mention that Ally because I only recently learnt that the Schneider Electric corporate Firewall blocks SlideShare too. report abuse vote down vote up
Andres Calvo August 20, 2008 Votes: +1	For "content items" ts a very nice gallery. One disadvantage I found is it won't work if it is added to the description of a category/section. Also in a module the "caption" appears double and the thumbnail looses the styling. Does someone know how to make it work inside a category description? report abuse vote down vote up
Gert April 07, 2009 Votes: +0	Hi all, I would also be very interrested in getting this plugin to work in sections and categories. So if anybody has a clua on where to start please let me know ;-) Is it a joomla thing? report abuse vote down vote up
rlaserna April 13, 2009 Votes: -1	Hi everybody Somebody can send me this plugin or the url for download free, i have one but it is for Joomla 1.0.x and i use the 1.5 version Thanks report abuse vote down vote up