Four Approaches to Display Galleries of Pictures in Confluence

May 23, 2017
#How To#Confluence
9 min

Check out the latest features of Handy Macros for Confluence in our blog post How to Make More Appealing Content in Atlassian Confluence

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Atlassian Confluence has a lot of features for displaying different types of content on its pages, including images. If you need to add a picture to your page, you can do it in three different ways:

  • paste from your clipboard
  • insert it as a file
  • add a link from the web.

You can adjust the size of your picture (or select one of three pre-defined sizes) and apply some visual effects to highlight the image among the text paragraphs. But what if you need to write a blog post about cats with myriads of photos? Here you need some tool that will allow you to put images in some visual structure and make your page look more engaging.

Confluence layout and Gallery macro

Even out of the box you can align your pictures properly. Create the simplest gallery with your pictures just by using the sections of your Confluence layout:

01

The Gallery macro that is already bundled within Confluence allows you to create galleries in a very simple way. Just upload your pictures to the page and place the Gallery macro:

02

You can exclude some attached pictures from the gallery (or include only specific pictures) using the settings of the Gallery macro. Pictures for displaying can also be filtered using labels.

Responsive Image Slider

This add-on from Kupper Software allows you to create simple sliders using images attached to the page. Filtering by label is also available. The slider is responsive and adapted for the touch interface.

03

Handy Macros for Confluence

Actually, this add-on from StiltSoft (from us (smile)) is a set of different tools that enhances your experience in Confluence by adding dynamic statusesreminders, and other features. But besides these features, it includes the Handy Carousel macro. It allows you to create interactive and easy-to-use galleries of images. A new gallery can be created by placing the macro to the page and filling it with media content:

04

The three presets for galleries are available: carousel, circle, and slider.

05

The Handy Carousel macro allows you to add other types of content, like Youtube videos. You may use any content supported by the Widget Connector macro.

Image Galleries and Sliders

This add-on from MOEWE team allows you to create galleries and sliders with images. It contains the Image Grid and Image Column macros that work similarly to the default Gallery macro. These macros display all the pictures from the page (filtration by labels is also available). The add-on contains the three additional macros:

  • Image Carousel Slider
  • Image Accordion Slider
  • Before After Image Slider

The first two macros allow you to create animated galleries. Also, you may use the Before After Image Slider macro to show the difference between two similar pictures.

07

Which solution to choose?

It depends on your tasks. Let’s see the pros and cons of each solution to make a more reasonable choice.

Native Confluence features

Pros:

  • Native tool in Atlassian Confluence
  • No additional expenses

Cons:

  • It takes more time to create a gallery by using the Confluence layout
  • The Gallery macro allows you to create simple galleries only

Responsive Image Sliders

Pros:

  • Responsive design for image display on any device
  • Compatible with a touch interface
  • Relatively cheap

Cons:

  • Limited functionality. It allows you to create sliders only

Image Galleries and Sliders

Pros:

  • Allows you to create galleries and sliders
  • Includes the Before After Image Slider macro that is unique among the examined add-ons

Cons:

  • More expensive than Responsive Image Sliders

Handy Macros

Pros:

  • Allows you to add video content into your galleries
  • Easier to use for small galleries
  • Provides other useful tools
  • Can greatly improve your overall Confluence experience

Cons:

  • Creation of large galleries may take more efforts
  • Doesn’t provide filtration of images by label