Problems with new galleries
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I’ve noticed some problems with the new block galleries.
1) They often come out jumbled, with pictures overlapping each other.
2) They are more difficult to edit than classic galleries. For just one example, maybe I’m overlooking it, but I can’t find any way to click-drag to reorder the images in the gallery.
3) By far though, the biggest problem is performance. It takes a long time for one of these galleries to load.This page takes a long time to load, in spite of only having a few images:
https://rodrigospacecraft.com/test/After it is cached, it’s not so bad, but the first time you visit this page, it takes many times longer to load than a comparable page with a classic gallery. And, the whole time it is loading, my cpu is racing at 100%.
I bring this up since it leaves us between a rock and a hard place. Classic galleries have a bug that prevents them from being created in a classic block (See https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/cant-add-an-image-gallery-to-a-classic-block/), and new galleries are not an adequate workaround.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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For more detail on problem #2 about gallery editing, just look at how easy it is to edit classic galleries:
https://en.support.wordpress.com/gallery/Unfortunately, new galleries fall short of that.
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Hi there,
1) They often come out jumbled, with pictures overlapping each other.
If you have an example of this occurring, I would love to take a look.
2) They are more difficult to edit than classic galleries. For just one example, maybe I’m overlooking it, but I can’t find any way to click-drag to reorder the images in the gallery.
Yes, this is an issue that we are aware of and there is an open report for it that will be worked on:
https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/11874
In the meantime, the less ideal way to reorder images is to select them from the Media Library edit area in the order that you want them to appear.
The other option is to edit the post or page in the wp-admin area of your site.
In wp-admin you should see the option to rearrange the image order with drag and drop.3) By far though, the biggest problem is performance. It takes a long time for one of these galleries to load.
I checked the file sizes of the images on https://rodrigospacecraft.com/test/
and they are all over 2MB, which is pretty huge for an individual image, let alone a gallery full of them.I would suggest optimizing your images for the web and see if that helps:
You can also use a tool like this as well:
https://squoosh.app/Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks,
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Thank you for taking the time to look at this.
With all due respect, 2MB is not a large size for a photo, especially if you want to offer the viewer the ability to download the original from the gallery.
I’m not sure my point was understood though: a classic gallery handles files like this without any problem. These new galleries take many times longer to load a page with a gallery. And my cpu is cooking at 100% for whole time the page is loading. It’s this relative performance that is the problem I’m reporting.
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especially if you want to offer the viewer the ability to download the original from the gallery.
If you offer full resolution images for downloads that is a bit different. But still, I would not load full resolution images on your site at all. Anyone with a spotty connection or subpar speed is never going to be able to load them. That affects a large portion of the population.
Instead, what you could do, is deliver those images privately. A visitor could submit a contact form to you, from there you could collect payment and deliver the full resolution image.
As my colleague mentioned, we would love to take a closer look at one of your galleries where you are having these performance issues. Please share a link.
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I did share a link above, but here are the details again:
Here is a link to a page with the new kind of gallery:
https://rodrigospacecraft.com/test/Notice how it takes a very long time to load the first time, even though it only has a few images. And the cpu is racing the whole time.
By contrast, here is a link to a page with classic galleries. It loads as a web page should…just like any of countless image gallery pages on the web behave. Nice and quick. If the viewer wants to download the original, they can.
In summary, classic image gallery pages work great, but new image gallery pages do not. It’s hard to see how this could be considered anything other than a bug in the implementation of the new galleries.
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In summary, classic image gallery pages work great, but new image gallery pages do not. It’s hard to see how this could be considered anything other than a bug in the implementation of the new galleries.
Thanks for sending this information. We’ll do some testing on our side to see what we can find.
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Just noting the first two images that I looked at on rodrigospacecraft.com/test/ are far too heavy for web or mobile display:
img_3419.jpg 3MB 2448×3264 pixels being displayed at 153×203 pixels
img_3391.jpg 3.14MB 2448×3264 pixels being displayed at 153×203 pixelsIn contrast to the same images on rodrigospacecraft.com/2019/01/12/146/
img_3419.jpg 919KB
img_3391.jpg .98MBSo in order to make your page load faster for everyone and to save you storage space in the long run, resize and optimize your images before you upload them. Unless you need to have a larger image for a header or featured image, 1600 pixels on the long side is really sufficient for most themes.
Edited to add that I noted you mentioned about allowing people to download your images, but first they have to be able to see them. You can offer a text link to download a larger image without inserting the image itself. If you are using a Gallery to display them, you can add the link as HTML in the image description. Hope that helps.
Keep in mind that all your images are also being indexed by Google.
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Oh my, that’s not true at all. You seem to think I uploaded two versions of the images, one small and one large. I did not do that.
Those are the _same_ images in the two galleries. There is only one copy of each of those images in my media library. I simply made two galleries, one classic and one new, using the _same_ images from my media library. I did _not_ upload two different versions, one small and one large, to my media library. Do this simple experiment: Click on the “view full size” link for the same image for both galleries and you’ll see they point to the exact same file, one that is 3MB.
The problem I’m trying to explain is that classic galleries work great, but new galleries have a serious bug. In other words: put images into a classic gallery and it works great. Put those same images into a new gallery and there are serious problems.
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No worries. We’ve got the team working on a fix now — essentially so the galleries can use srcset. It won’t be immediate but it is coming up. Ideally folks will be able to upload images and we’ll just sort out the optimization for them.
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That’s great news, thanks.
I understand that transitions are difficult. It takes time to get the new version to work as well as the old version.
The thing that makes this situation so frustrating is there is another bug (https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/cant-add-an-image-gallery-to-a-classic-block/) that prevents a classic gallery from being created. Otherwise, I’d simply use classic galleries until the new galleries are working. Either bug alone wouldn’t be so bad, but in combination it makes for a dire situation :).
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Totally understood. And thank you for understanding here, too.
If you have to, you can use the classic editor, via https://wordpress.com/post (switch to classic via the three dots if needed), view HTML to get the short code, then paste that into an HTML block.
It’s a bit of a process but it will work in a pinch.
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Hi! I just read that the fix for slow galleries was implemented. Surely enough, your test link loads quickly for me, even on my phone. Want to give it a try?
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hmmm, I don’t see a difference. Chrome version 74.0.3729.131 on MacOS 10.13.
Page with classic galleries:
A re-creation of that page with new galleries:
https://rodrigospacecraft.com/test2/I get a load time of 9 seconds for the classic gallery page, and 45 seconds for the new gallery page.
Also, the images on the new gallery page are jumbled, with thumbnails incorrectly sized and overlapping.
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And another problem I just noticed with new galleries:
With the classic gallery, when you hover over a thumbnail, the cursor changes to a hand so get a clue that you can click on it to pop up the slideshow of the images.
With the new gallery, the cursor never changes from an arrow when you hover, so nobody would ever know to click on a thumbnail to open the slideshow.
Sorry to be a complainer. Maybe I’m the only person who uses wordpress for a photo blog?
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@rodrigospacecraft perhaps the change isn’t fully implemented yet. Can we wait a few days to be sure this is pushed through?
Sorry to be a complainer. Maybe I’m the only person who uses wordpress for a photo blog?
No worries, we’re here to hear you! It’d be one thing if you were bullying staff, but you’re not. Let’s wait for this current change to get rolled out, then we’ll take a look at this other issue.
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A re-creation of that page with new galleries:
https://rodrigospacecraft.com/test2/Ah okay, I heard back: the fix I saw this morning was related to Jetpack’s “tiled galleries” which you used in the first test page, rather than the gallery block. Sorry, I’m sure the difference doesn’t sound that clear, but the code is different.
Can you confirm whether tiled galleries are loading quickly for you?
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Ahhh, you’re right, those use two different kinds of galleries. In the second test I was trying to mimic the original classic gallery page, which uses tiled mosaic, so I also used a tiled mosaic gallery in the test page.
Anyway, no, the first test page still loads slowly. I get about 50 seconds to load it in Chrome after I clear my cache, so it’s around 5 times slower than a classic gallery. I tried on both MacOS and Windows. Are you not seeing the same problems I am?
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It looks like we’re still waiting on a change our developers made to be deployed. Once that’s done, the tiled gallery blocks should start loading faster.
We’ll let you know once these changes are made.
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