An Iris gallery gathers images, documents, or both. It is created once, then shown in an article, through a menu item or in a module: change it, and everything showing it follows.
Where the galleries are
Components → Iris Galleries: Galleries (the list) and Categories. The list can be filtered, sorted and reordered by drag and drop. Categories can be nested; a category holding galleries cannot be deleted. Categories, menu items and the module come with Iris 3.0.055.
Creating a gallery
- From the media library: tick files, then Create a gallery.
- From Components → Iris Galleries → Galleries: New.
Fill in the Title, the Category and, if you like, a Description (shown under the gallery title, and as an excerpt on cards). Then the Source:
| Source | What the gallery shows |
|---|---|
| A selection | The media you add one by one (+ button), in your order, with your caption. |
| A folder | Everything the folder holds. A file added later appears on its own, at the end. |
Next to A folder, two buttons (from Iris 3.0.210):
- New folder: choose the Parent folder and the name. Iris suggests a name taken from the gallery alias, or else from its title, without accents or spaces: “Summer carnival 2026” gives summer-carnival-2026. The full path shows under the fields. If the folder already exists, Iris says so and selects it, creating nothing. Otherwise it creates it, selects it and opens the media library inside it.
- Add images, once the folder is chosen: the media library opens in that folder. Drop the photos into it (renamed and lightened on upload), then Use this folder.
Organising the media
Each item has its row, with either source: the handle to move it, the caption, the description, the eye to hide it from the gallery, the star to make it the main image, Edit (the Joomla image editor) and two quarter turns. Rows show as Cards or as a List. As cards, the file name shows under each card, bottom left, without the path; as a list, with its dimensions (from Iris 3.0.210).
Sort arranges everything at once: by name, by date, landscape or portrait first, landscape and portrait mixed, hidden ones last. Undo the sort brings back the previous order.
The What will be shown panel, on the right, shows the gallery as on the site; Preview shows it large.
The “-” of a row, in an A folder gallery (from Iris 3.0.210). The folder makes the gallery: removing only the row would not be enough, the image would come back at the end of the gallery. So the “-” asks what to do:
- Hide the image (the default choice): the image no longer shows on the site, the file stays in the folder. The row's eye closes.
- Delete the file from the folder: a second confirmation asks for it, in red. The file is deleted, the row removed. If it is used elsewhere on the site, it will be missing there too. This choice is only offered to users allowed to delete files.
Either way, save the gallery afterwards. In an A selection gallery, the “-” removes the row, without a question.
Large galleries (from Iris 3.0.210): a gallery of several hundred images saves with no limit, whatever the host's PHP setting. Row previews load as they come into view: the screen opens quickly, even with 200 photos. If the list of images does not reach the server complete, nothing is saved and Iris says so: reload the page and try again.
Display
| Layout | What it gives |
|---|---|
| Grid | Thumbnails of the same ratio, in columns. |
| Rows | Portrait and landscape mixed, without cropping. |
| Checkerboard | Squares, one large image in six. |
| Masonry | Each image keeps its proportions, in columns. |
| Carousel | One image at a time. It never scrolls on its own: automatic scrolling hinders reading and accessibility. |
| Main image and thumbnails | One large image, the others as thumbnails. |
| Scrolling strip | A row of images scrolled sideways. |
| List | One image and its text per row. |
Rows and Checkerboard come with Iris 3.0.055. The settings that go with them:
- Forced ratio (square, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, portrait 3:4 or 2:3 for posters from Iris 3.0.210, or original), Columns, Gutter in pixels, each with a value for small screens, and the Image corners.
- Caption: below, on hover or none.
- Enlarge in the viewer, and the Viewer: Classic (arrows and cross) or Iris (written buttons). Both work with keyboard and touch.
- Order: manual, by name or by date.
- Images visible before “Show more” (0 = all), then After these images: a “Show more” button, nothing, or nothing but all of them in the viewer.
Documents in a gallery
Documents block: the view (Tiles, Image on the left, Image on top, Compact list), the number of columns, the thumbnail, the download count, and the Download all button which gives a zip of the gallery. In Tiles, the buttons sit under the text, side by side (from Iris 3.0.210): a long title no longer wraps over several lines.
Publishing
Status, Access, Language, Featured. The Main image is the gallery thumbnail in lists and the module; without it, the first image is used. An unpublished gallery, or one restricted to an access level the visitor lacks, disappears everywhere. Without Iris, an article keeps readable images.
Save as Copy (fixed in Iris 3.0.210): the copy gets the title “Title (2)”, a numbered alias, and stays unpublished, like a copied article. Its rows and settings are those of the original.
Showing the gallery on the site
| Where | How |
|---|---|
| In an article | The editor's Iris - Galleries button: choose, it is placed. Reopened from the editor, a gallery offers Update in the article, which replaces the gallery already there. |
| A page for one gallery | Menu item Iris → A single gallery. It uses the gallery's settings, or replaces them for this page. |
| A page of galleries | Menu item Iris → List of galleries, on one category or all: one card per gallery, with its thumbnail, title and number of images. |
| A template position | Iris Galleries module: one gallery, or galleries as cards. Choose a layout fills the settings in one click, and What the gallery shows limits it to images or documents. |
Showing categories rather than galleries (from Iris 3.0.058): in the List of galleries menu item, setting Show → Subcategories, as cards. Set on a “Nurseries” category, it shows one card per subcategory; a click opens its galleries. Galleries placed directly in the category follow the cards.
Importing from SP Easy Image Gallery
In the galleries list, the Import from SP button appears when SP Easy Image Gallery is installed, for those who administer Iris (from Iris 3.0.055). Each chosen album becomes an Iris gallery, in a folder named after it under images/galeries:
- only the large image of each photo is taken, then lightened as on upload;
- photos are renamed and numbered in album order;
- SP categories are recreated, with their structure (from Iris 3.0.058);
- an interrupted import resumes where it stopped, without duplicates;
- nothing is changed or deleted on the SP side.
Once the import is done, the What next? block (from Iris 3.0.058) gives the three remaining steps: check the galleries; replace SP on the site, with the list of menus, modules and articles still showing it; remove SP, only when nothing shows it any more. Iris does not delete the SP folder: that is yours to do.
Up to date for Iris 3.0.210. Features added after 3.0.045 show the version that brings them.