Carousel Slider Block for Gutenberg vs Shared Albums for Google Photos

A responsive modern carousel slider for the Gutenberg block editor that lets you add any blocks to your slides. Easily create sliders for hero sections, testimonials, products, and anything else using Gutenberg blocks. 🚀 Carousel Slider Version 2 is built on the modern Swiper.js library for improved performance and better mobile compatibility. Plugin site: carouselblock.com Features Add unlimited slides Add any blocks to the slides Preview the carousel in the editor Responsive and touch enabled Developer friendly: supports CSS variables & theme.json Settings Slides per view Slides to scroll at a time Slide speed Slide padding Prev/next arrows Dots navigation Infinite loop sliding Autoplay Pause on hover Disable on interaction Responsive settings: slides to show and scroll at given screen size RTL Advanced Settings For dynamic layouts where the slider or its surrounding layout changes after load, such as tabs, accordions, or lazy-loaded content. ResizeObserver Observer Observe parent elements Observe slide children Plugin Settings Plugin settings are available from Settings > Carousel Slider in the WordPress admin. Available options include showing legacy carousel blocks, hiding the legacy warning notice, and loading the full Swiper bundle instead of the default custom Swiper build. Included Patterns Full Width Hero Slider Testimonials Slider Logos Carousel The final look of these sliders depends on your theme styles. You can also fine-tune the design using custom CSS variables (see below). Requirements PHP 5.6+ is recommended, WordPress 5.8+, with Gutenberg active. Documentation Full documentation: carouselblock.com/docs Select the Carousel Slider block from the Design category. Click the + button located at the end of the carousel to add slides. Add any block within the slides. Use the horizontal scrollbar to preview the slides in the editor. You can reorder the slides by using the left and right arrow buttons in the toolbar. To remove a slide, select the slide and click the three dots right above it. Click the option to remove that slide. Click the Carousel Block (the block nesting all the slides) to show the carousel settings. Customizing Styles Carousel Slider v2 supports custom styling via CSS variables: Styling documentation: carouselblock.com/docs?doc=styling Navigation --wp--custom--carousel-block--navigation-size: Arrow icon size --wp--custom--carousel-block--navigation-sides-offset: Distance from edge --wp--custom--carousel-block--navigation-color: Arrow color --wp--custom--carousel-block--navigation-hover-color: Arrow hover color (falls back to navigation-color) --wp--custom--carousel-block--navigation-alignfull-color: Arrow color when carousel is full width Pagination (dots) --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-top: Top offset --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bottom: Bottom offset --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-size: Bullet size --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-active-color: Active bullet color --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-inactive-color: Inactive bullet color --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-inactive-hover-color: Inactive bullet hover color (falls back to active-color if set) --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-active-opacity: Active bullet opacity --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-inactive-opacity: Inactive bullet opacity --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-inactive-hover-opacity: Inactive bullet opacity on hover (falls back to inactive-opacity if not set) --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-horizontal-gap: Space between bullets (horizontal) --wp--custom--carousel-block--pagination-bullet-vertical-gap: Space between bullets (vertical) Block Spacing --wp--custom--carousel-block--image-margin-top: Top margin for image blocks --wp--custom--carousel-block--image-margin-bottom: Bottom margin for image blocks --wp--custom--carousel-block--cover-margin-top: Top margin for cover blocks --wp--custom--carousel-block--cover-margin-bottom: Bottom margin for cover blocks Theme JSON Support All the CSS variables can also be defined directly inside your theme’s theme.json under the settings.custom key. For example: { "settings": { "custom": { "carousel-block": { "navigation-size": "22px", "navigation-color": "#000", "pagination-bullet-active-color": "#000" } } } } Frontend API Carousel Slider exposes a small frontend API for integrations with tabs, accordions, modals, or other hidden UI. For some of these dynamic layout cases, the Advanced Settings observer options can also handle updates automatically. window.CarouselSliderBlock.init( container ): Initializes carousel instances inside the given container. window.CarouselSliderBlock.update( container ): Updates existing carousel instances inside the given container and initializes any that are not yet initialized.

Embed a Google Photos shared album directly from the source, without uploading copies to your WordPress media library. Add one shortcode, choose a gallery, slider, or carousel layout, and the plugin turns your album into a responsive photo experience for desktop and mobile visitors. It is built for photographers, bloggers, clubs, families, travel sites, event pages, and anyone who already organizes photos in Google Photos and wants to show them beautifully on a WordPress site. Why Install It No duplicate uploads – Keep your photos in Google Photos and show them on your WordPress site. Less gallery maintenance – Update the album at the source instead of rebuilding galleries by hand. A better visitor experience – Give people a responsive gallery, slider, carousel, fullscreen view, or lightbox. Photo and video support – Share mixed albums without splitting them into separate WordPress galleries. Mobile-friendly browsing – Let visitors swipe, tap, zoom, navigate, and enjoy slideshows naturally. Useful presentation options – Show descriptions, dates, counters, buttons, and image details when they help. Built for real albums – Caching, lazy loading, and progressive loading help larger albums stay practical. Why People Use It Google Photos is convenient for storing and sharing albums. WordPress is where your audience is. This plugin connects the two. Instead of exporting photos, uploading them to the media library, rebuilding galleries, and repeating the work after every album change, you can share the Google Photos album once and embed it where you need it. What Happens After Installing The plugin adds its own WordPress admin menu with a friendly Guide page, ready-to-use examples, a live shortcode playground, and the current parameter reference. Start with a sample, paste your own Google Photos share link, preview the result, and place the shortcode where you want the album to appear. Community Inspiration The optional Community Directory helps you discover what other users are building with the plugin. Browse real shortcode examples for layout ideas. Copy a configuration and adapt it to your own album. Rate useful examples and share your own. Add a sample page URL if you want curious visitors to find your site. Community features are optional. You can use the gallery plugin without joining or publishing anything. Community Acknowledgements This plugin has been shaped not only by code, but also by people willing to test early versions, question design decisions, and explain their real-world needs. Their ideas and thoughtful feedback continue to make it more useful and easier to use. Special Recognition Naveen Bachwani (@naveenbachwani) – An early adopter with a sharp eye and analytical mind. His feedback often improved usability while new features were still being designed, before they reached a public release. His many feature ideas, extensive testing, UX feedback, and detailed design discussions have helped shape photo information and descriptions, mobile and Fullscreen behavior, the Community Directory, and the current Lightbox and Fullscreen experience. Personal note: It has been a genuine pleasure working with you, Naveen! Key Contributors Peter Berger (@peterpolow) – Detailed feature requests and patient real-device testing that helped drive video support, Gallery mode, separate inline and Fullscreen controls, and more discoverable button behavior on iPhone and other mobile devices. Ulf (@toonwolf) – Real-world testing and thoughtful presentation requests based on using the plugin for digital signage on a screen in his tennis club cafe. Additional Acknowledgements Valter Bruno (@valterbruno) – The original Lightbox feature request and continued real-world testing of the plugin and its shortcode workflow. Luis (@luisbenitez777) – The request to support mosaic thumbnails in Fullscreen, which became the Fullscreen mosaic feature. Mateusz Starzak (GitHub @matiaspl) – A public fork that inspired the original mosaic feature. GMRobbins (@gmrobbins) – An early usability review that led to clearer onboarding and helped inspire Gallery mode and the carousel-to-single experience. Credits Uses Swiper – MIT License Uses Plyr – MIT License Privacy Policy This plugin does not collect or store any user data for its core gallery functionality. Use of external Google services The plugin fetches public Google Photos album pages from https://photos.google.com and image files from *.googleusercontent.com in order to render the galleries. Only publicly shared album links are supported; the plugin has no access to private albums or any content that is not already available via a public share link. The plugin does not collect, store, or transmit user credentials or personal data. It only caches album HTML and image URLs in WordPress transients for performance, and this cache is stored locally in your WordPress database. Community Directory (optional, opt-in) The Community Directory is optional. Browsing samples loads public examples from sa.janzeman.com. Sign-in, ratings, and publishing are used only when you choose to connect to the community. If you publish an entry, the community service stores the information you submit, such as title, shortcode, description, tags, optional sample page URL, and optional display name. You can delete your community account from the plugin admin page. The community backend does not use cookies, analytics, advertising, or newsletters. Support Bug reports: Open an issue on GitHub Feature requests: Post on the support forum Privacy, account, or sensitive questions: email [email protected] Leave a rating: Review on WordPress.org Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/janzeman