Metaslider Gallery 2.23 — New Gallery Content Type and Flexible Lightbox Controls

Metaslider Gallery 2.23.0 introduces a stronger foundation for creating image galleries in WordPress: galleries can now exist as their own content, with images selected for each gallery and placement handled through a shortcode or WordPress block. This release also makes the lightbox experience more flexible, giving you more control over when it appears and how visitors are invited to open it.

Feature highlights

• Galleries as their own content — Create and manage galleries separately, choose images for each one, and embed them with a shortcode or block.
• Per-slide lightbox control — Enable or disable the lightbox for individual slides instead of relying on one setting for every image.
• Custom lightbox prompts — Replace “Open in Lightbox” with an icon, customize the text, or use the updated defaults for a cleaner presentation.

Other changes

Version 2.23.0 also includes several interface refinements, clearer setting labels, translation updates, and bug fixes that should make galleries easier to configure and manage.

• Featured image lightboxes — The featured image option now works correctly instead of turning the rest of the image into a direct image link.
• Custom color schemes — The lightbox icon now works properly when custom color schemes are active.
• Clearer settings — Width and height settings, autoplay text, tooltips, and the former “Hash URLs” label have been clarified.
• Cleaner admin layout — Long layout labels are handled more gracefully, the title field has moved left, and gallery titles are now required.
• Branding and navigation — The plugin name has been updated to MetaSlider Gallery, with menus and settings organized more clearly around galleries and lightboxes.
• Translations — Spanish, French, and Italian translations were updated, alongside work to support more languages.

For developers

This release introduces a basic WordPress post type for galleries, with the initial implementation focused on image selection plus shortcode and block insertion. If you maintain custom admin workflows or integrations around gallery content, this is the main structural change to be aware of.