We built the easiest-to-use slider plugin for WordPress with MetaSlider Gallery.
We’re now trying to do the same for photo galleries. So I’m not going to claim that the latest release of MetaSlider Gallery has many new features.
What is does have is lot of polish. We’re aiming to make things easier and smooth.
You should be able to upload images and have a gallery ready in under a minute:
MetaSlider Gallery 2.33.0 is available today. This version gives site owners more control over how galleries look, how images are added, and how the gallery window behaves. The biggest improvements are practical: more import options, per-gallery window controls, better caption styling, and a cleaner settings panel that is easier to navigate.
Table of Contents for this post
Easier image adding and imports
The image adding workflow now supports more sources, which should be especially helpful when building larger galleries or migrating image collections into WordPress.
- Upload: Add new image files directly when building a gallery.
- Media Library: Choose images that are already available in WordPress.
- Server folder import: Pull in images that already exist on your server.
- ZIP import: Bring in a batch of images from a ZIP file.
More control over each gallery
This release adds several customization options that can be managed per gallery, helping you adapt each gallery to its page instead of relying only on site-wide defaults.
- Gallery window controls: You can now customize the “Open in Gallery” button, including button text and icon options, for individual galleries.
- Caption appearance: When editing a gallery you can adjust the caption text, colors, and backgrounds so the captions are easier to read in thumbnails and the gallery window.
- Thumbnail navigation: The thumbnail navigation will now keep a consistent height, even if your images do not have a consistent height. This gives a steadier, cleaner browsing experience.
A cleaner settings experience
The gallery settings panel has been rearranged and reorganized, with related controls grouped more logically. MetaSlider Gallery will hides irrelevant settings when “Show in Gallery Window” is disabled.
This version also clarifies the Include and Exclude settings, and updates the Autoplay labels so it is clearer which options work together.
Clearer Pro upgrade information
Version 2.33.0 also adds a dedicated “Upgrade to Pro” page and contextual Pro prompts inside the Gallery interface. This makes it easier to understand which advanced features are available in Pro without leaving your normal gallery workflow.
Other improvements and fixes
This release also includes several quality-of-life fixes and localization improvements for both site owners and administrators.
- Complete translations: All 28 supported languages now have completed translations.
- More accurate previews: The gallery preview now matches the frontend layout more closely.
- Showcase layout settings: Settings now show and hide correctly for the Showcase layout.
- Mobile columns: The “Columns (mobile)” setting is now respected instead of falling back to the desktop Columns value.
- Shortcode copying: The copy shortcode button now works on non-HTTPS sites using a clipboard fallback.
- Release workflow: AI translation updates are now included as part of the release process.
Developer improvements
Behind the scenes, this release includes a sizeable testing investment, including PHPUnit and Brain Monkey coverage, Jest tests, Playwright end-to-end scaffolding, and a unified test-report workflow.
There are no major public API changes highlighted in the changelog, but developers who maintain custom CSS around captions, thumbnail captions, or gallery buttons should retest those areas because caption rendering and button styling were expanded in this release.
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