Modula Pagination

Someone browsing your photos and someone looking for one want different things

A wedding with three hundred photos, a studio's archive of work, a portfolio spanning years. Past a certain size, a gallery no longer fits in one long run of images, and someone has to decide how the visitor reaches photo number one hundred and twenty.

Modula Pagination is the Modula extension that splits a gallery into several parts. The interesting part is not the split, but that it forces a choice. A visitor who is browsing wants the photos to keep coming; one looking for a specific image wants to be able to get back to it. They are two different people looking at the same gallery, and each way of paginating favours one of them.

Three ways to reach the next image

• Pages with links. The gallery is divided into pages, with a number of images per page that you decide, and the visitor moves back and forth between them.
• Load more button. Adds a button that brings in the next group of images when the visitor presses it. It needs you to state how many images go on each page, and that figure must be greater than zero.
• Infinite scroll. Images keep loading as the visitor moves down the page. It is a single option that you switch on, with no further settings.

Which approach fits which gallery

The split depends on how the gallery gets used, and these three situations help you decide:

• If the gallery is explored with no particular goal, like a portfolio or a travel collection, infinite scroll lets the photos flow without interrupting the viewer. In exchange, nobody can say "it is on page four".
• If someone comes looking for a photo, like a guest trying to find theirs or a client reviewing a job, pages with links give them reference points to return to.
• If you want a middle ground, the load more button keeps the gallery on one page but lets the visitor ask for more images whenever they want.

Another detail affects the design. With infinite scroll the gallery keeps growing while there are images left, so whatever you place below it takes a while to appear. If there is a contact form or a booking button under the gallery, the load more button or pages keep it within reach.

Modula, existing galleries and layouts to test

It does not work alone. It is a Modula extension, and pagination is not part of the free version of the plugin.

It does not create galleries or process images. It only decides how the ones you already have are split up. Lazy loading is a separate Modula option, distinct from pagination, and makes images further down load as the visitor reaches them.

Test your layout first. With Creative, Custom and Masonry galleries it is switched on from their settings. Modula also offers slider and albums, so before relying on it for a specific design, try it on that gallery.

From switching on pagination to publishing the gallery

You need WordPress with Modula installed and a gallery already created. After that, the steps are these:

1. In the WordPress dashboard, go to Modula and open the gallery you want to split.
2. In that gallery's general settings, turn on the pagination option. The new options appear when you do.
3. Choose between infinite scroll and the load more button, or leave it on pages, and enter the number of images per page.
4. Set the link colour, the active page colour and the position: left, centre or right.
5. Open the gallery on a phone and go through all of it, down to whatever sits below.

Other options for large galleries

The base for all of this is Modula Pro, the product this extension adds to.

If you have not picked a gallery plugin yet, FooGallery Premium brings together live filtering and search by tags and categories, plus loading in parts, and suits cases where the visitor needs to locate images by topic. Another name on the same ground is Envira Gallery.

Questions about paginating a Modula gallery

Is it switched on for all galleries at once?

No. The option sits in each gallery's general settings, so you can paginate some and leave others as they are.

Does it work for a vertically scrolling gallery?

Yes. This extension's infinite scroll is what makes that type of gallery possible in Modula.

Does it replace lazy loading?

No. Lazy loading is a separate Modula option: both concern when images appear, but they are configured separately.