Meld Gallery is an open source gallery plugin for the Mura CMS. Meld Gallery combines a comprehensive image manager with a variety of popular jQuery image gallery displays. It is designed with novice users in mind, automating tasks such as image sizing, gallery formatting, and image organization. This isn't to say that Meld Gallery isn't ideal for 'power' users as well; with a vast array of sizing and display options, galleries can be as varied as you desire.
Meld Gallery also pays attention to Mura, automatically creating 'master' images uploaded in the Site Manager into its library, allows Content Collections to be used as a gallery source, and allows you to replace the Mura gallery format with one from it's own collection.
Meld Gallery Overview
Meld Gallery includes a variety of image and management tools designed to make it easy for even inexperienced users to use.
Meld Gallery keeps a high-quality 'master' version of images uploaded through Mura*, which it then automatically 'cuts' to size for each display. Images can be organized into any number of groups, which in turn can be displayed using any of the available gallery formats. This allows for easy switching of image sets and gallery formats, and allows the same image to be reused any number of times throughout your site.
Image groups aren't the only source for a gallery. Site managers can choose any Mura Content Collection as a source for a gallery, and images attached to documents within the collection are turned into a gallery that links back to each page. The same holds true for Mura Galleries; every gallery can be displayed using the standard Mura format or by one of the formats available in Meld.
Gallery Formats
There are several gallery formats available, ranging from multi-effect slider galleries based upon the Cycle jQuery plugin to the compact-but-nifty 'PopEye' gallery (as seen on the left). You can see some of them in action on the examples page.
While each gallery type has its own default settings, you can configure every individual display however you see fit. Need a narrow gallery for the left column, a full-width display for the front page, or a selection of smaller 'box' galleries arranged on a page? All of these and more can be easily accomplished with Meld Gallery and Mura.
*this does not include images uploaded as static content, such as in the WYSIWYG editor.
