Embed a Responsive YouTube Playlist and Channel Gallery with our WordPress Plugin

gallery

Our YouTube plugin for WordPress now has responsive playlist and channel gallery support. Simply put, you can display a specific playlist or an entire YouTube channel in elegant ways that differ from the standard YouTube playlist player. Your visitors will be able to browse and select from an always visible "table of contents" of videos, unlike the standard playlist player which hides the listing after a video is selected.

In the free version (and by default), the plugin uses a grid (or tile) layout as illustrated above. Your visitors simply click on a thumbnail and the corresponding video will begin to play.

In the plugin's settings page, you are able to change certain defaults like the amount of thumbnails to show per page and the number of columns (see image below). The plugin is responsive, so the column settings will dynamically change based on screen size. Also, users will be allowed to page through the gallery if there are more videos in the playlist or channel than the thumbnails/page value you provide.

gallery settings

Note: More options than shown above may be found in the actual plugin settings page.

Go PRO and get more gallery customizations options. For example, we provide a vertical (single column) and horizontal (single row) list style as alternatives to the grid, with more designs coming. These current alternatives were inspired by the standard YouTube playlist player's "table of contents," except our gallery's video lists are always visible and shown under the playing video. Here's an example:

gallery customization

PRO users can now also differentiate galleries by showing different thumbnail shapes. We currently offer rectangle and circle options.

image

You'll also have the option of hiding the video player of a gallery until a thumbnail is clicked. That is, instead of the player always being loaded on top of the thumbnails as shown in the pictures above, the player will be loaded and played in a lightbox popup when determined by your visitors. This approach is in fact a form of lazy loading since the player for the gallery is not immediately loaded when your page loads, so it might be a option to experiment with if you're looking to speed up perceived page loads. The screenshot below shows this process.

popup player

New: Pro users that are looking for more ways to speed up their galleries can now choose if the thumbnail images are loaded or not. As shown below, only the video titles are displayed which reduces the amount of content (images in this case) that is loaded and rendered for galleries. This option is supported in the grid and vertical list layouts.

hide thumbnails

Ready to get started with an actual gallery? Just click the plugin wizard button and pick your desired gallery embedding choice as shown below. To activate the Pro features discussed above before you start, go here.

wizard button