Very Simple PHP Image Gallery (From Folder No Database)

Welcome to a quick tutorial on how to create a very simple PHP image gallery. Tired of all those complicated gallery plugins on the Internet?

Yep, just like that in 1 minute. But how does this work exactly? Let us walk through a no gimmicks image gallery in this guide – Directly reads image files from a folder, no database required. Read on!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Click here to download

The example code is released under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

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TUTORIAL VIDEO

 

STEP 1) GET IMAGES & OUTPUT AS HTML

<!-- (A) CSS & JS -->
<link href="1b-gallery.css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="1c-gallery.js"></script>
 
<div class="gallery"><?php
  // (B) GET IMAGES IN GALLERY FOLDER
  $dir = __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "gallery" . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;
  $images = glob("$dir*.{jpg,jpeg,gif,png,bmp,webp}", GLOB_BRACE);
 
  // (C) OUTPUT IMAGES
  foreach ($images as $i) {
    printf("<img src='gallery/%s'>", rawurlencode(basename($i)));
  }
?></div>

Yep, that’s all to the gallery page. As in the introduction, all we are doing here is –

• (B) Get a list of image files from the gallery folder using glob().
• (C) Output them as HTML <img> tags in <div class="gallery">.

 

 

STEP 2) CSS GRID LAYOUT

/* (A) GALLERY WRAPPER */
.gallery {
  /* (A1) GRID LAYOUT - 3 IMAGES PER ROW */
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, minmax(0, 1fr));
  grid-gap: 20px;
 
  /* (A2) OPTIONAL WIDTH RESTRICT */
  max-width: 1000px;
  margin: 0 auto;
  overflow: hidden;
}
 
/* (B) GALLERY IMAGES */
.gallery img {
  /* (B1) DIMENSION */
  width: 100%;
  height: 180px; /* optional */
  padding: 10px;
 
  /* (B2) COLORS */
  border: 1px solid #ddd;
  background: #fff;
 
  /* (B3) IMAGE RESIZE */
  /* cover | contain | fill | scale-down */
  object-fit: cover;
}
 
/* (C) ON SMALL SCREENS - 2 IMAGES PER ROW */
@media only screen and (max-width: 600px) {
  .gallery {
    grid-template-columns: repeat(2, minmax(0, 1fr));
  }
}
 
/* (D) OPTIONAL ZOOM ON HOVER */
.gallery img:hover {
  z-index: 9;
  transform: scale(1.3);
  /* linear | ease | ease-in | ease-out | ease-in-out */
  transition: transform ease 0.5s;
}
 
/* (E) FULLSCREEN MODE */
.gallery img.full {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0; left: 0; z-index: 999;
  width: 100vw; height: 100%;
  object-fit: contain;
  background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.7);
}
.gallery img.full:hover {
  z-index: 999;
  transform: none;
}

Of course, we are not so “barbaric” to throw out raw images without cosmetics.

• (A1) display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(3, minmax(0, 1fr)); will lay out in a “nice gallery format” of 3 images per row.
• (B) width: 100%; height: 180px; to set a “uniform dimension” on all images.
• (B) object-fit is the “image scale to fit” behavior. Change this and see for yourself, choose one that you like.
• (C) On smaller screens, change the layout to 2 images per row.
• (E) When the user clicks on an image, we toggle a .full CSS class on it. Long story short, .full simply sets the image to cover the entire screen.

 

 

STEP 3) JAVASCRIPT TOGGLE FULLSCREEN IMAGE

window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => {
  // (A) GET ALL IMAGES
  var all = document.querySelectorAll(".gallery img");
 
  // (B) CLICK ON IMAGE TO TOGGLE FULLSCREEN
  if (all.length>0) { for (let img of all) {
    img.onclick = () => img.classList.toggle("full");
  }}
});

1. On window load, get all the gallery images.
2. On clicking the image, toggle the .full CSS class – This will show the image in fullscreen.

 

 

EXTRA) FILENAME AS IMAGE CAPTION

foreach ($images as $i) {
  $img = basename($i);
  $caption = substr($img, 0, strrpos($img, "."));
  printf("<figure><img src='gallery/%s'><figcaption>%s</figcaption></figure>", 
    rawurlencode($img), $caption
  );
}

Since there is no database, there is nowhere we can store the captions. But we can still use the file name as the caption of the images – This is just a small modification to the PHP to also output the <figcaption>.

 

 

EXTRA) SORTING THE IMAGES

usort($images, function ($file1, $file2) {
  return filemtime($file2) <=> filemtime($file1); 
});

usort($images, function ($file1, $file2) {
  return filemtime($file1) <=> filemtime($file2);
});

sort($images); // low to high
rsort($images); // high to low

 

EXTRA) MULTIPLE CATEGORIES & FOLDERS

<h1>CATEGORY A</h1>
<div class="gallery"><?php
  $images = glob(FOLDER A);
  foreach ($images as $i) { printf("<img src='FOLDER A...'>"); }
?></div>
 
<h1>CATEGORY B</h1>
<div class="gallery"><?php
  $images = glob(FOLDER B);
  foreach ($images as $i) { printf("<img src='FOLDER B...'>"); }
?></div>

Just put your images into different category folders, and repeat the “get list of files and output HTML”. Of course, this is good as a “quick fix” only. Not recommended if you have a dozen folders.

 

 

EXTRA) INCLUDE VIDEOS

// (A) GET IMAGES & VIDEOS
$media = glob("$dir*.{jpg,jpeg,gif,png,bmp,webp,avi,mp4}", GLOB_BRACE);
 
// (B) OUTPUT HTML
foreach ($media as $i) {
  $parts = pathinfo($i);
  if ($parts["extension"]=="avi" || $parts["extension"]=="mp4") {
    printf("<video src='gallery/%s' controls></video>", basename($i));
  } else { printf("<img src='gallery/%s'>", basename($i)); }
}

But the problem is – How to deal with video playback. Play while in the thumbnail size? Or engage in full-screen mode first? Check out the video gallery tutorial below if you want more.

 

INFOGRAPHIC CHEATSHEET

 

COMPATIBILITY CHECKS

• Arrow Functions – CanIUse
• CSS Grid – CanIUse
• Transition – CanIUse

This simple gallery will work on any modern browser.

 

USEFUL LINKS

• Simple PHP Video Gallery – Code Boxx
• Very Simple Responsive Image Gallery (Pure HTML CSS) – Code Boxx
• Simple Javascript CSS Slideshow – Code Boxx