Gallery Custom Links Pro is the ultimate solution for those of you who want to transform an ordinary image gallery into an interactive visual navigation page (for example: a portfolio page that when clicked goes directly to a case study, or a product photo gallery that leads straight to a purchase page).
Hello dear GPLShare friends! Once again I’ll be discussing this plugin in more detail so you understand before buying.
The first thing you should know is that the Gallery Custom Links Pro plugin is suitable for portfolio websites, photographers, and e-commerce businesses. Although it looks simple from its name, behind the scenes this plugin works with a clever mechanism to manipulate WordPress’s built-in HTML structure.
Why Was the Gallery Custom Links Pro Plugin Created?
By default, when you create a photo gallery in WordPress (whether using Gutenberg, the Classic Editor, or Meow Gallery), WordPress only gives you two options for image click behavior: directing to the original image file (Media File/Lightbox), or directing to the internal WordPress attachment page.
WordPress doesn’t allow you to link specific images within a gallery to external URLs, WooCommerce product pages, or specific articles. Well… this is where the Gallery Custom Links Pro plugin was created as a solution to handle it.
How Gallery Custom Links Pro Works
This plugin doesn’t actually duplicate data or damage your database, Jordy Meow designed it to inject custom meta fields directly into the WordPress Media Library. When you open an image in the Media Library, you’ll find new fields in the form of Custom URL, Target, Link Rel, and Aria Label.
Here are the details of these new fields:
- Custom URL is for external or internal links.
- Target is to determine whether the link opens in a new tab (
_blank) or the same tab (_self). - Link Rel adds SEO attributes such as
nofollow,noreferrer, orsponsored. - While Aria Label is for accessibility optimization (Accessibility/SEO).
HTML Parsing System
What makes this plugin stand out from similar plugins is how flexible its parsing system is. When a visitor loads a page, on your website this plugin catches the gallery output and rewrites the HTML code using one of three parsing engines that you can choose in the settings.
Here are the details:
- HtmlDomParser is a solid, hardcoded PHP engine. It is the option to make sure that every link is found correctly on the server.
- DiDom is another PHP engine that works faster. It needs a clean and valid HTML structure on your website so that it does not throw errors.
- Meanwhile the JavaScript Engine is the engine and runs on the visitors browser. The link rewriting happens after the page has finished loading. The server does not have to do any extra work.
Exclusive Features of the Pro Version
What sets it apart is that while the Free version only provides basic link-adding functionality, the Gallery Custom Links Pro version is specifically designed for large-scale website needs with high work-time efficiency.
In the Pro version, you don’t need to click images one by one and enter detail mode to change links. You can perform Quick Edit directly from the Media Library grid view. This saves thousands of clicks if you manage hundreds of images.
With Advanced Filtering, you can filter your Media Library to display only images that don’t have links yet (unlinked images) or images with broken links.
The Automatic Lightbox Bypass feature automatically detects when an image has a custom link, and the system will disable the lightbox function specifically for that image, so the link function works immediately without obstruction.
