WP Social Media Gallery Admin Overview
The WP Social Media Gallery dashboard puts the Gallery Builder, Settings, and analytics in one place. Here is what each screen does and where to find it. Everything lives under the WP Media Gallery top-level menu in the WordPress admin sidebar.
Admin Menu Structure
The plugin adds one top-level menu item, WP Media Gallery, with two sub-pages. The top-level item itself does nothing — clicking it redirects to the Gallery Builder.
- Gallery Builder: Create, edit, duplicate, and delete galleries. The URL is WP Social Media Gallery > Gallery Builder.
- Settings: Seven tabs for global defaults: Global, Appearance, Advanced, Integrations, Source, Tools, and User Access.
Both pages load a React single-page app inside the #ccpwpsmg-admin container. Navigation within the app uses hash routing, so the browser back button works between steps.
Gallery Builder
The Gallery Builder is where you create and manage galleries. It opens to a list of existing galleries with search, sort, and bulk actions. Click Create New Gallery to start a fresh one. Each gallery opens in a stepper with five steps.
- Source: Pick the gallery type and add media files or connect a social account.
- Configuration: Choose the layout, columns, spacing, and border radius.
- Lightbox: Enable the lightbox, captions, EXIF, navigation style, and effects.
- Permissions (Pro): Restrict access to specific WordPress users.
- Notifications: Set up email alerts for new media.
The top bar shows Save Changes and Finish buttons. Save Changes stores the gallery without leaving the builder. Finish saves and returns to the gallery list.
Settings Tabs
The Settings screen is split into seven tabs. Changes here set global defaults that every new gallery inherits. You can override any setting for a single gallery in the Configuration step.
- Global: Gallery view style, sorting, captions source, image animation, lazy loading, and right-click protection.
- Appearance: Primary accent color, preloader choice, and light or dark admin theme.
- Advanced: Custom CSS, custom JavaScript, and whether to delete all plugin data on uninstall.
- Integrations: Third-party service connections and webhooks.
- Source: Social account credentials and connection management (Pro).
- Tools: Export settings to JSON, import settings, or reset all to defaults.
- User Access: Gallery-level permission rules (Pro).
Lightbox Features
The Lightbox step in the builder and the Lightbox section in Settings control the same set of options. You can set the lightbox theme, navigation arrows, close button position, and whether the lightbox opens automatically on page load. The EXIF panel shows camera metadata for images that carry it. Thumbnails strip and visitor comments are Pro features.
- Lightbox settings: Theme, navigation, close button, auto-open.
- EXIF panel: Camera model, shutter speed, aperture, ISO — free.
- Thumbnails strip: Scrollable row of image thumbnails inside the lightbox (Pro).
- Comments: Visitor comments on individual images (Pro).
Analytics
Analytics are available from the Gallery Builder list or through the REST API. The plugin records gallery views, image views, lightbox opens, image clicks, and downloads to its own database tables. A scheduled cron job aggregates raw events into summary tables for faster reporting.
- Raw log:
wp_ccpwpsmg_analytics - Summary:
wp_ccpwpsmg_analytics_summary - Events: gallery_view, image_view, lightbox_open, image_click, download
There is no analytics dashboard in the admin SPA yet; query the REST API or inspect the tables directly for reporting.
What Pro Adds
The free admin covers the WP Media source, four layouts, the lightbox, EXIF, and global settings. Pro unlocks the remaining builder steps and settings tabs.
- Permissions step in the Gallery Builder
- Source tab for managing social connections
- User Access tab for gallery-level rules
- Lightbox thumbnails and comments
Open the Gallery Builder and look for the Premium Feature cards to see what each Pro step does before upgrading.
Getting Started
If you have not created a gallery yet, start with the Gallery Builder and pick the WP Media source. Once you have a gallery live, explore the Settings tabs to tune global defaults, or read the guide to WordPress gallery layouts to pick the right view style for your content.