The Photos in Folder widget targets a folder in your Igloo and display only the image files (.gif, .jpg, .png) inside it in a number of different layouts. It's a powerful tool for displaying images on Pages and Spaces in your digital workplace, and it's about to get more powerful. The next release adds a new slideshow functionality to the widget, giving you even more options for creating galleries or displays in your community. 

Photo gallery

The obvious use of the widget is as a photo gallery, to display arrays of images in your Igloo. We see this used for indexing items available at the retail level, assets for a new marketing campaign, or photos from shoots or events. The Squares configuration in the layout options offers a clean and consistent look that emphasizes the pictures, especially once the filenames are disabled. It will present your images in neat rows, like this: 

Slideshow showcase

The next release offers a new way to display your images however, by adding a slideshow option directly to the widget. Your images will be displayed one at a time in a configurable slideshow, making it great for featured photos on a homepage. Use the advanced options to include information about each image, such as name, date, or the amount of likes on an image. Here's a sneak peek at the full range of settings. 

Member submissions

One of the best ways to get that image content into your digital workplace is through member submissions. Whether it's snaps from a new launch or ridiculous selfies, showcasing people's own content is a great way to build community engagement, and the Photos in Folder widget makes it easy. Add a link on a Page about an event that connects to the Add Files option in the events photo folder. Alternately, enable submission through email on the folder and have them attach their pics to an email and send them in directly. Either way, make sure your members have at least Write access to the folder, so they don't encounter any issues. 

Using content submitted by people all over your organization can make some people a bit nervous. Maybe not all your office party pictures are homepage ready, after all. Not to worry, you can moderate submissions as they come in, reviewing and approving the pictures before publishing them to the folder, and ultimately to the widget. 

For more information about the new slideshow and other features, check out our post on the November release.