Hey @everyone, 
I’m excited to announce my latest custom extension with the community…
Additional Gallery for HivePress! 
It gives every vendor a new Gallery feature, separate from their listings: folders they arrange themselves, a public page they can share, and the option to hold some of it back for members - or, for people who pay for access. It suits any marketplace or directory where the vendor’s own work is the thing worth looking at, so photographers, venues, trades, artists, anyone with a portfolio.
What visitors see
- Folders with their own pages - A wall of folder covers with an “Updated 2 days ago” line, and any folder opens at its own shareable address. The vendor chooses the cover photo, and there is a setting to switch back to one long page instead.
- A page for every photo - Each photo opens on its own page with its description, previous and next buttons, the conversation underneath, and a sidebar holding the vendor’s profile card and a widget area you fill from Appearance > Widgets.
- Likes and comments - Signed-in visitors can like a photo and talk about it, with replies one level deep. All of it is stored as ordinary WordPress comments, so you moderate it on the usual Comments screen, and either feature can be switched off.
- Videos, if you allow them - MP4, WebM and OGV play inline in the grid, the same way HivePress shows listing videos.
What vendors get
- A new Gallery item in the account menu - Vendors create folders, drag them into any order, and upload, reorder and remove photos in each one, giving every photo a description that shows under it, on its own page, and as its alt text.
- The gallery on profiles and listings - As well as the sidebar link, you can show the gallery itself as a section on vendor profiles and on listing pages. Each is off to begin with, each is independent of the sidebar link, and a vendor with no gallery gets no empty heading.
Holding some of it back
- Public, Members only and Private folders - A locked folder can show heavily blurred previews, lock placeholders, or nothing at all. The blur is made on the server, so the original photo addresses are never sitting in the page for someone to find.
- Protected files - Photos in private and members-only folders are handed out through an access-checked link, so the address alone opens nothing. On hosting that allows it the files are kept outside the folder your web server publishes, with a notice on the settings screen if yours does not.
- Membership gating - Set it on the plans themselves in HivePress Memberships: “Allow using the photo gallery” for vendors, “Allow viewing members-only gallery folders” for viewers, and optional per-plan folder, photo and storage limits. Leave it alone and every vendor gets the gallery.
Selling access
- Vendors can sell access to their own gallery - With Paid Access switched on and WooCommerce active, a vendor prices up to three lengths (a day, a week, a month, three months or permanent) and buying is an ordinary checkout. A second purchase extends what is left rather than being wasted, a refund takes back only what that order paid for, and buyers are warned a week before access runs out.
- A Platform fee on those sales - Take a percentage, a fixed amount or both, added on top at the checkout as its own line so the vendor still receives the price they set. Leave both boxes empty to take nothing. If you use a Stripe Connect direct-charges gateway, use that gateway’s own application fee instead, because a fee set here reaches the vendor rather than you.
Keeping it in hand
- Limits - Cap the upload file size, restrict which image formats are accepted, resize photos as they arrive, and set a storage quota per vendor, site-wide or per plan, after which vendors see “X used of Y allowed” on their Gallery page.
- Optional AI photo review - The first ten photos in a public folder are checked by OpenAI’s free moderation service, using one key shared with other OpenAI-based HivePress extensions. It runs in the background moments after the folder is saved, so nobody is left waiting, and anything flagged is taken out of public view and the vendor told.
- In your WordPress admin - Each Gallery Folder has an Images box using the same drag-and-drop manager as listings and a Settings box for visibility, and the folders list shows the vendor, the visibility, the photo count and the size.
- Your galleries survive a delete - Removing the plugin keeps the folders, photos, likes, comments, purchased access and settings, so a plugin removed by mistake comes back as it was. There is a tickbox to wipe the lot if that is genuinely what you want.
Working with the rest of your site
- Tells people what happened, if you want it to - The gallery raises an event whenever a photo is liked or commented on, a comment is replied to or liked, and whenever gallery access is bought or ends. Pair it with my Notifications for HivePress extension and vendors hear about all of it, on site, by email or by SMS, with each person choosing which of those they want.
- Automatic updates - New versions turn up on your Plugins screen like any other plugin, with the release notes in the details popup.
You need HivePress, WordPress 5.8 and PHP 7.4. WooCommerce is only needed if you want vendors to sell access, and HivePress Memberships only if you want to gate the gallery to plans.
Download the latest release
- Then go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin, choose the zip, and activate. Every release after this one will arrive on your dashboard by itself.
Cheers,
Chris 
P.S. If this extension saved you time or money, consider buying me a coffee! Sharing these tools for free takes a lot of time and resources, and your support helps me keep doing it for the community.
