Introducing the New Tempest Gallery

We’re excited to introduce a big update for Tempest galleries! They have been completely redesigned to provide a richer, more immersive cross-device reader experience with a ton of new features.

The Gallery Invite

The gallery invite shows a preview of your images, the number of images, a title and a description. The optional title and description provide a new way to feature your galleries in an article.

The gallery invite automatically adjusts to display the best preview possible for the device type and aspect ratio of your images. If you choose to add a title and description they will be displayed next to the invite. You don’t need to worry about making any formatting adjustments in the composer - the new galleries will handle everything for you.

The Media Viewer

The gallery opens into a full-screen media viewer with smooth transitions as you click or swipe between images. With a full-screen experience we have more room for the images, which is particularly important on mobile devices. Each slide is a new page view, increasing your overall page views and monetization opportunities. And each slide has a unique URL, which lets you link to and share a specific gallery image.

We have also added a variety of zooming features, which really shine on touch devices. Gestures such as two-finger zoom, panning, and pinch-to-close work seamlessly. On desktop, you can click to zoom into images, and click again to zoom out.

Image captions are displayed more prominently in the media viewer. Captions can also include links: highlight the caption text in the gallery settings screen in the composer to add a link. You can show or hide captions by pressing the “i” icon in the media viewer.

Monetization

The gallery updates provide an array of new monetization opportunities. We’re starting off with an ad above the images and an ad on the side on large screens. We will be experimenting with ad layouts, reloading frequency, interstitials and new formats over the next few months to find the right balance between revenue and reader experience for each site.

Galleries in the Composer

There are only a few small changes to galleries in the composer. You can find galleries in the “Tools” section of the Media panel. Just drag and drop a gallery into your article to begin adding images. In the gallery settings you can now add a title, which is optional. If you add a title you can also add a description. In the composer each gallery displays its title and the number of images it contains.