The screenshots gallery in the Plugin Directory has now been updated on WordPress.org.
This work started about two months ago as a three phase plan. I started it as a core first exploration, not just as a local Plugin Directory patch. The idea was to move reusable pieces upstream in Gutenberg, lightbox captions and a masonry style for the Gallery block, because those improvements could be useful beyond WordPress.org.
We first explored the masonry solution in Gutenberg because it felt like the right long term home for this kind of feature. The feedback was that this approach should not land in Core in its current form and is better kept in plugin or theme territory until a cleaner browser level CSS masonry solution is available. Since that path did not have a clear near term timeline, the Plugin Directory work kept the compatible masonry behavior scoped to WordPress.org instead of leaving the old screenshots gallery in place for several more years.
I still believe this was the right direction to explore. The Plugin Directory already had a real UX problem, the related task had been open for around nine years, and the current approach preserves compatibility without blocking a future upstream path.
Why it matters
The third phase became the practical and compatible path forward. This work was tracked in WordPress.org PR 622. The Plugin Directory now server renders screenshots with core Gallery and Image blocks, uses the standard WordPress lightbox, and keeps the remaining behavior isolated.
Existing galleries are not affected, styles are scoped, the behavior is opt in, and the implementation can be adapted as the upstream work evolves.
How the gallery works
This matters for plugin authors because screenshots come in different counts and very different proportions. The gallery looks at the image count and available dimensions.
Visually uniform sets get a cleaner grid layout, while mixed sets use a masonry style layout so tall, wide, and panoramic images can keep their natural proportions without hard cropping important interface details. Captions stay connected to the images and help explain the interface or workflow.
What is next
This work also closes the main part of a long running screenshots UI task connected to Meta Trac 2273, which had been open for around nine years. Related work also includes Meta Trac 8083. I do not see the gallery as finished forever though.
If you maintain a plugin where screenshots still feel awkward, please share the plugin slug or a link in the comments. Real examples are especially useful, because they help show where the current layout still needs work. Ideas for the next iteration are welcome too. I would like to keep improving this on top of the current Gutenberg based foundation while preserving compatibility as upstream solutions evolve.
Thanks
Thanks to @dd32 for the help, review, and guidance inside WordPress.org, to @bor0 for helping near the final stretch, and to @thilinah for the follow up checks. This was fun, but it also turned into a proper little endurance quest 🙂