It's now easy to create image galleries using built-in Wordpress tools. You use the normal Add Image icon, but can now add more than one image at a time, to create a gallery effect.
All images by Virginia DeBolt
It's easy to do, but I didn't find the finished product perfect. Here's a quick video from Wordpress explaining how to make a gallery.
The instructions emphasize several times that you should start a post, save it to draft, then insert the image gallery.
When you have the images selected and uploaded into Wordpress, you add the very important alt text (and title text if you want it) using the Show/Hide options.
Click the Show link to edit an individual image where you can do all the usual Wordpress image tasks like changing sizes and adding alt text. When you've finished, click the Hide link to see the full gallery display again.
You can decide how many images you want in each row, and Wordpress will size the images accordingly.
You can see how this works on my blog at Web Teacher. If you click on one of the thumbnails to see the full-sized photo, you'll discover the one thing I don't like about how the gallery functions. The full-sized photo opens in a new brower window. You have to click the Back button to get back to the blog page. I'd certainly like to see that change in the future to something more useable.
If you try this in your own Wordpress blog, stop by with a link so we can see how it turned out and let us know if you like this feature in Wordpress.
Virginia DeBolt, BlogHer Section Editor for Tech
virginia.debolt@blogher.com
Virginia blogs at Web Teacher and First 50 Words.