In this chapter we will learn how to build a professional image gallery in Drupal 10.
Drupal provides powerful tools for displaying dynamic content, and the most commonly used tool for
listing content is Drupal Views.
Instead of manually coding gallery pages, Drupal allows us to:
- Store images inside a content type
- Display images using Views
- Customize layout using Twig templates
- Apply CSS grid layout
- Add zoom/lightbox using JavaScript
By the end of this tutorial you will have a gallery that supports:
- Responsive grid layout
- Hover animation effects
- Image titles overlay
- Fullscreen zoom effect
Before starting, make sure your Drupal installation is working and you have administrator access.
⭐ Final Result of the Gallery
The gallery we will build will display images in a clean grid layout.
When a user clicks on any image, it will open a larger zoom view.
Gallery Layout Example
[ Image 1 ] [ Image 2 ] [ Image 3 ] [ Image 4 ]
[ Image 5 ] [ Image 6 ] [ Image 7 ] [ Image 8 ]
Click Image → Zoom View
⭐ Step 1: Create a Gallery Content Type
Drupal stores data using Content Types.
We will create a dedicated content type that stores gallery images.
Navigate to the following menu:
Admin → Structure → Content Types → Add Content Type
Create the content type using the following configuration:
Name: Image Gallery
Machine Name: image_gallery
Description: Stores images for gallery display
Click Save and Manage Fields.
⭐ Step 2: Add an Image Field
Next we will add an image field that stores the gallery images.
Navigate to:
Structure → Content Types → Image Gallery → Manage Fields
Click:
Add Field → Image
Configure the image field with the following settings:
Label: Gallery Image
Machine Name: field_gallery_image
Allowed file extensions: png jpg jpeg
Maximum upload size: 5 MB
Number of values: 1
Click Save Field Settings.
⭐ Step 3: Configure Image Display
Drupal allows us to control how images are displayed using Image Styles.
Navigate to:
Configuration → Media → Image Styles
You can create custom image styles such as:
Gallery Thumbnail → 300x300
Gallery Medium → 600x600
Gallery Large → 1200x1200
These styles optimize images and improve page performance.
⭐ Step 4: Add Gallery Content
Now we will add some sample gallery items.
Navigate to:
Content → Add Content → Image Gallery
Fill in the following fields:
- Title: Image 1
- Gallery Image: Upload an image
Create multiple items such as:
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Image 5
Image 6
Each content item represents one gallery image.
⭐ Step 5: Create a Drupal View
Next we create a Drupal View to display gallery images on a page.
Navigate to:
Structure → Views → Add View
Configure the view as follows:
View Name: Image Gallery
Machine Name: image_gallery
Show: Content of type Image Gallery
Create a Page: Yes
Path: /gallery
Display Format: Unformatted List
Items per page: 12
Click Save and Edit.
⭐ Step 6: Configure View Fields
Now configure which fields appear inside the gallery.
Remove the default field:
Content: Title
Add the following fields:
Content: Gallery Image (field_gallery_image)
Content: Title
Arrange them in the following order:
Gallery Image
Title
This ensures images appear first and titles appear below them.
📌 How Drupal Views Render Data
When a user visits the gallery page Drupal performs the following steps:
- Fetch content from database
- Filter by content type
- Retrieve image field and title
- Pass the data to Twig templates
- Render final HTML output
This architecture allows developers to fully customize the frontend layout using Twig templates.
📌 Summary of Part 1
In this part we created the foundation of our Drupal gallery system.
We created a content type, added an image field, inserted gallery content,
and built a Drupal view to display gallery images.
In the next part we will learn how to customize the view using
Drupal Twig template overrides to build a professional gallery layout.
