FW Gallery – Documentation

The Tabbed Layout addon groups a gallery's direct subcategories into a flat row of clickable tabs at the top of the gallery page. When a visitor clicks a tab, only the gallery area refreshes via AJAX — the rest of the page stays in place. This removes full page reloads when switching between sections and keeps navigation fast and seamless.

Use Cases

• Portfolio with sections — display Photography, Video, and Illustration as side-by-side tabs; clicking any tab swaps the grid below without leaving the page.
• Restaurant gallery — group Interior, Dishes, and Events as browsable tabs in a single view.
• Large galleries — flatten a deep category tree into one accessible row instead of forcing visitors through nested pages.

How It Works

When the Tabbed Layout is active, each direct subcategory of the current gallery appears as a tab button above the gallery grid. Clicking a tab sends an AJAX request that reloads only the gallery content area with that subcategory's files. The surrounding page — header, navigation, sidebar — remains untouched. Each subcategory retains its own design template and layout settings, and the necessary styles for all subcategory templates are loaded up front to prevent visual flicker when switching tabs.

The tab row is rendered by the active design template plugin (such as Beauty or Classic). The Tabbed Layout addon handles layout registration and switching; the visual output depends on the design template in use.

Selecting the Tabbed Layout

Once the addon is enabled, the Tabbed Layout option becomes available in three places:

• Settings → Galleries tab → Default design — applies the tabbed layout across the entire site.
• Per-gallery override — select it in an individual gallery's layout field to apply it only to that gallery.
• Menu item parameters — override the layout for a specific menu item without affecting other galleries.

Important Notes

• Only direct subcategories appear as tabs. Deeper levels of nesting are not flattened into the tab row.
• If a gallery has no subcategories, the tab row is not rendered at all.
• Each subcategory tab uses its own design template and layout settings independently.
• The Tabbed Layout works with all FW Gallery design template plugins that implement the listing top info layout.

To install this addon, open the Add-ons panel inside FW Gallery. See Getting Started → Add-ons for details on free addons, paid addons, and site verification.