Ajax Pagination
Ship the first fifteen images and fetch the rest on demand — as a Load More button, an infinite scroll, or numbered pages.
A gallery with 400 images in it doesn't have to put 400 images on the page. Ajax Pagination sends a first page and fetches each following one without a reload.
Turning it on
- Open Layout Settings and switch on Ajax Pagination.
- A new Ajax Pagination panel appears further down the inspector. Open it.
Not available on two layouts
Thumbnails and Perspective never show the switch. A slider already shows one slide at a time, and a looping marquee has no concept of a page.
Choosing a type
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Pagination Type | Load More — a button at the foot of the gallery. Number — numbered page links. | Load More |
| Infinity Load | (Load More) Fetch the next batch automatically as the visitor nears the end, with no click. | Off |
| Show Per View | How many items the first view shows, and how many each Load More or numbered page adds. Responsive, 1–100. | 15 |
One number, two jobs
There used to be a separate "show per click". It's one setting now: whatever you set is both the initial page size and the increment. Fewer settings, and the two can't disagree.
Load More
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Button Label | The button's text. | Load More |
| Ending Message | Shown once everything is loaded. | No more images available |
Number
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Select a Pagination Number Type | Number · Number + Arrow · Number + Previous/Next with Arrow. | Number |
| Gap Between Numbers | Space between the links, responsive; px / em / %. | 10 px |
Both
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Alignment | Left / Center / Right. | Center |
Which type to pick
| Load More | Infinity Load | Number | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visitor stays in control | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Can reach the footer | ✅ | ⚠️ Hard | ✅ |
| Good for browsing | ✅ | ✅ | — |
| Good for finding a known item | — | — | ✅ |
| Keyboard-friendly | ✅ | ⚠️ | ✅ |
Load More is the safe default. Number suits catalogues where someone wants "page 4". Infinity Load suits an immersive, scroll-forever wall — but it makes your footer nearly unreachable and gives keyboard users no stopping point, so use it deliberately.
Styling
The Style tab treats the button and the number links the same way:
| Control | Notes |
|---|---|
| Typography | Family, weight, responsive size, line height, letter and word spacing. |
| — Normal / Hover switcher — | Everything below is scoped to the selected state. |
| Text Color · Background Type · Border | Per state. |
| Border Radius | State-independent; px / % / em. |
| Inner Padding · Margin | The control's own box. |
How it works with filtering
Pagination and filtering are computed together, on the server:
- Choosing a category filters the whole gallery, then pages the filtered set. Weddings gives you every wedding photo, paged — not "the wedding photos that happened to be on page 1".
- The counts on the filter chips match what you'd actually get.
- With Number pagination, filtering hides the page buttons it no longer needs rather than rebuilding the list — filtering can only ever shrink the page count.
How it works with random order
Random order shuffles the gallery on each page load. Pagination keeps that same shuffle for the whole visit, so paging through a random gallery doesn't repeat images or skip them. One visit, one order.
Things worth knowing
It's a real saving, not a cosmetic one. The items beyond the first page aren't hidden with CSS — they aren't in the HTML at all, and their files are never requested. That's a different order of improvement from Lazy Load, which still ships every tile's markup.
Do both. Pagination reduces what's on the page; lazy loading reduces what downloads from what is on the page. They compose.
Pick a sensible page size. 15 is a good default. Below about 8 the visitor is clicking constantly; above about 30 you've given back most of the benefit.
Don't bother under ~30 images. The whole gallery is small enough that paging just adds a click.
Troubleshooting
The button does nothing. Check the browser console for a JavaScript error from another plugin on the page, and check that a security plugin isn't blocking requests to your site's REST API.
The gallery shows everything at once. The switch in Layout Settings is off, or Show Per View is set higher than the gallery's item count.
Infinite load doesn't trigger. It fires as the visitor approaches the end of the loaded set. In a short gallery inside a tall page, that point may already be past — switch to plain Load More.
Counts look wrong after filtering. They shouldn't be — both sides are computed on the server. If you see this, note the gallery id and the filter, and send it to support.