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<h1 id="simplifying-the-craigslist-gallery">Simplifying the Craigslist Gallery</h1>
<p>2022-10-03</p>
<p><strong>This article was updated on October 11, 2022</strong></p>
<p>I&#8217;m a big fan of <a href="https://craigslist.org">craigslist.org</a> and the overall UX used throughout their application. My own website is an ever-changing example of &#8220;brutalist&#8221; or minimalist design, so I&#8217;m always inspired by existing web apps out in the wild using the same principles.</p>
<p>One nitpick I have with the current craigslist design is their approach to image galleries inside their listings. They use a chunk of bloated JavaScript (more than <code>380kB</code> total) to render something as simple as a collection of images. This seems like overkill to me.</p>
<h2 id="simplifying-things">Simplifying Things</h2>
<p>My first suggestion would be to remove JavaScript altogether. We can replicate most of the required features with just HTML &#38; CSS. Let&#8217;s start with our core HTML structure:</p>
<h3 id="html">HTML</h3>
<pre><code>&#60;div class="gallery-wrapper"&#62;
    &#60;div class="full-size"&#62;
        &#60;a name="p1"&#62;&#60;img src="https:&#47;&#47;picsum.photos&#47;id&#47;100&#47;400" alt="Picture 1" class="gallery-item"&#62;&#60;&#47;a&#62;
        &#60;a name="p2"&#62;&#60;img src="https:&#47;&#47;picsum.photos&#47;id&#47;101&#47;400" alt="Picture 2" class="gallery-item"&#62;&#60;&#47;a&#62;
        &#60;a name="p3"&#62;&#60;img src="https:&#47;&#47;picsum.photos&#47;id&#47;106&#47;400" alt="Picture 3" class="gallery-item"&#62;&#60;&#47;a&#62;
    &#60;&#47;div&#62;
    &#60;div class="thumbnails"&#62;
        &#60;a href="#p1"&#62;&#60;img src="https:&#47;&#47;picsum.photos&#47;id&#47;100&#47;100" alt="Picture 1 Thumbnail" class="thumbnail-1"&#62;&#60;&#47;a&#62;
        &#60;a href="#p2"&#62;&#60;img src="https:&#47;&#47;picsum.photos&#47;id&#47;101&#47;100" alt="Picture 2 Thumbnail" class="thumbnail-2"&#62;&#60;&#47;a&#62;
        &#60;a href="#p3"&#62;&#60;img src="https:&#47;&#47;picsum.photos&#47;id&#47;106&#47;100" alt="Picture 3 Thumbnail" class="thumbnail-3"&#62;&#60;&#47;a&#62;
    &#60;&#47;div&#62;
&#60;&#47;div&#62;
</code></pre>
<p>Here we are placing the full-size gallery images directly inside a single <code>div.full-size</code> as - you guessed it - <code>img</code> elements. This already helps us avoid the pitfall of building out spaghetti <code>div</code> containers.</p>
<p>Below this parent container we have another element, <code>div.thumbnails</code>, which will be used for our separate, smaller thumbnail versions of our main images. The most important items to note are the associated <code>ahref</code> elements surrounding each <code>img</code> element. By setting the <code>id</code> parameter on our thumbnails to match that of the <code>name</code> on our full-sized images, we can &#8220;scroll&#8221; the proper image into view without the need for JavaScript.</p>
<p>Now for the <em>fancy</em> stuff - the CSS!</p>
<h3 id="css">CSS</h3>
<pre><code>.gallery-wrapper {
    position: relative;
}
.gallery-wrapper:before {
    background: rgba(255,255,255,0.8);
    content: "Scroll &#47; Swipe 🡢";
    display: block;
    padding: 5px;
    position: relative;
}

.full-size {
    display: flex;
    scroll-snap-type: x mandatory;
    margin-bottom: 10px;
    max-width: 400px;
    overflow-x: scroll;
}
.full-size .gallery-item {
    scroll-snap-align: start;
}

.thumbnails img {
    cursor: pointer;
    margin-right: 10px;
}
</code></pre>
<p>Okay, so it isn&#8217;t <em>that</em> fancy. It&#8217;s actually very basic, which is exactly what we were going for. The images are &#8220;stacked&#8221; inline thanks to the parent container being set to <code>display: flex</code>, even though it has a set width of <code>600px</code>. The included <code>scroll-snap-type: x mandatory</code> tells the browser to allow users to scroll&#47;swipe horizontally through the parent container.</p>
<p>The last important piece of this CSS is the <code>scroll-snap-align: start</code> added to the individual image elements. This parameter <em>snaps</em> the next image into the starting position of the parent container on scroll, giving a behavior users have come to expect from media galleries.</p>
<p>You will also see the included <code>:before</code> pseudo element attached to the main <code>.gallery-wrapper</code> element. This isn&#8217;t <em>required</em> but it certainly helps from a UX standpoint.</p>
<h2 id="live-demo">Live Demo</h2>
<p>Check out the embedded CodePen below to see it in action. More functionality could always be built on top of this, such as rendering all images dynamically on &#8220;build&#8221;, but for a starting point I think it&#8217;s great.</p>
<p><a href="https://codepen.io/bradleytaunt/pen/ExLRyXz">Live CodePen Example</a></p>
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