Each gallery has an option to "Include Gallery among all others". Usually you will select "yes" for this. But, by selecting "no", you can create a hidden gallery. This means that the gallery will exist, but it won't be included in the list with all the other galleries. In fact it won't be linked up anywhere on your site unless you add the link somewhere yourself. So, in effect, it will be a hidden, non-public gallery. The only way someone could view it would be with the direct URL address.
There are several reasons why you might want to hide a gallery:
- You could create a gallery of photos for a certain client to view, and then send them the direct URL address. Nobody else would see the gallery on your site.
- You could create a gallery of personal photos for friends and family, and then send them the direct URL address. Nobody else would see the gallery on your site.
- You could use the gallery structure to create other miscellaneous pages that don't necessarily belong alongside the other photo galleries, then you can link to that gallery from someplace else on the site. By building a miscellaneous page in the Galleries section rather than the Misc Pages section, you can leverage all the features of the galleries, such as displaying a grid of photo thumbnails, or having a hierarchy of linked pages and sub-pages. Then, although the gallery is not included with the other galleries, you can link to it directly via a menu link or perhaps just from some other link somewhere else on the site. So you can use hidden galleries to create new pages and easily add images to those pages.
How to figure out the direct URL address for a hidden gallery
The easiest way to figure out what the URL address is for any gallery is to go to GALLERIES > MODIFY in the Admin. The table you see there has a URL column with links to the actual pages. Click on the URL link for the gallery in question, and the gallery will pop open in a new window. Now you just have to copy and paste the URL address from your browser's address bar.