No, Essential Foto works fine with or without JetPack’s Gallery Carousel. Furthermore, this only affects the slider or “carousel” part of the gallery, and Essential Foto applies it own skin to the carousel when JetPack is enabled.
However, this option is available because of some differences you may wish to take advantage of:
When JetPack’s Gallery Carousel is enabled:
Essential Foto will display full-screen photos in desktop view. But you might not prefer this, particularly if you are featuring descriptions beneath your photos.
Visitors can swipe or use the arrow keys to view slides. Disabled, visitors must click or tap to view slides.
Visitors can close the slider to return to the last gallery page. Disabled, visitors must use the top menu to exit the slider and return to a gallery page, (this may change in future versions of Essential Foto).
Images will be preloaded and the slider kept on a single page, so things work smoother. But this may not be good for SEO if you want your slides (along with their descriptions and comments) to show up on search engines. This might also make it difficult to analyze your web traffic and determine your most viewed photos.
The slider will display images in the order the thumbnails are arranged. Disabled, the slider will display images in the order they were uploaded, (which won’t match the thumbnails if you rearrange them).
The JetPack plugin requires a WordPress.com account and comes with a whole suite of additional features. However, if you just want the carousel feature you can use “Gallery Carousel Without JetPack” or a compatible plugin with Essential Foto.
Do I need to use JetPack with Essential Foto? What’s the difference?
No, Essential Foto works fine with or without JetPack’s Gallery Carousel. Furthermore, this only affects the slider or “carousel” part of the gallery, and Essential Foto applies it own skin to the carousel when JetPack is enabled.
However, this option is available because of some differences you may wish to take advantage of:
When JetPack’s Gallery Carousel is enabled:
The JetPack plugin requires a WordPress.com account and comes with a whole suite of additional features. However, if you just want the carousel feature you can use “Gallery Carousel Without JetPack” or a compatible plugin with Essential Foto.