Shopify Canvas can write a gallery section. Here is what it can't do yet

Shopify's new Canvas editor lets you type "add a photo gallery under the hero" and have Sidekick write the section for you. For a lot of stores that is all a gallery ever needed to be, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

This post is for the stores where it is not enough, and for anyone who installed Snug Gallery, opened a Canvas theme and found the "Add to theme" button doing nothing.

What a Sidekick-written gallery is

Canvas is in early access and works with Shopify-developed themes such as Dawn and Horizon and with custom themes. When Sidekick adds a gallery, it writes theme code: a section, with its images chosen in the theme's settings. That has real advantages. There is no app to pay for, nothing to install, and the markup matches the rest of the theme because the same tool wrote both.

It also has a shape worth understanding before you commit to it. The images belong to that one theme. Duplicate the theme and the section goes along; switch to a different theme and the gallery has to be rebuilt. Shopify's Canvas documentation adds that a theme edited in Canvas stops receiving theme updates, so the design you have is the design you keep until you ask Sidekick for changes.

What still needs an app

Snug Gallery stores each gallery as a Shopify metaobject and keeps the media in your store's Files, so a gallery is store data rather than theme code. The same gallery can sit on three pages, survive a theme change, and be edited from the admin without opening a theme editor at all.

On top of that sit the things a static section does not do: product pins for shop-the-look, a customer photo submission form that posts into a gallery you moderate, tag filters, a lightbox, and the right-click protection some photographers ask for.

If none of that matters to you, use Sidekick's section and skip the app. If two or three items on the list matter, read on.

Where Canvas and Snug Gallery stand today

Snug Gallery reaches the storefront through a theme app extension, the gallery block you add in the theme editor. Shopify's documentation says you can't add or configure app blocks or app embeds in Canvas yet. Shopify's note to app developers says it expects to support theme app extensions before Canvas becomes the default editor, with no changes needed on the app side.

So on a theme with the Canvas badge, the block is not available. Nothing is wrong with the install; there is simply no slot for it. The themes that pick one up are the ones without the badge: your original theme, or a copy made with plain Duplicate rather than Duplicate in Canvas. The in-app note next to the Add to theme button says the same thing. We added it today so nobody has to find out by searching.

A setup that works now and later

What we suggest to merchants who want to try Canvas without losing their galleries:

Keep the live theme as a non-Canvas theme and leave the Snug Gallery block where it is.
Make a Canvas copy with Duplicate in Canvas and design in it as much as you like. The original is untouched.
Keep building galleries in the app. They live in metaobjects and Files, not in either theme.
When Shopify ships app block support in Canvas, publish the Canvas theme and add the block there. Every gallery, pin and customer photo comes along, because none of it was in the theme.

That last point is the one we care about. A gallery is often the slowest thing to rebuild after a redesign. Storing it outside the theme is what makes a theme change cheap, Canvas or otherwise.

The step-by-step workaround, with screenshots of the Themes page, is in the Snug Gallery guide on Canvas.

Questions we expect

Can I add Snug Gallery to a Shopify Canvas theme?

Not yet. Shopify's Canvas documentation says app blocks and app embeds can't be added or configured in Canvas. Use a theme without the Canvas badge for now. Shopify has told developers it expects to support theme app extensions before Canvas becomes the default editor.

Will my galleries be lost if I switch to a Canvas theme later?

No. Each gallery is a Shopify metaobject and its media sits in your store's Files, so nothing lives in the theme. Once the gallery block is available in Canvas, add it and the existing galleries render.

Can Sidekick build an image gallery on its own?

You can ask Sidekick for a gallery section in Canvas and it writes one into the theme. The images are chosen in that theme's settings and belong to it. Product pins, customer photo submissions, tag filters and a lightbox need an app.