design patterns - What is the difference between a 'slider', a 'gallery' and a 'carousel'?

From a pattern perspective is there a difference? Or are they really different names for the same thing?

Answer

Sliders and Carousels effectively they mean the same thing: while perhaps factually different at one time, they are conflated to such a degree today that you couldn't effectively communicate one meaning or the other without being misunderstood. 1) A quick Google survey of jquery "sliders" and "carousels" shows many variations of the same thing: people are using these terms interchangeably as a means to display a "gallery" of photos. 2) The developers in my office respond to the question with "tomayto tomahto."

In the case of Galleries, these are the overall collections of images presented via carousels & sliders. Galleries tend to be presented in grids and lists.

I don't disagree with Andrew's usage (slider=horiz/vert, carousel=rotating focus), per se, but if you want to use terminology that will ensure you are not misunderstood, you might just call everything a carousel, and specify what sort of navigation it uses: filmstrip, slider (although I would avoid that), prev/next or stop/play buttons, dots, etc.

I attach some sketches to illustrate examples of what I mean:

Remember, everything we're talking about is born from from the physical analog of real photographs and slides. In the old days presentation slides were shown using a carousel slide projector.