How can I have a portfolio with only projects, without a collections page?

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1

I’m creating a portfolio but the structure I’m forced to use doesn’t work for me.
It forces me to have a portfolio page, a collections page, and create multiple projects for each collection; only then can I show my images.

I have 4 categories, and about 100 images in each (essentially it’s a catalog of a large number of images split up into portraits, landscapes, murals, illustrations). I need to just have the main portfolio page, show the 4 categories, and place my images in those categories. So I need to skip either the “collections” (and go directly to projects), or make each category be a “collection” but then skip the “projects” and go directly to images.

How can I skip the in-between page?

To simplify the question:
Instead of
Portfolio > Collections > Projects > Individual images
I need
Portfolio > Projects > Individual images
or
Portfolio > Collections > Individual images

I find this setup incredibly rigid. I looked at all the presets and can’t find anything that seems to work for me. I’d appreciate any help.

2

Unfortunately, Wix Portfolio is intentionally built around this fixed structure:

Portfolio → Collections → Projects → Project media/images

For your setup, I probably would not use Wix Portfolio. It sounds like you need a simple image catalogue/gallery structure, not a traditional portfolio structure.

The better setup would be to use a CMS and dynamic pages

Create one CMS collection called something like Portfolio Images with fields such as:

  • Image
  • Title
  • Category — Portraits, Landscapes, Murals, Illustrations
  • Alt text
  • Sort order

Then create:

Main Portfolio Page
Shows the 4 categories as cards/buttons.

Category Dynamic Page or filtered page
When someone clicks “Portraits”, they see all portrait images directly in a Pro Gallery/repeater.

This gives you:

Portfolio → Category → Images

3

Thank you for your reply. What you are describing sounds just like what I need. But how do I set up a CMS? I’m sorry but I am not super techie (which is why I was hoping for an easy solution in Wix). And once I have created the CMS will that automatically create the portfolio pages or do I need to create them myself, and how?

4

Also – what do you think about creating a redirect from “Portfolio” to “Collections” so as to skip the Portfolio page altogether, and then there would be just:

Portfolio (hidden, with redirect) → Collections page (with 4 projects, portraits, landscapes etc) → Projects pages (each type of artwork as its own project, including all of the images)

and then when you click on each image it opens up in its own window with its info.

Doable? Stupid?

5

have a read here about dynamic pages and CMS

Yes, that is doable, and it is not a stupid idea. It is probably the cleanest workaround if you want to stay inside the native Wix Portfolio structure.

The Wix Portfolio app is built around:

Portfolio → Collections → Projects → Project media/images

So you cannot truly remove the Portfolio or Project layer from the app structure. Wix describes the Portfolio page as the main page where collections are displayed, collection pages as the pages that display projects, and project pages as the pages that display each project’s media/info.

But your suggested workaround could work:

Portfolio page hidden/redirected → Collection page → 4 Projects → Images inside each Project

So your 4 “projects” would actually act as your categories:

  • Portraits
  • Landscapes
  • Murals
  • Illustrations

Then each project page contains all images for that category.

That is a practical workaround, but there are a few things to consider:

  1. It works better if each category can comfortably live as one long project page.
    With around 100 images per category, the page could become heavy, so you would want to optimise image sizes, use a gallery layout, and avoid adding too much extra content to each project page.
  2. The wording may feel slightly backwards in the dashboard.
    You would be using “projects” as “categories”, which is fine from a visitor’s point of view, but it may feel odd when managing content.
  3. Image-level info depends on the gallery behaviour.
    If you need each individual image to open with its own title, description, alt text or custom information, check that the Portfolio project media layout gives you enough control. If you need detailed per-image fields, CMS + a Pro Gallery/repeater may still be the better option.
  4. Redirecting/hiding the Portfolio page is okay, but test the SEO/navigation.
    I would hide the main Portfolio page from the menu and link your site navigation directly to the collection page instead. A redirect can work, but direct navigation links are usually cleaner than relying on visitors landing on a page that immediately redirects.

So I’d say: doable, not stupid, and probably fine if you are happy with the limitations of the Wix Portfolio app.

However, for a catalogue-style image library with 400 images, I’d still personally lean toward a CMS-based setup because it gives you cleaner control:

Portfolio → Category → Images

But if you want the fastest workaround using Wix Portfolio, your idea is probably the most sensible way to flatten the structure.