Simple Lightbox

The highly customizable lightbox for WordPress

Beta Time! Simple Lightbox 2.0 Beta is here.  Grab the latest version and start testing!

Simple Lightbox is a free plugin for WordPress that lets you add a very simple and customizable lightbox image viewer (Javascript-based popup image viewer) to your WordPress website.  It also supports themes to allow the best possible integration with your site’s theme.

Features

  • Supports links in Widgets (New)
  • Supports Image Attachment links
  • Display image metadata (caption, description, etc.) in lightbox
  • Automatically activate links (no manual coding required)
  • Keyboard Navigation
  • Link Validation (optional)
  • User-customizable skin (template) support
  • Enable Lightbox depending on Page Type (Home, Pages, Archive, etc.)
  • Group image links (play as a slideshow)
  • Group image links by Post (e.g. separate slideshow for each post on home page)
  • Group gallery links separately from the rest of the links in a post
  • UI/Animation Customization
  • Slideshow Customization
  • Backwards-compatibility with legacy lightbox links

Installation

  • Install and activate Simple Lightbox on your site (help)

Usage

  1. Insert links to images into your post (WordPress Documentation)

That’s it! The image will be displayed in a lightbox viewer automatically.

Need a bit more help? Simple Lightbox for Noobs: The Beginner’s Guide to Using SLB.

Notes

  • Images are displayed at their original size to maintain optimum image quality.  Resizing images to their desired display size prior to uploading is recommended.
  • You can manually add rel="slb_off" to any image links that you do not want to be displayed in a lightbox

Support

Found a bug or otherwise experiencing an issue with Simple Lightbox?  Report the issue here.

Details

Version:
1.6.3.1
License:
GPL v2

Requirements

  • WordPress 3.3.2+
    • SLB has the same minimum requirements as WordPress itself.
    • SLB requires the jQuery library officially included with WordPress.  If any other version is loaded (manually or by other plugins/themes), SLB may not function properly.
  • Verify that your site's theme uses the following template tags (standard in any professional theme)
    • wp_head()
    • wp_footer()
    • the_content()

Download

Wordpress Plugin Directory

Version History

1.6.3.1

  • Fix: Backward compatibility restored (Backward Genius)

1.6.3

  • Optimize: Improved lightbox overlay display

1.6.2

  • Update: Rebuild JS code
  • Optimize: Improved compatibility with PHP 5+
  • Optimize: Improved utility code
  • Fix: Some elements can overlap lightbox
  • Fix: Slideshow not automatically starting (Laurence of Autoplay)

1.6.1

  • Optimize: Handle repeated initializations of lightbox on client-side
  • Fix: Localization not properly loaded (Mustafa Lingo)

1.6

  • Add: Widget support
  • Add: WordPress 3.3 support
  • Add: Localization support
  • Add: Option to group gallery links separately (supports WordPress & NextGen galleries)
  • Add: Upgrade notice
  • Optimize: WP 3.3 compatibility
  • Optimize: Improved compatibility with URI case-sensitivity
  • Optimize: Activation processing
  • Optimize: Image grouping
  • Optimize: Image metadata loading performance
  • Optimize: File loading
  • Optimize: Improved safeguards against interference by bugs in other plugins
  • Optimize: Link processing performance
  • Optimize: Lightbox styling isolated from site styles
  • Optimize: Improved link processing performance
  • Optimize: Improved image metadata support
  • Optimize: Improved support for HTTP/HTTPS requests
  • Fix: SLB is not defined in JS (Jezz Hands)
  • Fix: Boolean case-sensitivity (78 Truths)
  • Fix: YouTube embed using iFrame overlaps lightbox (Elena in Hiding)
  • Fix: Issue when scanning links without valid URLs (McCloskey Iteration)
  • Fix: Image activation is case-sensitive (Sensitive Tanya)
  • Fix: Visible lightbox overlay edges when image larger than browser window (Chibi Overlay)
  • Fix: Options availability for some users
  • Fix: Inconsistent loading of image metadata
  • Fix: Links not fully processed when group is set manually

1.5.6

  • Add: Display image description in lightbox (with HTML support)
  • Add: Support for W3 Total Cache plugin
  • Add: Initial support for NextGEN galleries
  • Update: Important: System Requirements aligned with WP 3.2.1
  • Optimize: Improved support for small images in default template
  • Optimize: Support for non-English text in user options
  • Optimize: Improved IE compatibility
  • Optimize: Improved data handling
  • Optimize: Skin loading performance
  • Optimize: Skin CSS Cleanup
  • Optimize: Caption support for galleries
  • Optimize: Options code cleanup (Juga Sweep)
  • Fix: User-defined UI text not used (Ivan gets Even (cooler))
  • Fix: Options reset after update (KRazy Donna)

1.5.5.1

  • Fix: Disabled links not being disabled (Disabling Sascha)

1.5.5

  • Add: Distinct link activation (will not affect other lightboxes)
  • Add: Backwards compatibility with legacy lightbox links (optional)
  • Add: Support for WordPress 3.2
  • Add: Support for links added after page load (e.g. via AJAX, etc.)
  • Add: Admin option to enable/disable attachment links
  • Add: Support for image attachment links
  • Update: Options management overhaul
  • Update: Additional WordPress 3.2 support (Gallery)
  • Update: Cache-management for enqueued files
  • Update: Improved UI consistency
  • Update: Improved compatibility for older versions of PHP
  • Update: Internal optimizations
  • Update: Improved URL handling
  • Fix: Improved options migration from old versions (Hutchison Migration)
  • Fix: XHTML Validation (Hajo Validation)

1.5.4

  • Add: Optional Link validation
  • Add: Keyboard Navigation
  • Add: Option to enable/disable image caption
  • Add: `rel` attribute supported again
  • Add: Use `slb_off` in link's `rel` attribute to disable automatic activation for link
  • Optimize: Filter double clicks
  • Optimize: Separate options to enable/disable SLB on Posts and Pages
  • Optimize: Better grouping support
  • Fix: HTTPS compatibility (Jürgen Protocol)
  • Fix: Enabling SLB on Pages issue
  • Fix: Zmanu is_single
  • Fix: Image order is sometimes incorrect

1.5.3

  • Update: Lightbox will not be activated for links that already have `rel` attribute set
  • Fix: Caption may not display under certain circumstances (Caption Erin)
  • Fix: Images not grouped when "separate by post" option is activated (Logical Ross)

1.5.2

  • Add: Option to use the image's URI as caption when link title not set (Under UI options)
  • Fix: Slideshow loops out of control (Mirage of Wallentin)
  • Fix: Lightbox fails when group by posts disabled (Lange Find)

1.5.1

  • Added: WP Gallery support
  • Fixed: Navigation hidden when only one image
  • Fixed: Use user-defined UI text

1.5

  • Add: Theme support
  • Optimize: Performance optimizations

1.4

  • Add: Close lightbox by clicking to left/right outside of image (an oft-requested feature)
  • Update: Integrated with jQuery
  • Optimize: Javascript filesize 9x smaller

1.3.2

  • Add: Option to enable/disable lightbox resizing animation (thanks Maria!)

1.3

  • Add: Customizable UI label text (close, next, and prev button images can be replaced in images directory)
  • Add: Group image links by Post (separate slideshow for each post)
  • Add: Reset settings link on plugin listings page
  • Optimize: Organized settings page  1.2.1 (2010-06-15)
  • Fix: Image title given higher precedence than Image alt (more compatible w/WP workflow)

1.2

  • Add: Option to group automatically activated links (for displaying as a slideshow)
  • Optimize: Lightbox caption retrieval

1.1

  • Add: Enable/disable lightbox functionality by page type (Home, Pages/Posts, Archive, etc.)
  • Add: Automatically activate lightbox functionality for image links
  • Add: Link to settings menu on plugin listing page
  • Optimize: Options menu field building
  • Optimize: Loading of default values for plugin options
  • Optimize: General code optimizations

1.0 (2010-05-29)

  • Initial Release

Credits/Acknowledgments

The lightbox functionality of this plugin was originally based on Lightbox Slideshow by Justin Barkhuff, but has undergone major changes as it entered puberty.

Discuss

652

lab

February 10, 2012 – 2:49 am

Thank you for the great plugin.

I just wanted to find out, is it possible to add a hyperlink to a new page on the overlay.

Thanks

3dgreek

February 14, 2012 – 1:47 am

Hideoho, I’m sure someone has answered this but I can’t for the life of me find it…is it possible to disable the lightbox on a specific page? I’m running awesome flickr gallery on a page and SImple lightbox is overshadowing it.

Quite simple- how do I disable it on a single, specific page?

Ernest

February 14, 2012 – 2:42 am

Hi, I have succesfully installed Lightbox a few times but now I am running into a problem. Lightbox doesn’t work this time. I generated a theme ith Artisteer and installed easing Slider in the header.
Now Easing Slider and Simple Lightbox seem to conflict. As soon as I turn of Easing Slider, Simple Lightbox is working again.
I am not technically good enough to find out how to solve this. Hopefully you can help me out.
Thnx!

Emil

February 14, 2012 – 5:15 am

Hi!
The SLB has stopped working, but I can’t say exactly when. Have not updated the site much, except for the WordPress installation. Running WP 3.3.0 right now. Have you had any problems with SLB on WP 3.3?

Sol

February 14, 2012 – 9:32 am

@lab: Yes indeed! Skins in SLB are fully editable, including adding text/HTML. Here is some information on the structure of SLB skins to get you started. You can also check out other content tagged with ‘Simple Lightbox’ for more information.

@3dgreek: SLB currently does not have per-page controls. However, individual links can be disabled by adding rel="slb_off" to the link.

@Ernest: Easing Slider overrides WordPress’ default behavior and loads an outdated version of jQuery (1.4.2) as opposed to the official version of jQuery included with WordPress (1.7.1). As SLB (and WordPress itself) depend on the official version of jQuery, plugins that override this behavior may cause issues. I would recommend contacting the developer of Easing Slider regarding this issue.

@Emil: The current version of SLB is compatible with WP 3.3 (though updating to WP 3.3.1 is recommended). The issue appears to be that another plugin or your site’s theme is overriding WordPress’ default behavior and loading an outdated version of jQuery (1.4.2). SLB works with the version of jQuery that is officially supported and loaded by WordPress itself (1.7.1).

It’s not clear what plugin is doing this on your site, but you can find out by disabling all plugins except for SLB and re-enable plugins until the issue returns.

Emil

February 14, 2012 – 9:31 pm

You got it! It was some lines in the functions.php

//Use Google JS Library
if( !is_admin()){
   wp_deregister_script('jquery'); 
   wp_register_script('jquery', ("http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"), false, '1.4.2'); 
   wp_enqueue_script('jquery');
}

I just changed the version to 1.7.1, and it seemed to work…

Jo

February 15, 2012 – 7:50 am

Hi
I have several images that I want to include in the slideshow however, on the webpage, I only want the first image to show, then when you click the image, the slideshow pops up to show all images? Thanks for your help.

Chaska

February 15, 2012 – 2:20 pm

Hi,
Thanks for the plugin! :)
I’m trying to install it to use with wp e-commerce (getshopped) and not having luck. I want the image in the single product page to be displayed in a lightbox. Do you have any recommendations of how I could implement this?
Thanks!

Eddie

February 17, 2012 – 12:14 am

When I am at the top of a page and open an image in SLB, it is hidden behind the header. Here is one page in particular: http://www.unemployedseries.com/photos/season-1-photos/ep0104-6-bts/. Is there any way to fix this?

Thank you.

Chipie

February 17, 2012 – 10:53 am

Hi!
First of all, I also have to thank you for this great plugin! It’s so easy to use!
I just have a little problem…
When the lightbox is open, the header is still in front, so that it is covering the open picture.
Do you have any idea how I could manage this?
Thanks a lot for your kind help!

Sol

February 17, 2012 – 2:33 pm

@Emil: Awesome :)

@Jo: You can create links with no text in your post. When the visible link is opened in the lightbox, the rest will also be in the slideshow.

@Chaska: Please see the “How to Report an Issue” section above to provide the necessary information for your issue to be reviewed.

@Eddie: The header has been set to a very high z-index in the CSS that puts in on a higher “layer” than SLB. SLB is configured to be on the top layer for most pages as an extremely high z-index value is not necessary for most elements on a page. Lowering (or removing) the z-index value of the header will allow SLB to be displayed on top of it.

@Chipie: You may have the same issue as Eddie above, but if not, please see the “How to Report an Issue” section above to provide the necessary information for your issue to be reviewed.

Nasser

February 19, 2012 – 4:48 am

Thank you for this great plugin !

Sol

February 21, 2012 – 7:35 am

@Nasser: You’re welcome :)

Wayne

February 21, 2012 – 6:19 pm

Great plugin. I’ve been using it on one of my sites and decided I needed on another. Went to WP plugins to get the download, but could not find it in the repository. Did I find it there last time? Was it in the WP repository previously, or never? Anyhow – found it here and glad of it :-)

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