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

653

lab

February 22, 2012 – 4:04 am

Thanks so much. Will have a look at the templates now!

Nancy Rosenblum

March 2, 2012 – 11:54 am

Simple Lightbox stopped working. See page http://farwestnordic.org/fund/meet-the-team/
wordpres 3.3.1
plugins: advanced post types order, categoty shortcode, gravity forms, simple lightbox, slick social share buttons, ultimate google analytics, wordpress backup to dropbox
browsers: chrome, firefox, safari, ie9

Nancy Rosenblum

March 2, 2012 – 2:01 pm

The conflict is with category shortcode. They do not work in the same page.

robert

March 4, 2012 – 9:28 pm

what the heck is going on – I can’t find this through the wordpress plugin search any more. I search for simple lightbox and nothing? This is not acceptable, I install this plugin a lot for myself and clients and not being able to auto install through wordpress SUCKS HARD – please look into this and do something!!!!

Sol

March 5, 2012 – 5:13 pm

@Wayne: I’m glad you found the direct download of SLB here. SLB is currently not in the official WordPress plugin repository while some updates are made. Once the updates have been completed, the latest version of SLB will be made available on WordPress’ plugin repository.

@lab: Awesome!

@Nancy: SLB appears to be working at the link you provided. Unfortunately, Category Shortcode crashes when I try to test it and it does not appear to have been updated for the latest version of WordPress, so I am unable to investigate further. I would recommend contacting the author and requesting that Category Shortcode be updated to support the current version of WordPress.

@robert: I would never suggest that someone continue using free software that does not meet their needs.

Kim Asbury

March 6, 2012 – 10:40 am

Hi I have been using simple lightbox for several sites but now i have got at request about the plugin. Is its possible to the plugin to a fixed numbers of pictures in some way. You can see what my question is about if you take a look at http://www.campau.dk and take a look in the work section. The plugin works on all the pictures is it possible to change that in some way ?
Regards and thanks from Copenhagen

Dave Yates

March 8, 2012 – 5:41 am

Hi there and many thanks for a great plugin. Just a small issue really. Using SLB with WP 3.3.1 on Chrome, IE 9, Safari. I have found that in the past SLB was displaying image descriptions in the lightbox but no longer does (I have checked the MySQL DB and the field is not empty and desciption will display with SLB disabled). I notice that the description is not being piped into the html.

Many thanks with any help on this, example here:

http://www.daveyatesphotography.co.uk/?page_id=4151

Sol

March 12, 2012 – 5:08 pm

@Kim: More control over activation and grouping of specific images is currently in development and will be released in the next major version.

@Dave: Has your theme been changed since you noticed SLB stopped displaying descriptions? Please see the Requirements section above to confirm that your site and theme meet the necessary requirements for SLB to function properly.

lab

March 12, 2012 – 6:34 pm

Thank you Sol for your advise and help. Your support for SLB is second to none.

Dave Yates

March 13, 2012 – 11:45 am

Sol, thanks for your help but I have not changed themes, I am still using twentyten and WP 3.3.1. Any other thoughts greatly appreciated?

Sol

March 13, 2012 – 12:56 pm

@lab: Glad to help :)

@Dave: Have you added any new plugins or widgets since you started experiencing the issue. Looking at your site, the HTML output is truncated on any page with a widget area, so there may be an errant widget (or plugin) causing issues.

SLB will not work properly if the entire page is not loaded. I would recommend disabling other plugins and widgets to see if the issue is resolved. If the issue is resolved, you can identify the errant plugin/widget by individually reactivating them until the issue returns.

tiger

March 13, 2012 – 8:50 pm

thank you. however, My SLB is fixed.

Kim Asbury

March 15, 2012 – 1:41 am

Thanks for replay , will be looking forward to next version :-D

Dave Yates

March 16, 2012 – 6:45 am

thanks very much for your help. not getting anywhere disabling all other plugins however. will keep playing…

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