Creating a Lightbox Gallery in WordPress | Introducing the Lightbox Plus Plugin

October 21st, 2009 | View Comments

The answer to your lightbox gallery problems is here.

Last night, I was pressed for time developing a WordPress site for my friend who happens to be an upcoming hip hop artist out of Atlanta, Georgia. Before we get started you can check out the new gallery to see how it functions. (Mr. Floyd County Photo Gallery) The launch is on October 23rd and everything was ready to drop on iTunes. The website had been neglected all summer with both of us being busy and we had to throw everything together quickly. After all, what artist doesn’t have a website up and running at all times if you are anywhere near the mainstream? (hrrm…http://www.kidcudi.com…seriously. I’m getting big timed hardcore on Twitter.) Anyway, I ran into some major issues when implementing a lightbox gallery in the WordPress.

If you haven’t noticed yet I use the Flexible Lightbox plugin on my Portfolio page to showcase my designs to potential clients. That plugin has always been quite a pain in the ass to me. It never works when I try to simply import a gallery all at once instead of doing all of the images individually. The CSS code has to be tweaked every single time I go in to edit. I will be taking my own advice soon and upgrading to the Lightbox Plus WordPress plugin by 23Systems.net.

I tried just about every single lightbox plugin possible including Lightbox 2, Shadowbox, and Flexible Lightbox. They just would not work with my new theme design. The images in the gallery just kept popping the images into a new window tab which is extremely boring. After getting frustrated I performed a search in google and hit this page.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lightbox-plus/faq/

After reading through the frequently asked questions and troubleshooting page for the Lightbox Plus plugin I was immediately convinced that there was some good development behind the plugin so I installed it. After installing the plugin I was immediately impress by the array of options available within the admin panel. The screenshot below does not do justice.

Lightbox Plus Options Sample

One of the most impressive options within Lightbox Plus is the style setting. Many bloggers are not very knowledgeable  in CSS customization and the plugin clearly takes care of it with so many choices already available. A few of other settings available Resize Speed, Transition Type, Overlay Opacity, Slideshow, Previous/Next Labels, and much more. You can check the plugin out at the 23Systems.net home page or I’ve provided a direct link to the WordPress.org plugin below for quick download. Enjoy creating your lightbox gallery with efficiency and ease!


  • This may be just what I need. I am debating on how to display my photography on my wp site instead of just my portfolio site.

    I think what Matt is saying is that when you click on the link in the left panel a new page opens to the portfolio and then when you click an image you get the lightbox gallery.

    Thanks!
  • Yea as you can see I would highly recommend it. When you are blogging it just makes since to put everything into one website with a nice clean design. If you are writing solid blog posts with value then it will only reinforce your portfolio and credibility.
  • pops up a new window (not lightbox) when I click a thumbnail in your portfolio (via left nav) under Safari. Doesn't have this problem at the Mr. Floyd County site.
  • Hmm. Seems to be working in my Safari. You on a Mac? Are they all failing or just certain ones?
  • Ah got it. Thanks for bringing that to light Matt. I don't know how I missed that one. I wonder if the settings were changed during my last WordPress update.
  • Jimmy Andersson
    Hi!

    Your gallery is working fine but when i use it on my own theme its not working. I changed it to link="file and checked Use For WP Gallery box under Other Lightbox Plus Settings. But when i click on a image it just pops up in a new window? Do you know what could be the issue?
  • Hey Jimmy,

    I've encountered this problem a few times and I tinkered around to get it working in my settings. Make sure you refresh after saving the settings. Or even clear your browser cache before reloading the gallery page. Be sure that you do not have any old conflicting lightbox plugins installed. That would be the best advice I could give you at the moment until I get a chance to mess around in the settings. When I do have a solid solution I'll be sure to post it back on here.

    I'm not currently running my portfolio as a gallery. Each individual image is placed separately, which isn't the best practice. I'm actually about to renovate the entire site to keep it more clean.

    Additionally - I just looked under the mrfloydcounty website to see how put in the images there. That site is using a gallery within a post.

    -Use For WP Gallery: Checked
    -Linking Thumbnails to: Image File

    Did you try the Support Forum(http://www.23systems.net/bbpress/) at 23Systems? I'm sure its a common problem.
  • These F.A.Q. may help. The problem may be with your theme. http://www.23systems.net/bbpress/topic/faq
blog comments powered by Disqus