10-Lightbox-Plugins-for-Websites-785-391

The development and improved usage of front-end technologies like JavaScript, HTML and CSS in web development provides a superior user experience for online visitors. The most important part of any web designing project is to prudently apply transition and animation effects to the various user interface elements of a website. Lightbox is one such innovative technique which makes the experience of previewing images, videos and image/video galleries quite unique. It works in such a way that when an image or a video is clicked, Lightbox facilitates the generation of a popup box or a separate modal window for displaying it.

Today, there are various web-based tools which allow web designers to make use of Lightbox in their websites. Most of these tools provide Lightbox modules for zoom effects, full-screen mode, animated thumbnails, image previewing and more. A majority of these lightbox modules have been developed in to a full-fledged jQuery plugin which can deliver lightbox solutions in an array of scenarios. Some of them include popup dialog boxes for displaying error messages, popups with animation effects, Ajax forms, modal windows with embedded social media buttons and such other functionality.

Previously we have checked many types of jQuery plugins like Web design plugins, Mobile plugins and many more on Codecondo. So, today, I am presenting a list of 10 such lightbox plugins which are based on jQuery. Most of these them are free to use and support multiple browsers for desktop and touch screen devices. Alright, so let us check it out

1. Magnific Popup

magnify popup

Magnific Popup is a responsive lightbox plugin supporting various mobile browsers, such as Chrome on Android, iOS, Blackberry, Android 2.3 and mobile Opera. It allows image lightbox popups with three different scaling settings. The plugin also facilitates lazy loading of images, zoom effects, dialog box with CS3 animations, popup with forms, Ajax popups more.

2. Fancy box

fancy box
Fancy Box is a jQuery plugin for displaying images, HTML content, SWF movies, iFrame, Ajax requests and other multimedia content in a Mac-style lightbox. The plugin offers functionality to display various types of transition effects with popups, such as fade, elastic, fancy transitions and drop shadow effect. It is ideal for displaying Google Maps (iFrame), Youtube videos (iFrame), modal windows, dialog boxes and more.

3. iLightBox

ilightbox
iLightBox is a responsive jQuery lightbox plugin for HTML and WordPress-powered websites. It offers cross-browser support for desktops, smartphones and tablets. iLightBox also provides other great features, such as retina-ready skins, Youtube and Vimeo integration for HTML5 video, support for swipe events and more. Moreover, it easily allows users to generate specific URL for modal windows as well as edit/add custom or default social media buttons inside modal windows.

4. Swipebox

swipebox
Swipebox is a jQuery lightbox plugin with support for swipe gestures in mobile devices as well as keyboard navigation in desktops. The plugin supports CSS transitions with jQuery fallback, dynamic slide loading, Youtube or Vimeo video integration, retina-ready UI icons and more. Swipebox is compatible with multiple mobile and desktop browsers, such as Android, iOS4+, Chrome, Safari, Windows, Firefox and Opera.

5. PhotoSwipe

photoswipe
PhotoSwipe is a lightweight and modular lightbox plugin with support for basic touch gestures, such as zoom, pinch, toggle, vertical/horizontal swipe and drag.  It allows generating smooth transitions which work great on mobile browsers. PhotoSwipe also offers zoom animation effects, lazy loading of images, image URL, full-screen support and popup window with social sharing buttons.

6. Lightcase

lightcase
Lightcase is a powerful lightbox plugin based on jQuery and SASS. The plugin uses CSS3 for generating various animation and transition effects for slideshows and image galleries. It also supports iFrames, SWF, HTML5 video, Youtube videos (iFrame), Google Maps, Youtube videos as Flash, Ajax forms and more.  Lightcase is a flexible lightbox plugin for various desktop and mobile devices along with support for modern browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

7. YALB

yalb
Yet Another LightBox or YALB is a robust lightbox plugin which is available in two versions, namely Vanilla JavaScript and jQuery plugin. YALB uses CSS animation and transition as well as provides options to customize the various aspects of modal windows, transition effects and other methods for controlling lightbox functionality.

8. Featherlight

featherlight
Featherlight is a lightweight jQuery lightbox plugin for creating elegant image galleries with lightbox popups and transition effects. The plugin uses CSS to display and style popup boxes but one can also apply custom settings to override its default styling. Featherlight also provides support for Vimeo videos, images, AJAX boxes, iFrames, CSS animation and more.

9. Light Gallery

lightgallery
Light Gallery is a jQuery plugin for creating beautiful and responsive lightbox image galleries for websites or blog sites. It supports all types of HTML5 videos formats as well as integrates with custom HTML5 player, Video.js. Light Gallery comes with a video module which allows building beautiful Youtube/Vimeo video galleries along with nice features, such as automatic play/pause videos, thumbnails and posters. The plugin supports touch and swipe navigation for various touchscreen devices.

10. Strip

strip
Strip is a jQuery plugin which provides an intuitive lightbox experience for various touchscreen devices. Strip offers a lightbox effect which only partially covers the web page, thus leaving room to interact with the page on large screen sizes. It supports all the major mobile browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera, iOS and more. Strip also embeds Youtube and Vimeo videos.

Conclusion:
With that we have come to the end of our list. I have tried listing some of the most popular Lightbox plugins which can be used by website designers in their user interface (UI) designing projects. Lightbox solutions are crucial for portfolio sites, E-commerce websites or any other type of large website. If you want to share any feedback or add more names to the list then you can definitely go ahead and write in the comments section below. Thank you.