Lightbox JS - Pros and Cons?
- Started
- Last post
- 31 Responses
- JamesThomson
Revamping my portfolio and thinking about using this JavaScript tool.
Seems like a good idea, but I'm a little hesitant. Any suggestions?
-jt
- stupidresponse0
use thickbox instead
- van_rijn0
why hesitant?
- JamesThomson0
I'm no pro, but one of my developers suggested this.
I'm wondering if maybe there's a newer solution, are there any browser compatibility issues, and how easy this is to use/update?
- van_rijn0
no issues with modern browsers.
thikbox is cool as well.
- sherman0
Lightbox is great and so is thickbox.
no problems on modern browsers unless someone has js turned off.
- Yep, if they have JS turned off they are used to not seeing things, also.mrdobolina
- stupidresponse0
fails silently in older/unsupported browsers, meaning you just get the image opening in the browser window as if you clicked a link straight to it.
i like thickbox, as you can open iframes and divs in the window as well.
adding it is as simple as sourcing the script and assigning your anchor tag the lightbox class
- sherman0
If you are using the strict doctype and thickbox, watch how you call thickbox. The strict doesn't like the inline content call:
?height=300&width=300&inlineId=m...
- decisionman0
I'd say the only con of using Lightbox is ...
EVERYONE ELSE USES IT.
Other than that, functionally, it makes a lot of sense.
:-)
- Not that it's bad when everyone uses something, but it's just become a kind of default.decisionman
- thing about that is no one cares except other designers/developers...mrdobolina
- If you use it well then it doesnt matter who uses it.sherman
- Just make sure you tweak a few things in the css to make to give it yoru own flavour
enfocusmedia
- nocomply0
Lightbox is great. My main gripe with it is that it's not really meant to stuff a beefy description/caption to go with a photo since the description is actually the title attribute of the image being displayed. If you want to add a link into your description you'll need to hack it and it's a bitch.
I would also like to see someone develop a nice little gallery CMS that works in conjunction with lightbox. That would be a web designer's wet dream.
- JamesThomson0
I was also wondering what people thought about it from a design standpoint. Sometimes the flashy bells and whistles can be annoying, but this seems like a pretty unobtrusive way to display large images.
- ********0
Thickbox.
- nocomply0
I take out all of the flashy stuff and keep it as simple as possible. Only animation is the loading image.
- rafalski0
Apple seems to have removed their lightboxy way of showcasing products, probably because it made no sense on iphone
- flashbender0
Personally I think that lightbox has become really over used. I find it slow and a little heavy.
But that's just me.
- monNom0
I hate the animated one with that huge 'close' button. The old version where you click anywhere to close was much better.
It gets a bit tedious to view lots of images (like for a portfolio). Seems best for sidebars in articles and the like.
- I still use the old one without the animation, I think it's much nicer.jamble
- kerus0
the biggest con is it makes your site feel like a blog (if its not) and its pretty played out
- jkmohr0
light box, in my opinion, is a cop out. a cheap way to make something work without giving it any thought.
- uan0
lightbox is a wonderful combination of free online technology in the early 21st century.
javascript+css, some cool dude online that took the time to write the code way it works in all browsers and doesnt cause bugs and is easy to customize by altering the css.i mean this script lets browser do things that only flash could do some years ago...so imho: design of modern webpages should concentrate on the use of javascript+css as an alternative to lots of flash-content...well not the really crazy moving-streaming-processing stuff yet...but javascript can handle images and transitions quite well in modern browsers by now, so designers should come up with some nice layouts of transisition ideas and good looking css's.
- kodap0
I use this one: http://vikjavev.no/highslide/#ex…
effects, borders, captions, sizes all configurable.
made some hacks to be automatically applied to my cms... though I use an older version than this one that allows html pages and iframes...
- flashbender0
^^ I just saw that one today, and I like it a lot more than lightbox. seems a bit more flexible too as you can use it with text and other things.