Lightbox scripts

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last update : April 11, 2012

Lightbox is a simple, unobtrusive script (modal dialog box) used to overlay images on the current webpage. It’s a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers. Lightbox was developed by Lokesh Dhakar.

The current version is 2.0.5 released on March 18th, 2011. It’s based on the Prototype Javascript  Framework and on script.aculo.us. There are specific modified versions available like ThickBox (developed by Cody Lindley, but no longer maintained), LyteBox (version 5.5, released on January 26, 2012 by Markus F. Hay) and others. Different plugin’s are available for WordPress.

A very minimal implementation of a lightbox (modal dialog box) is available at the Google code website. More scripts about modal dialog boxes are listed at the Designlabel website.

My favorite script is Lytebox developped by Markus F. Hay. Based on the Lightbox class that Lokesh Dhakar originally wrote, the purpose was to write a self-contained object that eliminated the dependency of the javascript frameworks prototype.js, effects.js, and scriptaculous.js. Lytebox supports iFrames.  Since the original version of Lytebox, major modifications were added as a result of user input to improve performance as well as slideshow support, themes support, HTML content support and many more configurable options that allow you to customize the look and feel of the software.

More informations about modal dialog boxes are available at the following links :

Standalone scripts :

jQuery based scripts :

Miscellanous :