Thinking Outside The LightBox – TOP 10 PICKS
You know what a lightbox is – even if you don’t think you do. They’ve penetrated our daily internet lives as a way to dramatically display some content by popping up the content while graying out the background.
There have been some lists created with names of list boxes, but no one has sorted them out into designer-friendly categories. Especially sorted by value-type perspective. Though there are a variety of javascript classes/methodologies used to reproduce the lightbox effect. This post will review the high function lightbox scripts regardless of the class variety used to produce the product.
I’ll rehash the lists, and add some of my findings too – My opinions will be poised from the ease of use, how fast they load and complexity (is it more of a pain in the butt to implement it than it’s worth).
Here are the lightbox clones that seem to stand out, but as I soon learned, standing out means it’s bulky… the prettier it is, the more baggage it is (Kind of like a rich lady traveling?).
Greybox (& Greybox redeux) may be one of the most amazing ones out there, er – I mean pop up lightbox clone scripts. It handles iframes with ease (including a web page inside the pop up) – all of the close buttons are appealing and it’s smooth as butta. Just make room for the 50 suitcases though.
Leightbox (Yes, it’s spelled correctly). I may be in love with script… it’s light – insanely fast, and a painless install. It’s not the flashiest script out there, but when you need something rock solid and fast – it’s Leightbox to the rescue.
Lightbox2 is like it’s namesake – it performs as the original, but it does take things a step (or 2) further – it can handle image sets, so you’ll have the forward/reverse arrows are visible on the popup image – which saves the viewer a little trouble while browsing images. It’s package load is reasonably light, but the ‘Close button’ for lightbox 2 is easy to spot for the user. Lightbox2 seems to have taken the user into account while developing this script.
Lightwindow is a newer one on the scene, but it is a good contender. Easy setup, VERY clean design make it a good choice to integrate into 2.0/3.0 sites. Only a designer could appreciate the rounded corners feature, and the fast image preloading.
Weebox is small, fast and flexible. It’s self-explainatary name says it all. It’s actually one of my final picks along with Leightbox. There is a reported problem with safari web browser, so keep that in mind for the mac audience.
Thickbox is like “old faithful” JQuery-based – always there/always works, but the only complaint is that the stock close button is hard to find for new & inexperienced web users. A big hold back when designing anything that is retail oriented.
Slimbox is another top choice – it’s fast, easy to use and even looks good. One of it’s most useful features is that it does a lot of the ‘little stuff’ that saves some time – auto centers images into the lightbox pop up, scrolls through images in list – even does horizontal scrolling without missing a beat.
Shadowbox the project goals for Shadowbox are rare – their project goals were to develop an unobtrusive piece of code that performed the same way every time. This script even will refuse to scroll – big pitfall of most of these iframe based lightbox clones. If an image is too big – it only shows the area that is within the spec’s of the window – keep the user experience clean and neat.
Smoothbox is another extremely light-weight lightbox script. The setup is quick/easy – it’s not bulky or clunky, and only requires 2 files to operate (css & js, and images of course).
Modalbox is the balance of all of the goals. It’s big enough to look “AMAZING” & light weight enough to move around & setup easily. If you’re developing an online application and want to add the “WOW” factor without a headache – here ya go. You MUST click on the examples and ’see it in action’ buttons on this page. The confirmation box along with the ability to enable/disable client side features is a great idea.
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