Roadmap regarding new native lightboxes?

  • Resolved jacobgkau

    (@jacobgkau)


    2 years, 4 months ago

    WordPress 6.4 added a native “Expand on click” option that provides a lightbox without any plugins. This plugin still has a couple of advantages over the current built-in lightboxes:

    • The plugin recognizes images within galleries and allows navigating between them with the arrow keys/buttons without leaving the lightbox. (The native lightbox currently has no such functionality.)
    • The plugin’s lightbox has a transparent background that (IMO) makes it easier for users to tell how to get back to the normal page. The native lightbox currently has a solid white background (although this may be changeable via theming?)

    On the other hand, the new native lightbox has a few advantages over this plugin:

    • The animation from the webpage to the lightbox (and back) is slightly more polished (it includes positioning, rather than just a fade).
    • The native lightbox changes the cursor to a zoom icon on hover (and displays a lightbox hint icon in the top-right of the image on hover), while the plugin only shows the link-hover cursor.
    • The new built-in “Expand on click” setting is more intuitive for writers than having to make the media file link to itself.

    With that in mind, I was wondering if there are any particular plans for integrating this plugin more closely with WordPress’s new built-in lightbox (e.g. adding pagination/gallery functionality to the built-in lightbox), or if the plan is still to maintain this plugin as an entirely separate option?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Author Johannes Kinast

    (@goaroundagain)

    2 years, 4 months ago

    Hi @jacobgkau,

    I like the WordPress native lightbox, too, but I run into the same issue as you. But I think these issues must be addressed in the WordPress core/Gutenberg Plugin. There is already a long to-do list for the Lightbox: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/51132 I think it will take a couple of releases before I will replace this plugin by the native Lightbox.

    If at some day in the future the native Lightbox is as good as baguetteBox.js. I will add a notice to the description and probably will close the plugin. But for now, it will stay as it is. A complete direction change of the plugin is difficult with 10.000+ active installations.

    Thread Starter jacobgkau

    (@jacobgkau)

    2 years, 4 months ago

    Thanks, it’s at least helpful to know that the plugin won’t be going away any time soon. The plugin details still say it’s only been tested up to WordPress 6.3.3 (with 6.4 being released back in November), so I wasn’t sure how maintained it still was.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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