Shortcode gallery link=”lightbox” ?

Short answer: no , not by default. The link="lightbox" option is a Gutenberg (block editor) feature and is not
implemented in the legacy [gallery] shortcode.

The [gallery] shortcode still only supports:

• link=”file”
• link=”attachment”
• link=”none”

and it uses the old shortcode rendering pipeline, not the block-based one. So [gallery link="lightbox"] is not currently supported in WordPress core.

If you need lightbox behavior with the shortcode, your options are:

• use a JavaScript lightbox library that targets gallery links
• filter post_gallery and add the required data attributes manually
• switch to the Gallery block in Gutenberg
• use a plugin that extends the gallery shortcode

In short: Gutenberg blocks and shortcodes are separate systems, and features
added to the Gallery block don’t automatically apply to [gallery].

Hi Helen, Good questions.

Regarding the roadmap: as far as public WordPress core plans go, there’s currently no indication that link="lightbox" will be added to the legacy [gallery] shortcode. The general direction of core development is clearly toward blocks, and new features like the built-in lightbox are being implemented only in the Gallery/Image blocks, not back-ported to shortcodes.

About generating a gallery from PHP without using the admin:
Yes, that is possible, but only by using blocks — not the [gallery] shortcode.

You can programmatically render a core/gallery block from image IDs using render_block(). For example:

"php
echo render_block( [
'blockName' => 'core/gallery',
'attrs' => [
'ids' => [ 123, 456, 789 ],
'linkTo' => 'lightbox',
'columns' => 3,
],
] );

This outputs the same gallery markup generated by the block editor, including native lightbox support, and works entirely from PHP.

There isn’t an equivalent way to enable the block lightbox feature on the [gallery] shortcode itself without custom JavaScript or a plugin, since the shortcode and block systems are separate paths in core.

So in short:
• No known plans to extend lightbox support to [gallery]
• Yes, galleries can be generated from PHP using block rendering
• Using blocks programmatically is the recommended forward-compatible approach

Hope this helps clarify the options 🙂

Yes, this is possible.

You can render a core Gallery block directly in PHP and enable the native
lightbox by passing attributes to render_block().

Example (simplified):

render_block( [ ‘blockName’ => ‘core/gallery’, ‘attrs’ => [ ‘ids’ => [123,456], ‘linkTo’ => ‘lightbox’ ] ] );

This works in recent WordPress versions and doesn’t require custom JS.

• This reply was modified 4 months ago by Pouya.
• This reply was modified 4 months ago by Pouya.
• This reply was modified 4 months ago by Pouya.

Hi, Good question — and you’re basically right.

At the moment, if you want to render a block purely from PHP, WordPress still expects the block structure (attributes / innerBlocks) to be defined at render time. There isn’t a higher-level API yet that lets you say “render a gallery dynamically” without describing the block data itself.

So today the options are basically:

• Define the block data (attrs / innerBlocks) in PHP and pass it to render_block(), or
• Let the block exist in the editor and only customize behavior via filters / styles.

There isn’t a way yet to hook into core Gallery so that future block changes automatically apply without providing the block structure. That’s a current limitation of how blocks are rendered server-side.

Hopefully this improves as more blocks move toward richer server-side APIs, but for now this is how it works.

Have a nice day 🙂

Thanks for the discussion — just to clarify and close this out.

render_block() does work for core blocks, including Gallery, but only when the full block structure (attributes + inner blocks) is provided. There isn’t currently a higher-level PHP API to dynamically generate a gallery without defining the block markup itself.

What I ended up doing was generating valid block comments manually and rendering them with do_blocks(). This allows the core Gallery (including the native lightbox) to work without custom JS.

Example for anyone interested:

$image_ids = [27, 28];
do_gallery1($image_ids, 3);

function do_gallery1($image_ids, $nbCol) {
    $content = '<!-- wp:gallery {"columns":' . $nbCol . ',"linkTo":"lightbox"} -->';

    foreach ($image_ids as $id) {
        $thumb_url = wp_get_attachment_image_url($id, 'thumbnail');
        $alt = get_post_meta($id, '_wp_attachment_image_alt', true);

        $content .= '<!-- wp:image {"id":' . $id . ',"sizeSlug":"thumbnail"} -->';
        $content .= '<figure class="wp-block-image size-thumbnail">';
        $content .= '<img src="' . esc_url($thumb_url) . '" alt="' . esc_attr($alt) . '" class="wp-image-' . $id . '" />';
        $content .= '</figure>';
        $content .= '<!-- /wp:image -->';
    }

    $content .= '<!-- /wp:gallery -->';

    echo do_blocks($content);
}

This works well, with the caveat that if the Gallery block changes significantly in the future, this markup may need updating — which seems to be a current limitation of server-side block rendering.

Thanks for the help — closing the ticket.