Turn WordPress Image & Gallery Blocks into a Lightbox

Turn any standard WordPress image or gallery block into a fully responsive lightbox, with swipe left/right and full-screen mode. There’s only a minimal amount of copy-and-paste code, and it’s a great way to enhance your WordPress site without having to install yet another plugin.

By default, when you add a gallery or image block to WordPress content and set “Link To” media file… when someone clicks on the image in the frontend it will open the image, and the viewer has to click the back button to get back to your site/content. It’s a bit… old-fashioned.

A lightbox tidies this up by making the navigation much more intuitive, especially on mobile devices. Try it out on this gallery to see the lightbox in action.

Before starting this tutorial, make sure that you’re using a custom child theme so we can add some code to functions.php.

If you use Headwall Hosting to host your WordPress website, you don’t need this tutorial at all, you can just activate the Auto-Lightbox function form WP Admin Dashboard

The Logic

For this tutorial, The logic for our little theme-extension is nice and simple:

  • When our website loads a page, enqueue our asset files:
    • The fslightbox.js JavaScript library
    • A bit of our own JavaScript to link it together.
  • When the page has loaded in the browser, run our JavaScript
    • Scan the page looking for image blocks and gallery blocks, where the images are linked to the source media files.
    • Modify these blocks (they’re just <div> elements) so they’ve got the necessary markup for fslightbox.js to work.
  • Initialise fslightbox.js

Nice and simple. Simple is good.

The Code

In your custom child theme’s main folder, create an empty file called “wpt-lightbox.php” and a new folder called “wpt-lightbox“. In this folder, create a new/empty text file called “wpt-lightbox-frontend.js“. We’ll put some code in there later – for now, it just needs to exist.

Next, download the latest version of fslightbox.js. There’s a basic/free version and a paid-for/Pro version. The basic version will work fine for this website, but you can use the Pro version if you want the extra features.

Extract the zip file and copy “fslightbox.js” into the “wpt-lightbox” folder in your custom child theme. Your custom child theme’s directory layout should now look something like this:

  • my-custom-child-theme/
    • functions.php
    • style.css
    • wpt-lightbox/
      • fslightbox.js
      • wpt-lightbox-frontend.js
    • wpt-lightbox.php

The PHP Bit

Edit wpt-lightbox.php and paste the following into it – this code will catch when WordPress is rendering the page headers and insert our two JavaScript files into it.

/*
 * WP Tutorials :: Lightbox (WPTL)
 *
 * https://wp-tutorials.tech/refine-wordpress/turn-wordpress-image-gallery-blocks-into-responsive-lightbox/
 *
 * fslightbox.js : https://fslightbox.com/
 */
// Block direct access.
if (!defined('WPINC')) {
   exit('Do NOT access this file directly.');
}
const WPTL_FSLIGHTBOX_VERSION = '3.2.3';
function wptl_enqueue_scripts() {
   $theme_version = wp_get_theme()->get('Version');
   $base_url = get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/' . pathinfo(__FILE__, PATHINFO_FILENAME) . '/';
   // The main fslightbox.js code.
   // null means it doesn't depend on any other scripts.
   // The last parameter (true) means it can be safeuly enqueued in the site's footer.
   // Better for page-load speed.
   wp_enqueue_script('fslightbox', $base_url . 'fslightbox.js', null, WPTL_FSLIGHTBOX_VERSION, true);
   // Our custom code to initialise fslightbox.js
   // The array( 'lightbox' ) parameter tells WordPress that the fslightbox
   // script must be loaded before our wpt-lightbox-frontend script.
   wp_enqueue_script('wpt-lightbox-frontend', $base_url . 'wpt-lightbox-frontend.js', array('fslightbox'), WPT_FSLIGHTBOX_VERSION, true);
}
add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'wptl_enqueue_scripts');

Frontend JavaScript Bit

Open the file wpt-lightbox/wpt-lightbox-frontend.js and paste the following into it. The logic should be easy to follow just by going through the code.

// When the document has finished loading...
document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
    'use strict';
    // Diagnostics to show that our script has loaded correctly.
    console.log('fslightbox : load');
    var lightboxImageCount = 0;
    // Scan the DOM for single image blocks that have a link <a> element.
    var elements = document.querySelectorAll('.wp-block-image a');
    for (var index = 0; index < elements.length; ++index) {
        var element = elements[index];
        if (element.href) {
            element.setAttribute('data-fslightbox', `Image ${index + 1}`);
            ++lightboxImageCount;
        }
    }
    // Scan the DOM for gallery blocks...
    var galleryElements = document.querySelectorAll('.wp-block-gallery');
    for (var galleryIndex = 0; galleryIndex < galleryElements.length; ++galleryIndex) { var galleryElement = galleryElements[galleryIndex]; // Each gallery on the page should have a unique name. var galleryName = `Gallery ${galleryIndex + 1}`; // Within the gallery, scan for images that have a link. elements = galleryElement.querySelectorAll('.blocks-gallery-item figure > a');
        for (var index = 0; index < elements.length; ++index) { var element = elements[index]; if (element.href) { element.setAttribute('data-fslightbox', galleryName); ++lightboxImageCount; } } } // Only initialise fslightbox.js if we found one-or-more images with links. if (lightboxImageCount > 0) {
        console.log(`Lightbox images: ${lightboxImageCount} : Init FsLightbox now`);
        refreshFsLightbox();
    }
});

Save the file, and then… actually, that’s all there is to it.

Finish and Test

Find or create some content on your site and add a gallery. Add some images to the gallery, and set the gallery’s link-to property so that it should Link-to the Media File when an image is clicked-on. Choose whatever you want for the Image Size – it doesn’t need to be “Large” like it is here.

Save and test. Now… when you click on one of the images in your gallery, it should open up in a lightbox so you can swipe left/right to flick between the images.

Happy gallery-ing.

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