WordPress fancyBox Plugin

WordPress fancyBox plugin enables fancy lightbox functionality on your WordPress site. It allows you to pop up an image, YouTube video, Vimeo video, or inline HTML content beautifully.

fancyBox is a jQuery lightbox script developed for opening content in a Mac-style lightbox. This plugin makes fancyBox lightbox script available for WordPress.

WordPress fancyBox Plugin Installation

  • Login to your WordPress admin dashboard
  • Go to Plugins->Add New
  • Enter WP fancyBox naa986 in the search box
  • Once you find the plugin hit the install button

How to Use WordPress fancyBox Plugin

You can pop up your media file from either a text or image link (it’s called hyperlink in the shortcode) by using a shortcode.

Photo/Image in Lightbox

[wp_fancybox_media url="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/image/lightbox.jpg" hyperlink="click here to open image"]

Here is a screenshot of the popup window from a mobile device:

screenshot of photo/image in lightbox using the WordPress fancyBox plugin

YouTube Video in Lightbox

[wp_fancybox_media url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpg9yizPP_g" hyperlink="click here to open youtube video"]

Here is a screenshot of the YouTube video popup from a mobile device:

screenshot of YouTube video in lightbox using the WordPress fancyBox plugin

Vimeo Video in Lightbox

[wp_fancybox_media url="https://vimeo.com/1084537" hyperlink="click here to open vimeo video"]

Here is a screenshot of the Vimeo video popup from a mobile device:

screenshot of vimeo video in lightbox using the WordPress fancyBox plugin

Inline HTML in Lightbox

[wp_fancybox_media url="#inline_content" hyperlink="click here to open inline HTML"]

After entering the shortcode switch to the “Text” editor, create a div (The ID needs to match one specified in the url parameter) and enter your custom HTML content that you want to pop up in lightbox. For example:

screenshot of inline html popup code using the WordPress fancyBox plugin

Save the page and view it in a new tab. When you click on the text link your inline HTML content will pop up in lightbox.

screenshot of inline HTML in lightbox using the WordPress fancyBox plugin

Using Thumbnail as Hyperlink

In order to open lightbox from a thumbnail image you need to specify your thumbnail image URL in the hyperlink parameter. For example:

[wp_fancybox_media url="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/image/lightbox.jpg" hyperlink="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/image/thumbnail.jpg"]

Alternate Text for an Image

If you have a thumbnail image as the hyperlink, you might also want to specify an alternate text for it. This can be done using the “alt” parameter in the shortcode (This is very useful for SEO). For example:

[wp_fancybox_media url="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/image/lightbox.jpg" hyperlink="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/image/thumbnail.jpg" alt="thumbnail image description"]

Showing Caption in Lightbox

In order to show a caption for your media file you need to use the caption parameter in the shortcode. For example:

[wp_fancybox_media url="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/image/lightbox.jpg" caption="overlay image" hyperlink="click here to open image"]

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