Lightbox

[JRoss]

At this point, I have but one unfavorable issue with IP.Board 3.x...
The lack of proper lightbox usage on resized, hyper-linked images.

I submit the following example:
http://community.invisionpower.com/blog/2553/entry-3542-member-related-hooking/

Mind you, this is a blog entry. But, hyper-linked images act in the same way on the forums as well. (Too lazy to search for a post example too. :P )

For starters, at least in FireFox, the images are often not resized the first time I visit the page. I have to do a screen refresh in order for the images to be nicely resized and not full size (half hidden under the content blocks to the right). The real issue, however, is that once they are resized, clicking on them only expands them inline instead of launching them in lightbox. Given the fact that it happens on my forums as well as here I can only assume this is desired effect, for some reason, and not a bug.

Having them launch in lightbox like thumbnails and gallery images do (ex: http://community.invisionpower.com/blog/2568/entry-3528-featured-resource-floral-skin/) would be much more desirable, IMO.

It's probably simple enough to take a look at the template bits and code this to work on my own. But, I'm putting it out there because I really can't see why this isn't a built-in feature.

Thanks for listening. :)

[3DKiwi]

Good luck with this. I have disabled Lightbox on my site as I was getting too many complaints about it. e.g. Can't save images, images appear under flash banner ads

3DKiwi

[JRoss]

They're appearing under the content blocks the way it is now in IP.Blog. So, I think I'll take the risk. ;)

As to not being able to right-click and Save images...
Not all Lightbox scripts are created equal.
I've found Shadowbox to be superior to Lightbox 2 in many ways, but not the least of which being that it remedies this situation. It's not free if you run a commercial site, but there are others that are that are still better than Lightbox 2.

[bfarber]

[quote name='JRoss' date='07 October 2009 - 07:12 PM' timestamp='1254957157' post='1864501']
They're appearing under the content blocks the way it is now in IP.Blog. So, I think I'll take the risk. ;)

As to not being able to right-click and Save images...
Not all Lightbox scripts are created equal.
I've found Shadowbox to be superior to Lightbox 2 in many ways, but not the least of which being that it remedies this situation. It's not free if you run a commercial site, but there are others that are that are still better than Lightbox 2.


We can only include, by default, javascripts that are licensed in certain ways (Creative Commons, LGPL, and MIT licenses are the most common that allow us to use and redistribute with credit).

[Ditchmonkey]

Actually the forum version of the image resizing script works fine in all browsers. Strangely (and this is something I put in the bug tracker some time ago) the blog version really doesn't work at all for me (Safari).

My complaint about the image resizing script is that it is not configurable to fixed dimensions - it always uses the width of the browser to make its resizing calculations. This makes it pretty worthless for fixed-width sites. I had to pay IPB to customize it and now I have to painstakingly update the JS file every time there is an update.

Regarding launching the images in a lightbox - given that the purpose of the resizing script is to scale images down to fit in the browser - why would you want to completely reload the image in a lightbox to scale it up 15%? This script isn't meant to automatically make a gallery out of linked images.

[3DKiwi]

I hadn't heard of Shadowbox. I've just been to their site and tried it out. Much better than Lightbox. The question is, how does one integrate it into IPB?

3DKiwi

[JRoss]

[quote name='bfarber' date='07 October 2009 - 07:39 PM' timestamp='1254958783' post='1864517']
We can only include, by default, javascripts that are licensed in certain ways (Creative Commons, LGPL, and MIT licenses are the most common that allow us to use and redistribute with credit).


I understand this intimately. My comment is not a knock against Invision in any way. (As if to say you guys didn't do your homework or something.) Lightbox 2 is likely the best choice under the circumstances. I'm just throwing out a solution I have used in the past as an end user. Personally, I own a Shadowbox license. So, I use it. Each end user has to make that call for themselves. Several lightbox clones to look at for anyone interested...
http://planetozh.com/projects/lightbox-clones/

[quote name='3DKiwi' date='07 October 2009 - 07:51 PM' timestamp='1254959484' post='1864520']
I hadn't heard of Shadowbox. I've just been to their site and tried it out. Much better than Lightbox. The question is, how does one integrate it into IPB?

3DKiwi


I haven't gotten around to looking at it in IP.Board 3.x yet. (Combination of laziness and also waiting out the initial wave of version point upgrades.) But, if I get a chance soon (and nobody beats me to it) I will report back. (Shouldn't be too much more than uploading the script to public > js > 3rd_party and then maybe swapping out a few calls depending on exactly how one chooses to deploy it.)

[3DKiwi]

Thanks I'm sure many people would greatly appreciate it :)

I think at the very least IPS should make Lightbox an option for viewing images in the forum and give us a number of options like the gallery has. Although I've edited the css to disable Lightbox a setting would be much more desirable.

3DKiwi

[3DKiwi]

Seems there is an option in the settings now to disable Lightbox. So cross that one off the list. It would still be nice to have some options for opening images.

3DKiwi