WordPress.org

BASIC

What's FancyBox?

Basically, it is a fancy way of presenting images, movies, portable documents and inline content on your website. For example, if you have scaled-down images in your posts which are linked to the original large version, instead of opening them on a blank page, FancyBox opens those in a smooth overlay. Visit FancyBox for more information and examples.

Which version of FancyBox does this plugin use?

The same version as this plugin has. I aim to keep close pace to FancyBox upgrades and always move to the latest and greates version. Please, let me know if I'm lagging behind and missed an upgrade!

I installed the plugin. What now?

First, make sure that image thumbnails in your posts and pages are linked to their full size counterpart directly. Open any post with thumbnail images in it for editing and select the first thumbnail. Click the Edit Image button that appears and choose Link to Image. From now on, clicking that thumbnail should open the full size version in FancyBox.

The same thing goes for WordPress Galleries. Choose Link to: File when inserting a gallery tag.

I want to change something. Where is the settings page?

There is no new settings page but there are a few options you can change. You will find a new FancyBox section on Settings > Media. To see the default, check out the example under Screenshots ...

Help! It does not work...

Please follow the trouble shooting steps on Other Notes to determine the cause. If that fails, ask for support on the Easy FancyBox WordPress forum or go to the development site  

ADVANCED

Will a WordPress generated gallery be displayed in a FancyBox overlay?

Yes, but only if you used the option Link thumbnails to: Image File when inserting the gallery! The gallery quicktag/shortcode should look something like [gallery link="file"].

Can I make a slideshow from my gallery?

Yes. There is an Advanced option called "Gallery Auto-rotation" for that.

Can I exclude images or other links from auto-attribution?

Yes. All links with class nofancybox that would normally get auto-enabled, will be excluded from opening in a FancyBox overlay.

<a href="url/to/fullimg.jpg" class="nofancybox"><img src="url/to/thumbnail.jpg" /></a>

Will a NextGen gallery be displayed in a FancyBox overlay ?

It can be. Switch OFF the FancyBox Auto-gallery feature, then set the NextGen option "JavaScript Thumbnail effect" to "Custom" and fill the code line field with

class="fancybox" rel="%GALLERY_NAME%"

Can I use ONE thumbnail to open a complete gallery ?

It can be done manually (using the internal WordPress gallery feature, or not) or in combination with NextGen Gallery.

Manual

A. Open your post for editing in HTML mode and insert the first image thumbnail in your post content (linking to the images file, not page) to serve as the gallery thumbnail.

B. Place the following code to start a hidden div containing all the other images that should only be visible in FancyBox:

<div class="fancybox-hidden">

C. Right after that starting on a new line, insert all other images you want to show in your gallery. You can even use the WordPress internal gallery feature with the shortcode [gallery link="file"]. NOTE: if the gallery thumbnail is attached to the post, it will be show a second time when flipping through the gallery in FancyBox. If you do not want that, use an image that is not attached to the post as gallery thumbail.

D. Close the hidden div with the following code on a new line:

</div>

With NextGEN Gallery

You can choose between two shortcodes to show a gallery that (1) limits images per gallery using the shortcode [nggallery id=x] or (2) per tag name (accross galleries; you need to set tag name manually => more work but more control) using the shortcode [nggtags gallery=YourTagName,AnotherTagName].

General steps:

A. Place the shortcode of your choice in your page/post content.

B. Configure NextGen on Gallery > Options > Gallery settings to at least have the following options set like this:

1. Number of images per page: 1
2. Integrate slideshow: unchecked (optional but advised: use auto-rotation in the FancyBox settings instead)
3. Show first: Thumbnails
4. Show ImageBrowser: unchecked
5. Add hidden images: checked

C. Optional: install Custom CSS and add a new CSS rule to hide the page browsing links below the gallery thumbnail:

.ngg-navigation {
display:none;
}

Can I create a gallery of Youtube thumbnails which open in FancyBox?

You could do this manually by uploading individual thumbnails that you can retrieve by using the unique movie ID in these URLs for three different sizes:

http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/...UNIQUE-MOVIE-ID.../default.jpg
http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/...UNIQUE-MOVIE-ID.../mqdefault.jpg
http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/...UNIQUE-MOVIE-ID.../hqdefault.jpg

But an easier method is this one, shared by Shashank Shekhar (thanks!) :

To create Youtube thumbnail galleries, install http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/youtube-simplegallery/ and set the 'Effect' option to fancybox. Then disable Youtube autodetection on Settings > Media.

Can I display web pages or HTML files in a FancyBox overlay?

Yes. Place a link with either class="fancybox-iframe" or class="fancybox iframe" (notice the space instead of the hyphen) to any web page or .htm(l) file in your content.

NOTE: The difference between these two classes ('-' or space) is in size of the overlay window. Try it out and use the one that works best for you :)

Can I show PDF files in a FancyBox overlay?

Yes. Just place a link with the URL ending in .pdf to your Portable Document file in the page content.

If you do'nt have Auto-detect checked under PDF on Settings > Media admin page, you will need to add class="fancybox-pdf" (to force pdf content recognition) to the link to enable FancyBox for it.

Can I play SWF files in a FancyBox overlay?

Yes. Just place a link with the URL ending in .swf to your Flash file in the page content.

If you do'nt have Auto-detect checked under SWF on Settings > Media admin page, you will need to add either class="fancybox" or class="fancybox-swf" (to force swf content recognition) to the link to enable FancyBox for it.

How do I show content with different sizes?

FancyBox tries to detect the size of the conten automatically but if it can not find a size, it will default to the settings for that particular content type as set on the Settings > Media page. You can manually override this by defining the width and height wrapped in curly brases in the class attribute of the link itself. For example, a Flash movie with different size:

<a class="fancybox-swf {width:1024,height:675}" href="link-to-your-swf"></a>

Can I play YouTube, Dailymotion and Vimeo movies in a FancyBox overlay?

Yes. Just let the plugin auto-detect and auto-enable it for you! :)

Place the Share URL (the full Page URL, the Short URL or even with the HD option) to the YouTube/Vimeo/Dailymotion page in your content. If you have disabled Auto-detection, give the link a class attribute like class="fancybox-youtube" for Youtube, class="fancybox-vimeo" for Vimeo and class="fancybox-dailymotion" for Dailymotion, to manually enable FancyBox for it.

Both YouTube and Vimeo movies can be made to play immediately after opening by adding the paramer autoplay=1 to the URL. For example, a short-url YouTube link that should play in HD mode, have the full screen button and auto-start on open, would look like:

<a href="http://youtu.be/N_tONWXYviM?hd=1&fs=1&autoplay=1">text or thumbnail</a>

I want that 'Show in full-screen' button on my YouTube movies

Append &fs=1 to your YouTube share URL.

The flash movie in the overlay shows BELOW some other flash content that is on the same page!

Make sure the OTHER flash content as a wmode set, preferably to 'opaque' or else 'transparent' but not 'window' or missing. For example, if your embedded object looks something like:

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="200" height="300" data="...url...">
<param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" />
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />
<param name="movie" value="...url..." />
</object>

just add <param name="wmode" value="opaque" /> among the other parameters. Or if you are using an embed like:

<object width="640" height="385">
<param name="movie" value="...url..."></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
<embed src="...url..." type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="385" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="window"></embed>
</object>

just change that wmode="window" to wmode="opaque" or add the tag if it is missing.

Can I display INLINE content in a FancyBox overlay ?

Yes. Wrap the inline content in

<div style="display:none" class="fancybox-hidden"><div id="fancyboxID-1" style="width:460px;height:380px;">
...inline content here...
</div></div>

Then place a FancyBox link anywhere else in the post/page content to the inline content. Something like

<a href="#fancyboxID-1" class="fancybox">Read my inline content</a>

NOTE: The wrapping divs ID must be unique and it must correspond with the links HREF with a # in front of it. When using the above example for more FancyBox inline content (hidden div + opening link) combinations on one page, give the second one the ID fancyboxID-2 and so on...

Can I make an image or hidden content to pop up in FancyBox on page load?

Yes. A link that has the ID fancybox-auto (Note: there can be only ONE link like that on a page!) will be triggered automatically on page load.

Use the instructions above for inline content but this time give the link also id="fancybox-auto" (leave the class too) and remove the anchor text to hide it. Now the hidden div content will pop up automatically when a visitor opens the page.

Same can be done with an image, flash movie, PDF or iframe link! But please remember there can be only one item using the ID fancybox-auto per page...

Can I make a menu item open in a FancyBox overlay ?

Yes. But it depends on you theme what you need to do to make it work. If you are on WordPress 3+ and your theme supports the new internal Custom Menu feature or if you are using a custom menu in a sidebar widget, it's easy:

1. Go to Settings > Media and enable FancyBox iFrame support.
2. Go to Appearance > Menus and open the little tab "Screen Options" in the top-right corner.
3. Enable the option "CSS Classes" under Advanced menu proterties.
4. Now give the menu item you want to open in a FancyBox iframe the class fancybox-iframe.

If you are on an older version of WordPress or if you cannot use WP's Menus, you will need to do some heavy theme hacking to get it to work. Basically, what you need to achieve is that the menu item you want opened in a lightbox overlay, should get a class="fancybox-iframe" tag.

Is Easy FancyBox multi-site compatible?

Yes. Designed to work with Network Activate and does not require manual activation on each site in your network. You can even install it in mu-plugins: upload the complete /easy-fancybox/ directory to /wp-content/mu-plugins/ and move the file easy-fancybox.php one dir up.