WP Video Lightbox

Description

The WordPress Video Lightbox plugin allows you to embed videos on a page using lightbox overlay display.

This plugin can be used to display images, flash, YouTube, Vimeo, iFrame etc in a lightbox overlay. The embedded videos can be viewed on iPhone and iPad too.

Embedding Vimeo Video

You can embed a Vimeo video using the following shortcode in a WordPress post or page:

[video_lightbox_vimeo5 video_id="13562192" width="640" height="480" anchor="click here to open vimeo video"]
[video_lightbox_vimeo5 video_id="13562192" width="640" height="480" anchor="http://www.example.com/images/vimeo-thumb.jpg"]

You need to replace the value of “video_id” with your actual Vimeo video ID. When a user clicks on the anchor text/image your vimeo video will pop up in lightbox.

In order to embed a private Vimeo video you need to add the “p_hash” parameter to the shortcode.

[video_lightbox_vimeo5 video_id="13562192" p_hash="5e2d1c1e6d" width="640" height="480" anchor="click here to open vimeo video"]

The value of “p_hash” can be found in the ?h= hash parameter of your Vimeo embed code (e.g. https://player.vimeo.com/video/13562192?h=5e2d1c1e6d).

Embedding YouTube Video

You can embed a YouTube video using the following shortcode in a WordPress post or page:

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id="G7z74BvLWUg" width="640" height="480" anchor="click here to open YouTube video"]
[video_lightbox_youtube video_id="G7z74BvLWUg" width="640" height="480" anchor="http://www.example.com/images/youtube-thumb.jpg"]

You need to replace the value of “video_id” with your actual YouTube video ID. You can also control the size of the lightbox window by customizing the width and height parameters.

Optimizing the SEO of your Thumbnail Image

When you are using a thumbnail image as the anchor, you can describe it using the “alt” parameter in the shortcode. It helps Search Engines understand what this image is about.

[video_lightbox_youtube video_id="G7z74BvLWUg" width="640" height="480" anchor="http://www.example.com/images/youtube-thumb.jpg" alt="text that describes this image"]

You need to replace the value of “alt” with your own description of the image.

Features/Settings Configuration

Once you have installed the plugin you can configure some options to customize the popup. The settings menu can be accessed from “Settings->Video Lightbox->prettyPhoto”.

  • Enable prettyPhoto: Check this option if you want to use the prettyPhoto library
  • Animation speed: fast / slow / normal [default: fast]
  • Autoplay slideshow: true / false [default: false]
  • Opacity: Value between 0 and 1 [default: 0.8]
  • Show title: true / false [default: true]
  • Allow resize: Resize the photos bigger than viewport. true / false [default: true]
  • Allow expand: Allow the user to expand a resized image. true / false [default: true]
  • Default width: default width of the lightbox window [default: 640, you can override it using the width parameter in the shortcode]
  • Default height: default height of the lightbox window [default: 480, you can override it using the height parameter in the shortcode]
  • Counter separator label: The separator for the gallery counter in lightbox [default: /]
  • Theme: theme for the lightbox window – Default, Light Rounded, Dark Rounded, Light Square, Dark Square, Facebook
  • Horizontal padding: The padding on each side of the lightbox window [default: 20]
  • Hide Flash: Hides all the flash objects on a page, set to true if flash appears over prettyPhoto [default: false]
  • wmode: the flash wmode attribute [default: opaque]
  • Autoplay: Automatically start videos: true / false [default: true]
  • Modal: If set to true, only the close button will close the window [default: false]
  • Deeplinking: Allow prettyPhoto to update the url to enable deeplinking. [default: true]
  • Overlay gallery: If this enabled, a gallery will overlay the fullscreen image on mouse over [default: true]
  • Overlay gallery max: Maximum number of pictures in the overlay gallery [default: 30]
  • Keyboard shortcuts: Set to false if you open forms inside prettyPhoto [default: true]
  • IE6 fallback: compatibility fallback for IE6 [default: true]

Additional Features

  • Automatically retrieve the thumbnail for your video and embed in lightbox
  • Load YouTube video over https. This is great if you have SSL installed on your site
  • Disable suggested videos at the end of a YouTube video
  • Enable privacy-enhanced mode in a YouTube video
  • Flexiblity of using both shortcode/html code to pop up media in lightbox
  • Show description of a popup in overlay

For video tutorial, screenshots, detailed documentation, support and updates, please visit: WP Video Lightbox plugin page

Usage

You need to embed the appropriate shortcode on a post/page to display the specific type of media (Youtube, Vimeo, Flash etc).
Instructions for using the shortcodes are available at the following URL:
WP Video Lightbox Details Usage Instruction

Installation

Upload the plugin to the plugins directory via WordPress Plugin Uploader (Plugins->Add New->Upload->Choose File->Install Now) and Activate it.

FAQ

Can this plugin be used to embed a YouTube video?

Yes

Can this plugin be used to embed a Vimeo video?

Yes

Can this plugin be used to do lightbox on images?

Yes

Can this plugin automatically create a thumbnail/anchor image from the YouTube video?

Yes

Reviews

January 7, 2022 1 reply
Thank you a plugin that does what it says. Spent almost an entire day trying other 'Highly' rated youtube plugins, for them to just not work, crash my site and well tear my hair out [if I had any]. Just wanted to embed a simple video from youtube, got more than I wanted with the lightbox effect, now I'm thinking of all the other ways I can use this and have youtube videos everywhere when personally I don't care much for youtube, except that it's a convenient way to upload and store my videos.
July 11, 2020 1 reply
We needed a custom button and load image, and open in modal on play. This plugin allowed me to do all of that for our custom field-controlled embeds, but it does not work with the core YouTube block - meaning we can't use it on posts without building a custom block which we are trying to avoid. Additionally, as other reviewers have said, the mobile modal is still not usable. I understand it may be a PrettyPhoto issue, but it is pretty unacceptable in modern times. These two issues are big ones, and fixing them would make it a 5 star plugin. I'll be watching for updates!
Read all 67 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“WP Video Lightbox” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“WP Video Lightbox” has been translated into 3 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “WP Video Lightbox” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.9.10

  • Fixed an error on PHP 8.

1.9.9

  • Fixed an issue with the Vimeo hash parameter.

1.9.8

  • Fixed an issue with Vimeo video autoplay.

1.9.7

  • Made some security improvements suggested by WPScan.

1.9.6

  • Made some security improvements in the settings. The issues were reported by WPScan.

1.9.4

  • Added support for private Vimeo videos.

1.9.2 and 1.9.3

  • Better santization for the alt tags. Thanks to Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs for pointing it out.
  • Made some security improvements in the shortcodes. Thanks to Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs for pointing it out.

1.9.1

  • Replaced deprecated jQuery.fn.size() with the .length property.

1.9.0

  • iframes now align correctly on mobile devices.

1.8.9

  • Made some changes to the settings.

1.8.8

  • Video lightbox is now compatible with WordPress 5.0.

= 1.8.7
* Fixed the YouTube autoplay option.
* Fixed close button was partially positioned behind the lightbox.
* Fixed play button img was inheriting box-shadow from theme.
* Fixed PHP notices on settings page.
* Added a new option to enable privacy-enhanced mode in a YouTube video.

1.8.6

  • Added a fix so a search engine bot cannot access the video lightbox directory.

1.8.5

  • Video Lightbox is now compatible with WordPress 4.9.

1.8.4

  • Fixed a deprecated constructor warning in the class-prettyphoto.php file.

1.8.3

  • Fixed an issue where the alternate text did not appear for a custom YouTube thumbnail.

1.8.2

  • Video lightbox is now compatible with WordPress 4.6.

1.8.1

  • Video lightbox now includes the minified version of the prettyPhoto library.

1.8.0

  • Vimeo video URL is now rendered in HTTPS in the shortcode.
  • Vimeo video thumbnail is now retrieved with a secure API request to the vimeo server.

1.7.9

  • Fixed some deprecated function in the settings.

1.7.8

  • Added “alt” parameter in the shortcode that can be used to describe the anchor image.

1.7.7

  • Added translation option which is compatible with language packs.
  • Video Lightbox is now compatible with WordPress 4.4.

1.7.6

  • Video Lightbox is now compatible with WordPress 4.3.

1.7.5

  • Updated the prettyPhoto library to fix an XSS vulnerability in it.

1.7.4

  • Video Lightbox shortcodes will now get filtered in a text widget

1.7.3

  • plugin is compatible with WordPress 4.2

1.7.2

  • plugin is now compatible with WordPress 4.1

1.7.1

  • Fullscreen option is now available for YouTube and Vimeo videos

1.7.0

  • Fixed an error message in the video lightbox settings

1.6.9

  • Added a new shortcode parameter to show the description of a video popup in lightbox

1.6.8

  • fixed an issue where vimeo video could not be played on a HTTPS site

1.6.7

  • plugin is now compatible with WordPress 3.9.

1.6.6

  • YouTube video can now be loaded over https

1.6.5

  • fixed a bug in the plugin where default options were not set for automatic upgrade

1.6.4

  • plugin is now compatible with WordPress 3.8.

1.6.3

  • plugin now works with multisite install.

1.6.2

  • Created a settings menu for the plugin
  • Updated the prettyPhoto library to 3.1.5

1.6.1

  • Added https support for YouTube video.

1.6

  • Added an option to automatically create and use the thumbnail of the YouTube or Vimeo video as the anchor image.

1.5

  • Made some improvements as to how the JavaScript code is loaded in the plugin. WordPress 3.6 compatibility.

1.4

  • added a feature in the shortcode to turn off the related video display after the playback

1.3

  • First commit to the wordpress repository