- All a Web developer needs to code Lightbox groups into her Web pages is a plaintext editor, although she can feel free to use her preferred HTML editor. Using the application, the HTML page which will be receiving the Lightbox gallery should be opened. Since HTML is just code, it can be edited using any document that can put together text. It's important to note that Lightbox does need to be installed in your Web server's JavaScript library in order for Lightbox image groups to appear. Visit the Lightbox homepage to download the latest version to your library.
- Before images tagged with the Lightbox group can be displayed in the Lightbox gallery, the proper references to the Javascript used to power the Lightbox gallery need to be added to the HTML page that hosts the images. This is done by modifying the HTML document's <HEAD> section and adding the following three lines of code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/prototype.js"</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/scriptalicious.js?load=effects.builder"</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/lightbox.js"</script> - Because Lightbox also uses functions of CSS, or cascading stylesheets, the CSS file that you use to dictate the style of your HTML pages will need to be modified as well. Some Web developers embed the CSS of their pages into the HTML document and are modified the same way. By adding the following line of code to your site's CSS document, you reference the Lightbox CSS script:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/links/?u=css/lightbox.css"type="text/css"media="screen" /> - Creating the Lightbox group once you've modified the <HEAD> section of your page and the CSS file is straightforward, especially if you've already programmed links to each image. Locate the image links on your HTML page that you wish to add to the group and tag them with the lightbox code -- for example:
<a href="/links/?u=images/example_image1.gif" rel="lightbox[groupname]">Example Image #1</a>
<a href="/links/?u=images/example_image2.gif" rel="lightbox[groupname]">Example Image #2</a>
<a href="/links/?u=images/example_image3.gif" rel="lightbox[groupname]">Example Image #3</a>
<a href="/links/?u=images/example_image4.gif" rel="lightbox[groupname]">Example Image #4</a>
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