8 Ajax Lightbox Scripts

Posted on February 26, 2008 by Brett Bittke

Let me first explain what Lightbox is. Lightbox is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. Since it is written in Ajax the page never reloads. Below is a List of 8 Lightbox scripts that all differ from the original.

LightBox 2: In Lightbox 2 you are able to group images together to form a slideshow and it has some fancy transitions. Lightbox 2 only allows the use of Images. Lightbox 2 uses the Prototype Framework and Scriptaculous Effects Library.
ThickBox 3.1: ThickBox is very similar to Lightbox but it allows the use Text content in the box, inline frames, and a login module. ThickBox was built using the super lightweight jQuery library. ThickBox doesn’t have Transitions.
MultiBox: Is like lightbox but it supports flash, video, mp3s, and html. MultiBox is built with MooTools.
GreyBox: GreyBox can be used to display websites, images and other content. Since this script is written without the use of frameworks it is very lightweight. It’s only 22 KB! This is my favorite script because I don’t like using frameworks in my sites.
SexyBox: SexyBox is also written without a framework and what I’ve seen it allows the use of text. I’m not sure if SexyBox can work with images since I have not used it.
ShadowBox.js: Shadowbox supports all of the most popular web media formats including images, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, Flash, Flash video, HTML, and even external web pages. Shadowbox supports a host of options that make it highly configurable. I highly recommend this script. It is one of the best.
LightView: LightView also supports all of the most popular web media formats including images, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, Flash, Flash video, and HTML. The Difference is LightView uses Prototype and Scriptaculous.
GMapsOverlay: GMapsOverlay is very unique from the rest of these. It only works with Google maps but it allows you to set the location on the map. It is built on MooTools.