Responsive Photo Gallery & Image Lightbox

Preview:

Description:

A fully responsive photo gallery that allows the user to open the images in a fullscreen lightbox with image descriptions and links.

Built with CSS, CSS Grid Layout, and Vanilla JavaScript.

How to use it:

1. Add images together with links (using data-url attribute as shown below) and descriptions to the photo gallery.

<section class="gallery">
  <div class="container">
    <h1 class="gallery-heading">MY Photo Gallery</h1>
    <div class="gallery-grid">
      <div class="gallery-item">
        <img src="1.jpg" alt="Image 1">
        <div class="gallery-item-text" data-url="https://cssscript.com">
          Image Description 1
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="gallery-item">
        <img src="2.jpg" alt="Image 2">
        <div class="gallery-item-text" data-url="https://cssscript.com">
          Image Description 2
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="gallery-item">
        <img src="2.jpg" alt="Image 2">
        <div class="gallery-item-text" data-url="https://cssscript.com">
          Image Description 3
        </div>
      </div>
      ...
    </div>
  </div>
</section>

2. The necessary CSS styles for the photo gallery.

img {
  border: 0;
  display: block; /* collapse top and bottom margins */
  max-width: 100%;
}
.container {
  margin: 0 auto;
  max-width: 560px;
}
.gallery {
  padding-bottom: 10px;
  text-align: center;
}
.gallery-heading {
  color: #00d6c8;
  font-weight: 600;
  letter-spacing: 0.1em;
  line-height: 1.15;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  margin-top: 0;
  position: relative;
  padding-bottom: 8px;
}
.gallery-heading::after {
  content: "";
  background-color: currentColor;
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0;
  left: 50%;
  transform: translateX(-50%);
  height: 1px;
  width: 100px;
}
.gallery-grid {
  background: #283048;
  background: linear-gradient(to right, #355460, #283048);
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(300px, 1fr));
  grid-auto-rows: minmax(200px, -webkit-max-content);
  grid-auto-rows: minmax(200px, max-content);
  grid-auto-flow: dense;
  gap: 10px;
  margin-top: 40px;
  padding: 10px;
}
.gallery-item img {
  cursor: pointer;
  -o-object-fit: cover;
  object-fit: cover;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
}
.gallery-item-text {
  display: none;
}

3. Create the HTML for the image lightbox.

<div class="lightbox preload">
  <div class="lb-content">
    <!-- You may put a loader gif or svg here for starters -->
    <img class="lb-img" src="/img/loader.svg" alt="lightbox image">
    <div class="lb-caption">
      <a class="lb-url" href="" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Link to Site &rarr;</a>
      <div class="lb-text"></div>
    </div>
    <a href="#" class="close">&times;</a>
  </div>
</div>

4. The necessary CSS styles for the image lightbox.

.lightbox {
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  opacity: 0;
  pointer-events: none;
  transition: opacity 0.5s;
  z-index: 10;
}
/* .preload will be removed by JS code during DOMContentLoaded event. This is done to avoid lightbox transition appearing on page load. */
.lightbox.preload {
  transition: none !important;
}
.lightbox.open {
  opacity: 1;
  pointer-events: auto;
}
.lightbox .lb-content {
  background-color: lightgray;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: center;
  margin: 1em;
  max-height: 90%;
  padding: 1rem;
  position: relative;
}
.lightbox .lb-img {
  -o-object-fit: contain;
  object-fit: contain;
  margin-bottom: 8px;
  display: block;
  width: 100%;
  height: auto;
}
.lightbox .lb-caption {
  color: #333;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  font-size: 0.9rem;
  max-width: 50ch;
  overflow-y: auto; /* may occur in smartphones */
  opacity: 0;
  transition: opacity 0.3s;
}
.lightbox.open .lb-caption {
  opacity: 1;
}
.lightbox .lb-url {
  color: #005fa9;
  text-decoration: underline;
  text-underline-position: under;
  padding-top: 8px;
  padding-bottom: 14px;
}
.lightbox .close {
  background-color: lightgray;
  cursor: pointer;
  color: #333;
  text-decoration: none;
  display: inline-block;
  font-size: 2em;
  line-height: 1em;
  text-align: center;
  position: absolute;
  top: -0.4em;
  right: -0.4em;
  width: 1em;
  height: 1em;
  border-radius: 50%;
}
/* Lightbox overlay */
.lightbox .close::before {
  background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9);
  content: "";
  cursor: default;
  position: fixed;
  left: 0;
  top: 0;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  z-index: -1;
}

5. Make the photo gallery & image lightbox full responsive.

/* Medium devices (landscape tablets, 768px and up) */
@media screen and (min-width: 768px) {
  .container {
    max-width: 720px;
  }
  .lightbox .lb-caption {
    font-size: 1rem;
  }
}
/* Large devices (laptops/desktops, 1024px and up) */
@media screen and (min-width: 1024px) {
  .container {
    max-width: 960px;
  }
  .lightbox .lb-content {
    flex-direction: row;
  }
  .lightbox .lb-img {
    margin-bottom: 0;
  }
  .lightbox .lb-caption {
    padding: 0 1.5em;
  }
  .lightbox .lb-url {
    padding-top: 0;
  }
}

6. The core JavaScript to enable the image lightbox.

// Helper functions
let qs = (selector, context = document) => context.querySelector(selector);
let qsa = (selector, context = document) =>
  Array.from(context.querySelectorAll(selector));
// Get gallery item into Lightbox
function openLightbox(e) {
  const gitem = e.currentTarget,
    itemimg = qs("img", gitem),
    itemtext = qs(".gallery-item-text", gitem),
    itemUrl = itemtext.dataset.url;
  // Fill in the elements of lightbox.
  const lightbox = qs(".lightbox"),
    lightboximg = qs(".lb-img", lightbox),
    lightboxtext = qs(".lb-text", lightbox),
    lightboxDataURL = qs(".lb-url", lightbox);
  lightboximg.onload = () => {
    // fires as soon as image.src is assigned a URL.
    lightboxtext.innerHTML = itemtext.innerHTML;
    lightboxDataURL.setAttribute("href", itemUrl);
    lightbox.classList.add("open");
  };
  // Assigns a relative url. This will fire onload.
  lightboximg.setAttribute("src", itemimg.getAttribute("src"));
}
function closeLightbox(e) {
  e.preventDefault();
  const lightbox = e.currentTarget.closest(".lightbox");
  lightbox.classList.remove("open");
}
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => {
  const lightbox = qs(".lightbox.preload");
  if (lightbox) lightbox.classList.remove("preload");
  const gitems = qsa(".gallery-item");
  gitems.forEach((el) => el.addEventListener("click", openLightbox));
  const lbclose = qs(".lightbox .close");
  if (lbclose) lbclose.addEventListener("click", closeLightbox);
});

Changelog:

10/09/2020

• JS & CSS updated