Bigger Picture

Pretty good JavaScript lightbox gallery with a small footprint. Demo: https://biggerpicture.henrygd.me

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/8519632/165216178-bd9a0b03-6ee5-42fd-b303-f92d281eb494.mp4

Features

• High Performance - Smooth even with huge images, especially if using srcset.
• Lightweight - Less than half the size of lightGallery or PhotoSwipe (the king - not bashing it).
• Zoomable - Click, wheel, or pinch to zoom photos up to native resolution.
• Responsive images - Pass in a srcset value and Bigger Picture will handle the rest.
• Video, audio, iframe, and html support - No need for multiple libraries, plugins, or hacky workarounds.
• Inline galleries and custom layouts - Bigger Picture can be mounted anywhere and has an easy-to-use API.
• Accessible - Supports alt text, image / video captions, custom HTML attributes, keyboard navigation, respects prefers-reduced-motion, and manages focus.
• Free software - MIT licensed. Do whatever you want with it, just don't be an asshole please.

Install

npm install bigger-picture

Add the required CSS or SCSS to your project. You can import "bigger-picture/css" to avoid manually replacing styles when you update.

Alternatively, you can load from a CDN like jsDelivr.

Usage

This is a very basic example using HTML to supply data. You don't need to initialize more than once unless you want multiple galleries with different targets.

For passing data via object, see Passing Item Data via Object.

Using Svelte? You can save a few bytes in your bundle. See Usage with Svelte.

import BiggerPicture from 'bigger-picture'

// initialize
let bp = BiggerPicture({
  target: document.body,
})

// open (will be a child of the target element above)
bp.open({
  items: document.querySelectorAll('#images a'),
})

<div id="images">
  <a
    href="example.jpg"
    data-img="example.jpg"
    data-thumb="example_thumb.jpg"
    data-alt="Example"
    data-height="2500"
    data-width="1667"
  >
    <img src="example_thumb.jpg" alt="Example" />
  </a>
</div>

Methods

open(options)

Opens the lightbox.

close

Closes the lightbox.

next

Changes to next item in gallery.

prev

Changes to previous item in gallery.

setPosition(position)

Changes to position item in gallery (zero-indexed).

Options

items

Type: NodeList or Node or Array

The data source for the displayed items. See Item Properties for details.

If using NodeList or Node, the information is passed via data attributes. If using Array, the information is passed via object.

el

Type: Node Default: undefined

If the specified node matches a node in items (or matches the element value on an item if using an array), the gallery will start at that position. For example, you could use this inside a click handler by passing event.target. (See codesandbox demo for example.)

position

Type: number Default: 0

Start position of gallery. If using el this will be ignored.

Note: This number is zero-indexed. The third item would be position 2.

scale

Type: number Default: 0.99

Controls the size of the displayed item. Use 1 to fill item to screen edges.

intro

Type: string Default: undefined

Overrides the default intro animation. Currently fadeup is the only alternative.

inline

Type: boolean Default: false

Specifies that the lightbox is inline. Interaction events are modified to avoid hijacking scroll and tab press.

Note: The container element for an inline gallery should be set to position: relative

noClose

Type: boolean Default: false

Hides the close button and prevents the lightbox from closing unless the close method is called. Recommended to use in combination with an inline gallery.

noPinch

Type: function

Return a truthy value to disable pinch zoom. Function is executed at the time of the pinch. Supplies container - the gallery's wrapper element.

bp.open({
  noPinch: (container) => container.clientWidth < 800,
})

focusWrap

Type: node

Specify wrapper element to trap focus within on tab press. Useful when mounting a gallery inside a custom layout.

maxZoom

Type: number Default: 10

Restricts an image's maximum zoom to maxZoom times the starting size, even if the item's width / height is larger. For example, a maxZoom of 2 on an image that starts at 800px width would limit the image to a maximum zoom of 1600px width. A maxZoom of 1 would prevent zooming entirely.

Note: If maxZoom is set on an individual item it will override the value set in options.

onOpen

Type: function

Executes just before intro animation. Supplies container - the gallery's wrapper element, and activeItem - an object containing the currently displayed item's data.

bp.open({
  onOpen: (container) => container.classList.add('custom-class'),
})

onUpdate

Type: function

Executes just after the active item is updated. Supplies container and activeItem.

bp.open({
  onUpdate(container, activeItem) {
    console.log('container', container)
    console.log('activeItem', activeItem)
  },
})

onClose

Type: function

Executes just before outro animation. Supplies container and activeItem.

onClosed

Type: function

Executes just after the lightbox has been closed and removed from the page.

onResize

Type: function

Executes when the dimensions of the gallery (not the window) are changed. Supplies container and activeItem.

onImageClick

Type: function

Executes when an image is clicked. Return a truthy value to prevent zooming. Supplies container and activeItem.

This method was added to make it easier to open a full screen instance when an image is clicked within an inline gallery (example CodeSandbox), but could be used for other purposes.

onError

Type: function

Executes if an error is thrown when loading an image, audio, or video item. Supplies container, activeItem and error.

Item Properties

width

Type: number or string Default: 1920

Largest possible width of media item in pixels. Not required for HTML, which can be sized via CSS.

height

Type: number or string Default: 1080

Largest possible height of media item in pixels. Not required for HTML, which can be sized via CSS.

thumb

Type: string

URL or path to image used for thumbnail displayed before media loads.

img

Type: string

URL or path to full image. Can be a srcset value.

When using srcset, the sizes value will update automatically when an image is zoomed. You may override this behavior by setting the sizes value.

iframe

Type: string

URL or path to iframe source

sources

Type: Array or string

For native video and audio, an array of objects specifying src (required) and type (optional). A string may be used if it is JSON parsable. Each object will create a source element, and all key / value pairs in the object will be added as attributes.

<div data-sources='[{"src": "example.webm", "type": "video/webm"}, {"src": "example.mp4", "type": "video/mp4"}]'>

html

Type: string

HTML that will be rendered in the container. When using HTML, please control dimensions with CSS. No need to pass width or height.

For advanced use, you can pass an empty string, then mount a component using the onOpen method:

// mounting svelte component (firewatch example from demo site)
onOpen(container) {
  new Firewatch({
    target: container.querySelector('.bp-html'),
  })
},

attr

Type: object or string

Add or override default attributes on the <img>, <iframe>, <video>, or <audio> elements.

<div data-attr='{"credentialless": true, "referrerpolicy": "no-referrer"}'>

alt

Type: string

Image alternative text

title

Type: string

Title attribute for iframes

caption

Type: string

Text to be displayed using built in caption. You may pass html tags and styles can be overriden via CSS.

sizes

Type: string

Sets the sizes attribute if you're using srcset.

maxZoom

Type: number Default: 10

Restricts an image's maximum zoom to maxZoom times the starting size, even if the item's width / height is larger. For example, a maxZoom of 2 on an image that starts at 800px width would limit the image to a maximum zoom of 1600px width. A maxZoom of 1 would prevent zooming entirely.

Note: If maxZoom is set on an individual item it will override the value set in options. Attribute name is data-max-zoom.

tracks

Type: string or Array

Array of text track data to use with videos. String option is just a stringified array.

Below is an example for passing English and Spanish captions. See the MDN page on track elements for more information.

<div data-tracks='[{"label": "English", "kind": "captions", "srclang": "en", "src": "en.vtt", "default": "true"}, {"label": "Español", "kind": "captions", "srclang": "es", "src": "es.vtt"}]'></div>

Passing Item Data via Object

To control the default open / close animation, also add a property element to each item that contains a node on the page. The active item's element will be where the animation opens from / closes to. If you're not using the default scale animation, this is not needed.

bp.open({
  items: [
    {
      img: 'example.jpg',
      thumb: 'example_thumb.jpg',
      alt: 'Example',
      height: 2500,
      width: 1667,
      // if you're using the default intro animation
      element: node,
    },
  ],
})

Usage with Svelte

Use the source .svelte files directly by importing bigger-picture/svelte. This will decrease the size of the library by 20 to 30 percent in most cases.

import BiggerPicture from 'bigger-picture/svelte'

Svelte 5 compatibility

This library was made with Svelte 4, so use the compatibility.componentApi compiler option to allow backwards compatibility.

If I have time, I'll release a new major version with Svelte 5.

/// svelte.config.js
export default {
  compilerOptions: {
    compatibility: {
      componentApi: 4,
    },
  },
}

License

MIT