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You are here: Home / WordPress Programming / Create Pop-up Windows in Your WordPress Blog with Thickbox

Create Pop-up Windows in Your WordPress Blog with Thickbox

by ShibaShake 57 Comments

One simple way of enabling pop-up windows right from your WordPress posts, is by using the Thickbox javascript library that comes with WordPress.

You can link the pop-up window to a HTML input element such as a button, or you can simply link the pop-up window to a HTML hyperlink. Below we show examples of both –

Show Thickbox Example Pop-up 2

Example Pop-up Window 1

I was born at DAZ Studio. They created me with utmost care and that is why I am the hottie that you see today. My interests include posing, trying out cute outfits, and more posing.

Just click outside the pop-up to close it.

Example Pop-up Window 2

I was born at DAZ Studio. They created me with utmost care and that is why I am the hottie that you see today. My interests include posing, trying out cute outfits, and more posing.

This pop-up window uses the modal=true option in thickbox. Refer to the thickbox tutorials for more examples on thickbox options and features.

Just click on the OK button below to close the pop-up.

How to Add Pop-up Windows to Your WordPress Posts

Step 1

You need to add thickbox to your WordPress post. You can do this by adding the add_thickbox function to the ‘init’ function of your theme. In particular, add the code below to your theme functions.php file.

<?php
add_action('init', 'init_theme_method');

function init_theme_method() {
   add_thickbox();
}
?>

Step 2

Now we can just add the button right in our post and link it to thickbox by specifying class=thickbox. Click on the HTML tab in your post editor and paste the HTML code below into your post.

<div style="text-align:center;padding:20px 0;"> 
<input alt="#TB_inline?height=300&width=400&inlineId=examplePopup1" title="add a caption to title attribute / or leave blank" class="thickbox" type="button" value="Show Thickbox Example Pop-up 1" />  
</div>

Step 3

Finally, we specify the content that goes into our pop-up window by creating a div with id=examplePopup1.

<div id="examplePopup1" style="display:none">
<h2>Example Pop-up Window 1</h2>
<div style="float:left;padding:10px;">
<img src="https://shibashake.com/wordpress-theme/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/bio1.jpg"  width="150" height = "168"/>
</div>
I was born at DAZ Studio. They created me with utmost care and that is why I am the hottie that you see today. My interests include posing, trying out cute outfits, and more posing.

<select name=""><option>test</option></select>

<strong>Just click outside the pop-up to close it.</strong>
</div>

And just like that, we have our pop-up window.

There are a variety of other thickbox options including using iframes, displaying image galleries, and using AJAX content.

Only Include Thickbox as Necessary

While the example above works, it is not the most efficient because you are including the thickbox library into all of your WordPress posts, whether you are using it or not.

Ideally, you only want to include thickbox in those posts that actually require it.

One way to achieve this is by using the is_single or is_page WordPress functions to include thickbox on a post by post basis.

add_action('template_redirect', 'add_scripts');

function add_scripts() {
	if (is_single('2794')) {
	  add_thickbox(); 
	}
}

Line 1 – Instead of tying the add_thickbox function to the init action hook, we tie it to the template_redirect action hook instead. This will allow us to properly use the is_single and is_page commands in our hook function.

Lines 4-6 – Only add thickbox to this post which has an id of 2794.

Include Thickbox Based on Post Tags

The solution above works well if you want to include pop-up windows to a small set of posts and pages. However, if you later decide to use pop-ups on a large set of posts, using is_single may quickly become unwieldy.

While you can pass in an array of posts to the is_single function, you will still need to list out the title or id of each and every post that uses thickbox.

A more elegent solution, is to include the thickbox libraries based on post tags.

<?php
function add_scripts() {
	global $wp_query;
	if (!is_singular() || !$wp_query->post) return;
	// Get post tags
	$tags = wp_get_object_terms($wp_query->post->ID, 'post_tag');
	foreach ($tags as $tag) {
		if ($tag->name == "thickbox") {
			add_thickbox();
			break;
		}
	}	
}
?>

Line 4 – We only add thickbox for single posts, pages, or attachments.

Line 6 – Get the post tags for the current post.
*Note*, we cannot used WordPress Loop functions at this point because the template_redirect action hook is called before the Loop is fully instantiated. However, query_vars has already been called, so the $wp_query global variable contains the values that we need.

Lines 7-12 – Check for the thickbox tag. If we find it, we add the thickbox library.

Now all we need to do is add the thickbox tag to posts that use the thickbox library and we are done.

Have Fun with Pop-up Windows!

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Comments

« Previous 1 2 3 4
  1. Jim Camomile says

    February 15, 2022 at 7:21 pm

    I have used this tutorial several times and it is one of the few simple and effective ways to add popups with dynamic content, like a page of videos or ebooks. THANK YOU. There seems to be an issue with the test buttons on this page. Maybe something needs to be updated.

    Reply
    • ShibaShake says

      February 26, 2022 at 6:15 pm

      Thanks for letting me know. The buttons should be working now.

      Reply
  2. Mohammed says

    March 31, 2017 at 1:13 am

    Hi,
    That is nice to use Thickbox.. but you already loaded the posts and its display:none.. what if you have 100 post.. then it will load all 100..

    Any way to load only the post when you click to show it ?

    Reply
  3. Adriano says

    June 24, 2015 at 1:20 pm

    do you know if there is a plugin to open in lightbox when you click the post permalink in the homepage or in the archive page ?

    …useful anyway

    tankyou

    Reply
  4. danis says

    June 5, 2014 at 1:35 pm

    haloo.. how can I make the box size in percent? not in px.. because it’s not really good if it’s opened by mobile phone..

    Reply
  5. Nancy says

    April 20, 2014 at 8:45 pm

    I would like to know how I can have the pop up window open up another site’s url. Please let me know if there’s a solution

    Reply
  6. rupz says

    November 12, 2013 at 3:08 am

    Hi, is there a way to dynamically calculate the height of the pop up depending upon the content of the pop up.

    Reply
  7. Menno says

    October 10, 2013 at 4:45 pm

    Thank you so much!

    Reply
  8. love says

    September 28, 2013 at 7:20 am

    Hey excuse me ,my custom page could not catch the contens() on custome template page but on the homePage run smothly as your tutorial. Could you tell me.What wrong with my tempage page.

    Reply
  9. fja3omega says

    September 23, 2013 at 11:57 pm

    Works nice. Thanks. Now onto the css. Charge!

    Reply
« Previous 1 2 3 4

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