Image sliders, like lightboxes, are just some of the useful presentational tools brought about by the growth in browser technologies and javascript frameworks. If you’re looking for one you can use for your blog, I recently found three robust solutions that should fit most needs: Nivo Slider, Coin Slider, and SlideDeck. You’d be surprised how extensible yet easy–to–setup these jQuery plugins are.
YoxView is another jQuery image viewer plugin that doesn’t look like your typical lightbox. Though there are too many lightbox options available, YoxView is among the few that have a built–in slideshow feature, which may come in handy for some sites.
Another lightbox clone? GlassBox is another twist to the lightbox concept, used for building “lucent borders, colorful layouts and “Flash-like” effects.” Interesting.
Too many lightbox thingies to choose from? I personally like Shadowbox for the many things it can do but there are several others that do well for certain purposes. To help you find the one that fits your needs, the lightbox clones matrix lists the popular options along with its dependencies, capabilities, and the actual library size you’ll be adding to your markup. Helpful!
It seems that we tend to get a new lightbox clone every few weeks or so, so here are some I’ve run into recently:
From this set, I find Shadowbox the most robust and visually appealing. Of course there’s always version 2 of the original lightbox that you can use. But if you’re looking for a gallery–type solution, take a look at Galleriffic — it has most of what you might want in a javascript–based gallery.