GLightbox Gallery

> 1,000–2,000 items per gallery, stored in their own database table — not squeezed into the module's settings field.
> The admin item list is virtualised, so opening and editing a 2,000-photo gallery feels like editing one with ten.

Free Joomla module that adds a modern, responsive lightbox gallery to any page — in whichever of three ways suits the page: a familiar thumbnail grid, a permanently-open inline slider that never leaves the page flow, or a self-opening popup. Photos, videos, maps, and folder-based albums display in a beautiful lightbox with automatically generated thumbnails, camera and exposure details on every photo, deep links to a single slide, tag filtering, an optional slideshow, structured data for search engines, and a built-in preset system for applying a ready-made look or copying settings between modules in seconds.

The GLightbox Gallery Module integrates the GLightbox JavaScript library into Joomla as a ready-to-use module. Without any coding, you can display images, embed YouTube and Vimeo videos, show Google Maps, and present any inline HTML content in a polished, animated lightbox. Add items through the familiar Joomla module editor — each one collapses into a compact, drag-to-reorder row with a thumbnail and status at a glance — or import an entire folder of photos in one step, publish the module, and the gallery is live.

Three display modes, one module. Leave it as Gallery for the familiar thumbnail grid, switch it to Inline for a permanently-open slider — stage, arrows, thumbnail strip, all sitting directly in the page with no overlay needed — or switch it to Popup for a self-opening announcement. All three share the same lightbox engine and the same item list, so nothing about the gallery itself needs rebuilding to change how it's shown.

Perfect for: photography portfolios · product showcases with video demos · team directories · event galleries mixing photos and recordings · an always-visible inline slider for a hero section or landing page · self-timed popups for offers and announcements

A large photo library can be organised into folder-based albums, each shown as a single cover in the grid until a visitor clicks into it — no more one giant wall of thumbnails. Multiple module instances on the same page can also be merged into a single navigable gallery using a shared Gallery Name. For a page where the gallery IS the content rather than something to click into, Inline mode keeps a slider permanently open on the page — with its own fullscreen button, and independent autoplay/mute settings for its video slides — and can run entirely on its own with zero dependency on the popup lightbox at all. And for messages that need to reach every visitor rather than wait to be clicked, the same lightbox can run as a popup, opening itself on page load or on exit intent, on whatever schedule you set.

Built to Scale in the Admin, Not Just on the Front End

Older versions kept every gallery item inside the module's own settings field, which Joomla limits to 65,535 bytes — a ceiling reachable at somewhere between 40 and 120 items. That's gone:

• Dedicated database table — no practical item-count ceiling; a single module comfortably holds 1,000–2,000 photos using only a few megabytes of storage
• Self-migrating — an existing gallery moves to the new storage automatically the first time it's saved after updating; nothing to run by hand
• Virtualised item list — the editor only ever builds the rows currently scrolled into view, so opening, scrolling, drag-reordering and bulk-editing thousands of photographs feels exactly like doing the same with ten
• Instant import — a 2,000-image folder import completes in under a second

Everything Else It Does

Local images get a correctly sized thumbnail generated automatically — cropped to your chosen aspect ratio, at standard and high-density resolutions — so the gallery grid no longer downloads full-size photos just to shrink them in the browser. The lightbox itself can be just as light: optional resized copies and WebP output mean even a full-screen photo is served no larger than the visitor's own device needs.

Administrators can configure open and slide animations, zoom and drag behaviour, an optional slide counter, a scrollable filmstrip of thumbnails, and a self-playing slideshow with a pausable countdown. A built-in information panel can show the camera, lens, and exposure settings behind a photo — read straight from the file. Visitors browsing a large gallery can filter by tag and page through the grid, while the lightbox itself keeps navigating every matching item regardless of page. The module handles dynamic content automatically: galleries embedded inside AJAX-loaded or language-switched content reinitialise on their own.

A collapsible Settings Presets panel sits at the top of the module settings and makes styling a gallery a matter of seconds rather than minutes: 16 colour styles, 4 layout presets, and 3 behaviour presets, all applied live and stackable — plus export/import to copy a tuned configuration between modules or sites.

Key Features

Performance & Scale
* Database-Backed Item Storage – Items live in their own table, not the module's settings field, comfortably supporting 1,000–2,000 items with no manual migration step
* Virtualised Items Editor – The admin item list only renders the rows on screen, so a gallery of thousands opens, scrolls, and edits as fast as one of ten
* Import from Folder – Turn an entire media folder (with subfolders, for instant albums) into gallery items in one step — even a 2,000-image import completes in under a second
* Bulk Actions – Select, delete, change status, or assign an album to multiple items at once, kept accurate and fast at any gallery size
* Add Empty Item – Start a blank item and open its settings straight away, for a slide whose type isn't decided yet, without committing to an image or video first

Content Types
* Images – Automatically generated thumbnails (custom thumbnails still supported), configurable aspect ratios, lazy loading, hover effects
* Videos – YouTube, Vimeo, and direct MP4 files with autoplay and mute support
* Google Maps – Embed any location via iFrame, no API key required
* Inline HTML – Custom HTML or embedded Joomla modules ({loadposition}, {loadmoduleid}) in a lightbox

Organisation
* Albums – Group a large library into folder-based albums, each opening from a single cover image
* Multi-Module Galleries – Set the same Gallery Name on multiple modules to merge them into one
* Per-Item Status – Show, hide from the grid but keep in the lightbox, or fully unpublish any item
* Tag Filters & Pagination – Visitors filter large galleries by tag and page through the grid

The Lightbox Experience
* Deep Linking – Link directly to a single slide, with a one-tap copy-link button
* Slideshow – A play button advances the gallery on a timer, with a pausable countdown bar
* Thumbnail Strip – A scrollable filmstrip of thumbnails beneath the open lightbox image
* Photo Information Panel – Camera, lens, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, capture date — no location data, ever
* Configurable Animations – Separate open, close, and slide effects: Zoom, Fade, Slide, or None
* Slide Counter – Optional "current / total" indicator
* Downloadable Files – Optional download button for images and direct video files, per-item overridable
* Fullscreen Button – Expands the lightbox to fill the visitor's whole screen using the browser's own fullscreen mode

The Inline Experience
* Inline Mode – A permanently-open slider (stage, arrows, thumbnail strip, slide counter and title) sitting directly in the page, with no overlay at all unless you choose to allow one
* Can run with zero dependency on the vendored lightbox library — a genuinely standalone slider when Open Full-Screen Lightbox is switched off
* Fullscreen Button – Expands the stage to fill the visitor's whole screen using the browser's own fullscreen mode, independent of the full-screen lightbox
* Its own Autoplay Videos and Mute Videos settings, independent of the lightbox's
* Autoplay with a pausable countdown bar, Loop, and a start-index setting for which item the stage opens on

Popup Mode
* Popup Mode – Run the same lightbox as a self-opening popup, timed to page load or exit intent
* Frequency control and a one-tap opt-out for visitors who've seen enough

Styling & Customisation
* Settings Presets – 16 colour styles, 4 layout presets, 3 behaviour presets — one click, stackable, exportable
* Backdrop & Caption Styling – Colour, opacity, alignment, and frosted-glass blur
* Two Layouts – Default (ul/li structure) and Minimal (anchor tags only, ideal for fully custom CSS)
* Custom CSS Field – A plain textarea loaded last, so it overrides the module's own styling with no !important needed
* Per-Item Overrides – Title, description, dimensions, animation, zoom, drag, download, album, and status

Technical
* Optimised Delivery – Optional resized lightbox images and WebP output keep full-screen photos light on mobile
* Structured Data (JSON-LD) – Describe the gallery to search engines as a schema.org ImageGallery
* No External Dependencies – No jQuery; GLightbox and Plyr are bundled, nothing loaded from a CDN
* Multilingual Support – Complete Hungarian and English admin interface

Free and Open Source — GNU GPL v2+, no license restrictions. Simple installation: upload ZIP, activate module, add or import items, publish.