Close the lightbox by clicking outside the image

Sorry, but this is not possible since PhotoSwipe 5 does not support a “tap outside image to close” on mobile devices, only a global tap action. Tapping the display is always only used to show/hide the caption if there is any and overriding the tap gesture to close the image instead would be very confusing.

However on mobile devices you can also close the image by swiping it upwards or use the “pinch to close” gesture which means to make the image smaller by using a “pinch” gesture with two fingers.

Is it better to switch back to 4 then as taping the black area to close the image was better. On the desktop that is. Especially when we can’t tap the tiny X mark (accessibility) or click it with a mouse. I’m making a site for people that have difficulties using PC and phones. I was told the huge tap space to close the gallery was better for them. Also how do I keep the interface X always on? I have no captions to show and if I have them I just always want them showing all the time on the site I’m on now. On other sites it’s different but not the one I’m on now. I think the current setting are more confusing. Now I tap the black area or image and all the interface just goes away. I want to be able to set it the way I want depending on the website I’m on. The swipe up and down to close option is great. Pinch to zoom & double click to zoom, also great.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by a4jp.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by a4jp.

Sorry, I just can offer, what PhotoSwipe provides. If PhotoSwipe 5 once will offer the option of closing images by tapping outside I will add this of course. Until then you may need to choose version 4 if this works better for you. That’s also the reason why I still include that version since it may work better for some people.

Yes. Thank you for that.

Am I missing anything that is better in version 5? If 4 can do the same why is 5 better?

Version 5 works better with modern smartphones, like iPhone 13 and newer. Also internally that version uses modular JavaScript and can be extended much easier – for example the “full screen” mode ist not part of PhotoSwipe itself but a plugin (https://github.com/arnowelzel/photoswipe-fullscreen) as well as the dynamic caption (https://github.com/dimsemenov/photoswipe-dynamic-caption-plugin).

Not every improvement is easy to see from a users perspective, but technically it is a big step forward.

For more see the website of PhotoSwipe itself: https://photoswipe.com

About accessibility issues: if you like to, you can get in touch with me via e-mail (see https://arnowelzel.de/en/about-me for my contact address) and we can try to figure out what works best to be included in future updates. I also work for and with people with disabilities and I know Dmytro Semenov also had accessibility in mind when creating PhotoSwipe 5.

In desktop mode in version 4 when I click to toggle full screen mode then the small x doesn’t work anymore and the toggle button doesn’t work after the first click either. Clicking the background to close works though.

I have to check this – however I have to admit, that the codebase of version 4 is really old and may not work well with newer browsers. That is also one of the reasons why version 5 was created.

If I toggle to full screen on a desktop and then try to click the cross it doesn’t work. And the hints are slow, sometimes not showing up on a mouseover.

You can try here: https://hokkaido.a4jp.com/英会話体験レッスン/

Works fine here (Vivaldi 5.5 and Firefox 106.0.5). What browser did you use?

Opera GX. I’ll try a few other browsers now.

Firefox is great. Chrome as well. Also Microsoft Edge. Looks like just Opera GX, LVL4 (core: 92.0.4561.55), needs a tweak.

I’ve added an update request on GitHub for PhotoSwipe https://github.com/dimsemenov/PhotoSwipe/issues/1989 hopefully that helps. Thank you so much today for the super quick replies.