Integrate flickrRSS with Lightbox Scripts
This is the result of hours spent ploughing through eightface Forum and searching the web. The mission is simple. I want my photos displayed through flickRSS to popup in a Lightbox, and in this instance, with FancyBox. To view an example, just click on the images in the footer section.
1. Setup the Plugin
Firstly, head over to here to download the modified flickrRSS plugin.
You should end up with a flickrrss-lightview.zip file. Extract the flickrrss.php, and this will be the plugin which we will be using. Do note that it’s version 3.2.1, as opposed to the latest version 4.0, notably without support for flickr sets.
(I dropped a request to emac seeking whether he is able to update his modified flickrss.php to v4.0, so if more of us ask, he may see it worthwhile.)
Update: I have since found a new solution which allows me to use flickrrss version 4.0. If you prefer not to do any editing, you can download the edited plugin here.
Next we will need to configure the plugin. Open up flickrrss.php and scroll to line 110 - 113 106 - 109 and change the class (in red box) to whatever library you’re using. In my case, I defined a class “zoom” so the fancybox can call on it. You can remove “rel” if you don’t want your photos to display as a set.
2. Setup Fancybox
You will need to download Fancybox, extract it and you should end up with a fancybox folder. I have chosen to upload this whole folder to my /wp-includes/js/. So now you will have a folder structure of home/wp-includes/js/fancybox/
3. Setup Wordpress
You will need to edit the header.php of your theme to call up fancybox. Here’s the sample code if you’re unsure. You will need to place it before the </head>
You will notice this code: $(”a.zoom[href$=.jpg]“).fancybox();
Basically, it calls the class .zoom which you have defined earlier during Step 1. Don’t ask me why it’s done this way as I adapted this from the Flickr Photo Album plugin which can be set to use fancybox too.
4. Sit Back, Enjoy the Fancybox
That should be it. I hope I didn’t left out any steps, and I tried to make this as simple as possible for anyone to follow. Basically it should work with any lightbox clones, I tried thickbox and it works too. If you’re using anything other than fancybox, just define the relevant class in Step 1 and call up the corresponding script in Step 3.
If you face any setup problem, feel free to drop in the comments, and I will try my best if its within my capacity.
Note: All credits go to flickRSS and dietwaltz.com. I am merely a user sharing my experience……
Neowster is short for Noel's & Esther's Own World. This is a personal hobbyist site, maintained mainly for the purpose of honing my knowledge in WordPress, and sharing useful information or knowledge to make someone's life easier. To a smaller extend, I hope to propagate the ideology of Crowdsourcing, as I see it as the best mechanism in regulating our unregulated capitalistic world, overcoming humanity's trait of greed, self interest, and fear, in arriving at the best decision. 
October 21st, 2008 at 3:52 pm
hi ,
thanks for the nice edited plugin!
I have a problem with enabling fancybox, when I enable the plugin , my Slideshow section (featured content gallery plugin) doesn’t run correctly , it shows up the images in a white area & also the fancybox doesn’t works.
do you have any idea about resolving this conflict?
October 21st, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Hi, apple,
Unfortunately, I can’t help with regards to conflict as I am not a developer.
However I do propose that you not use the featured content gallery plugin, and directly integrate it into your template.
On this site I did a direct integration of featured content gallery and fancybox is working fine, so its worth a try.
November 25th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Thanks for this helpful tutorial and the supplied edited .php file.
I made a minor adjustment to lines 106 and 109 from rel=\”gallery\” to rel=\”lightbox[flickrrss]\” since I use slimbox on my wordpress.
November 29th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Did All The Steps Above, Still Doesn’t Work, Do you Think i need to set up the cache thing in Flickrrss?
November 29th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
@Flav
Glad you like it and thanks for sharing how it will work with slimbox.
@getondaground
It will work even without the cache enabled in flickrrss, I’m not using cache too. I think most probably, your javascript library is not loaded correctly (if you have edited header.php), otherwise, try disabling other plugins and try again. It really should work “out of the box” with the theme once flickrss is setup, so if all else fails, “cold start”.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
hey bro noel, your idea is cool! I thought of making an album like yours.. can tell me how? ^^
January 9th, 2010 at 5:47 am
I downloaded this to use with WP 2.9 and I only get one image even when I set it to more than that. Also it doesn’t seem that any options from my insert code is working. This is what I’m using to call it into a sidebar:
<?php get_flickrRSS(array(
‘num_items’ => 20,
‘type’ => ‘group’,
‘id’ => ‘1281321@N25′));
?>
but it’s not taking any of those settings and applying them. Help!