Photobox is a jQuery library that use to add image gallery on the webpage.
It comes with different options for customization and supports IE8+ and modern browsers.
You need to arrange images in a specific order and initialize Photobox on the container to create the gallery.
In this tutorial, I am using the Photobox library to create the image gallery by reading uploaded images from a directory with PHP.

Contents
1. Upload File
Create a new upload.php file and images directory where store all image files. To store the thumbnail of images create a thumbnail directory in images the directory.
Form
Create a <form> with file element and a submit button.
Upload & compress image size
On form submit define valid image extensions in $valid_ext and set upload location.
If the file extension is valid then upload the file to images/ directory and for thumbnail reduce the uploaded file size by calling compressImage().
In compressImage() function pass 4 parameters –
- File type
$_FILES['imagefiles']['type'], - Uploaded file location
$location, - Thumbnail destination
$thumbnail_location, and - Image quality
60(You can adjust the image quality 0-100).
Completed Code
<!doctype html>
<html>
<body>
<?php
if(isset($_POST['upload'])){
// File name
$filename = $_FILES['imagefiles']['name'];
// Valid extension
$valid_ext = array('png','jpeg','jpg');
// Location
$location = "images/".$filename;
$thumbnail_location = "images/thumbnail/".$filename;
// file extension
$file_extension = pathinfo($location, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
$file_extension = strtolower($file_extension);
// Check extension
if(in_array($file_extension,$valid_ext)){
// Upload file
if(move_uploaded_file($_FILES['imagefiles']['tmp_name'],$location)){
// Compress Image
compressImage($_FILES['imagefiles']['type'],$location,$thumbnail_location,60);
echo "Successfully Uploaded";
}
}
}
// Compress image
function compressImage($type,$source, $destination, $quality) {
$info = getimagesize($source);
if ($type == 'image/jpeg')
$image = imagecreatefromjpeg($source);
elseif ($type == 'image/gif')
$image = imagecreatefromgif($source);
elseif ($type == 'image/png')
$image = imagecreatefrompng($source);
imagejpeg($image, $destination, $quality);
}
?>
<!-- Upload form -->
<form method='post' action='' enctype='multipart/form-data'>
<input type='file' name='imagefiles' >
<input type='submit' value='Upload' name='upload'>
</form>
</body>
</html>
2. Download library
- Download the Photobox library from GitHub.
3. HTML & PHP
Create a new index.php file.
Include photobox.css and jquery.photobox.js with a jQuery library.
Read files from images directory and also thumbnail images.
Pass the image file path in <a > and <img > element.
Completed Code
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<!-- CSS -->
<link href='photobox/photobox.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<link href='style.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<!-- Script -->
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.6.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="photobox/jquery.photobox.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div class='container'>
<div class="gallery">
<?php
// Image extensions
$image_extensions = array("png","jpg","jpeg","gif");
// Target directory
$dir = 'images/';
if (is_dir($dir)){
if ($dh = opendir($dir)){
$count = 1;
// Read files
while (($file = readdir($dh)) !== false){
if($file != '' && $file != '.' && $file != '..'){
// Thumbnail image path
$thumbnail_path = "images/thumbnail/".$file;
// Image path
$image_path = "images/".$file;
$thumbnail_ext = pathinfo($thumbnail_path, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
$image_ext = pathinfo($image_path, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
// Check its not folder and it is image file
if(!is_dir($image_path) &&
in_array($thumbnail_ext,$image_extensions) &&
in_array($image_ext,$image_extensions)){
?>
<!-- Image -->
<a href="<?= $image_path; ?>">
<img src="<?= $thumbnail_path; ?>">
</a>
<?php
// Break
if( $count%4 == 0){
?>
<div class="clear"></div>
<?php
}
$count++;
}
}
}
closedir($dh);
}
}
?>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
4. CSS
Create style.css file.
Completed Code
.container{
margin: 0 auto;
}
.container .gallery a img {
float: left;
width: 20%;
height: auto;
border: 2px solid #fff;
-webkit-transition: -webkit-transform .15s ease;
-moz-transition: -moz-transform .15s ease;
-o-transition: -o-transform .15s ease;
-ms-transition: -ms-transform .15s ease;
transition: transform .15s ease;
position: relative;
}
.container .gallery a:hover img {
-webkit-transform: scale(1.05);
-moz-transform: scale(1.05);
-o-transform: scale(1.05);
-ms-transform: scale(1.05);
transform: scale(1.05);
z-index: 5;
}
.clear {
clear: both;
float: none;
width: 100%;
}
5. jQuery
Initialize photobox on $(''.gallery) selector.
Completed Code
$(document).ready(function(){
$('.gallery').photobox('a',{ time:0 });
});
6. Demo
7. Conclusion
I compressed the image size to display thumbnails and only allowed single file upload but you can customize it to enable multiple file upload.
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