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Fix: Gallery lightbox – clicking the expanded image should not close the dialog - #78907

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Mustafabharmal:fix/78869-gallery-lightbox-image-click-should-not-close
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Fix: Gallery lightbox – clicking the expanded image should not close the dialog#78907
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Mustafabharmal:fix/78869-gallery-lightbox-image-click-should-not-close

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@Mustafabharmal

@Mustafabharmal Mustafabharmal commented Jun 3, 2026

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What?

When a Gallery block has lightbox enabled, clicking or tapping the expanded image inside the lightbox overlay no longer dismisses the dialog.

Closes #78869.

Why?

WordPress 7.0 introduced navigation controls (Previous / Next) for the Gallery lightbox (#62906). With those controls present, the image-click-to-close behaviour inherited from the standalone Image block became a UX problem: users tapping the image to inspect detail—or slightly mis-tapping while reaching for a navigation button—would accidentally dismiss the
lightbox with no way to recover other than reopening and navigating back.

On touch devices this is especially disruptive because hover isn't available and the image is the most prominent tap target in the overlay. This was also raised in #77545 and #55513.

How?

Added a new handleOverlayClick action in view.js that wraps the existing hideLightbox action:

  • When navigation is present (gallery), it checks if the clicked element is an IMG or FIGURE. If the click originated on the image, it returns early. If the click landed directly on the overlay backdrop, scrim, or Close button, it proceeds to hideLightbox.
  • When navigation is absent (standalone image), the guard is skipped and hideLightbox is called normally—no behaviour change.
  • Escape key calls hideLightbox directly and is completely unaffected.
  • Close button triggers handleOverlayClick but since it is a <button> and not an <img>, it correctly dismisses the lightbox. The index.php lightbox overlay template is updated to bind the click event to the new handleOverlayClick instead of hideLightbox.

Testing Instructions

  1. Add a Gallery block (≥ 2 images) and enable lightbox.
  2. Click an image to open the lightbox.
  3. Click / tap the expanded image → dialog stays open.
  4. Click the backdrop (area outside the image) → dialog closes.
  5. Press Escape → dialog closes.
  6. Click the Close button → dialog closes.
  7. Repeat with a standalone Image block (single image, no gallery) → clicking the image still closes the lightbox as before.

Screenshots or screencast

Before After

@Mustafabharmal
Mustafabharmal marked this pull request as draft June 3, 2026 11:38
@github-actions

github-actions Bot commented Jun 3, 2026 •
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Co-authored-by: Mustafabharmal <mustafabharmal@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: JosVelasco <josvelasco@git.wordpress.org>
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@github-actions github-actions Bot added the [Package] Block library /packages/block-library label Jun 3, 2026
@JosVelasco

JosVelasco commented Jun 4, 2026

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Hi @Mustafabharmal, thanks for your work. I tested this PR, and it seems to be working, but we still need to change the cursor to the default when hovering over the image so it doesn't look like you can close the dialog by clicking it.

@t-hamano t-hamano added [Type] Bug An existing feature does not function as intended [Block] Gallery Affects the Gallery Block - used to display groups of images labels Jun 8, 2026
@Mustafabharmal
Mustafabharmal marked this pull request as ready for review August 14, 2026 10:07
@youknowriad

youknowriad commented Sep 28, 2026

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Thanks @Mustafabharmal! #78898 fixes the same issue and scopes the change to galleries with navigation controls, which matches #78869 — a standalone image's lightbox keeps click-to-close as an affordance, since there are no nav buttons to mis-tap. Closing this one in favour of that PR. Thanks for the work, and for flagging the cursor detail!

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@ajitbohra ajitbohra Awaiting requested review from ajitbohra
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[Block] Gallery Affects the Gallery Block - used to display groups of images [Package] Block library /packages/block-library [Type] Bug An existing feature does not function as intended

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Gallery lightbox: clicking the expanded image should not close the dialog when navigation is enabled

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@Mustafabharmal @JosVelasco @youknowriad @t-hamano