Open external link in lightbox not working - empty lighbox

Question

Hi - in the In5 export options panel, I checked "Open External Links in a Lightbox" but it doesn't work for me. When I click on my hyperlink I get a lightbox that pops up, but it's an empty white box. I know my link is working - when I don't select the 'open external links in a lightbox' option, the url opens as normal in a new tab. Hoping there is some way to fix this as I need it to open within a lightbox. Appreciate any assistance!

See below system info if helpful:

Currently using trial version of In5 1.0 but I didn't see any notes that this lightbox feature is limited in the trial version.

InDesign version is CC 2015.

Mac OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.4

Answer 1

Thanks for the details.

Some major sites (e.g., Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc) block the loading of some of their pages into a lightbox.

Depending on the content, there may be an "embeddable" version that can go into a lightbox.

Alternatively, You can bypass the lightbox for those links: How to Bypass the Lightbox for Individual Hyperlinks

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YouTube can be used with the lightbox as a hyperlink if you simply edit the address.

See this answer:
https://ajarproductions.com/pages/products/in5/answers/2285/how-to-open-a-youtube-link-in-a-lightbox-in-ipad-app?show=2286#a2286

Comments

Thank you, Justin. The link isn't a major site; it is a client's intranet type site, but they may very well unknowingly have a setting that is preventing loading into a lightbox. Most likely the case as I just tested with my own website and it worked perfectly.  So now I see this isn't an issue with In5 and instead involves a separate issue with the website's settings. I'll research this on my own of course, but if you do happen to know anything about what setting it is that someone could undo on their website in order to allow their site to load in a lightbox, I'd be grateful for the insight. I definitely don't want to bypass because it's actually the client's desire that their site content appear in a lightbox as they want to reduce any chance of user leaving the e-mag prematurely once the link takes them out.

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Hi Bridget,

Here are a few ways that it can be implemented:
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2896623/how-to-prevent-my-site-page-to-be-loaded-via-3rd-party-site-frame-of-iframe
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19843085/how-to-block-website-from-loading-in-iframe

If you view the source of the site in question, you should be able to see if the X-Frame-options tag is present (that would be the most likely culprit).

Let me know if I can do anything else to help.

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Thank you, Justin! Really appreciate the help. I didn't see presence of x-frame options but then again, I'm not good with code. It looks like something that I'll just need to have my client try and resolve on their side if they'd like their content to appear in a lightbox. Thanks again for the info!

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No problem. Hope you can get things resolved with the client.

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I ran into this issue linking to http sites from https.

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Yes, best to always link to https (if available).