Create a Thumbnail Gallery with Slick Heading and Caption Effect with jQuery

Introduction

This is a simple jQuery tutorial, but can be extremely useful in frontend design. It's an elegant way to put more content in your website, but only display it when the user wants to see it. It keeps your website clean, but in the same time does not compromise your website content.

You can check out the demonstration and the code. :) enjoy.

1. HTML

It's simple, inside the container - photo class you have three objects, first div is the heading, image in the middle and last div is the caption. You can put links, rating whatever you like inside it.

<div class="photo">
	<div class="heading"><span>Pier</span></div>
	<img data-src="images/pier1.jpg" width="300" height="186" alt="" />
	<div class="caption"><span>Lorem de scua shemf huan rougt ecrit vato de souju kanasa.</span></div>
</div>

2. CSS

One thing you have to know about the CSS is, if you want to position objects within a container, the container must have relative position and the object must have absolute position too. In this case, photo class is the container, heading and caption classes are the objects with absolute position.

So, it's easy, by default, heading and caption classes are hidden with top (heading) set to -50px (the height of the heading) and same thing to caption, but instead of top, it's bottom.

I have shared this CSS tips in my 15+ CSS Tips and Tricks posts

	.photo {
		/* relative position, so that objects in it can be positioned inside this container */
		position:relative;
		font-family:arial;	
		
		/* hide those extra height that goes beyong the size of this container */
		overflow:hidden;
		border:5px solid #000;
		width:300px;
		height:186px;
	}	
	
		.photo .heading, .photo .caption {
			/* position inside the container */
			position:absolute;
			background:#000;
			height:50px;
			width:300px;
			
			/* transparency for different browsers */
			/* i have shared this in my CSS tips post too */
			opacity:0.6;
			filter:alpha(opacity=60);  
		     -moz-opacity:0.6;    
			-khtml-opacity: 0.6;  

		}
		
		.photo .heading { 
			
			/* hide it with negative value */
			/* it's the height of heading class */
			top:-50px;
		}

		.photo .caption { 		
			/* hide it with negative value */
			/* it's the height of bottom class */
			bottom:-50px;		
		}
		

		/* styling of the classes*/
		.photo .heading span {

			color:#26c3e5;	
			top:-50px;
			font-weight:bold;
			display:block;
			padding:5px 0 0 10px;
		}
		
		.photo .caption span{
			color:#999;	
			font-size:9px;
			display:block;
			padding:5px 10px 0 10px;
		}

3. Javascript

Javascript is pretty straight forward, just display the div and hide the div, the only difference between the heading and caption is, the css properties (top and bottom), I added the easing as well to give your more option in choosing the right transition for your image thumbnail gallery.

	
	$(document).ready(function () {

		// transition effect
		style = 'easeOutQuart';

		// if the mouse hover the image
		$('.photo').hover(
			function() {
				//display heading and caption
				$(this).children('div:first').stop(false,true).animate({top:0},{duration:200, easing: style});
				$(this).children('div:last').stop(false,true).animate({bottom:0},{duration:200, easing: style});
			},

			function() {
				//hide heading and caption
				$(this).children('div:first').stop(false,true).animate({top:-50},{duration:200, easing: style});
				$(this).children('div:last').stop(false,true).animate({bottom:-50},{duration:200, easing: style});
			}
		);

	});

Conclusion

This is a simple jQuery tutorial, but can be extremely useful in frontend design. It's an elegant way to put more content on your website, but only display it when the user want it. It keeps your website clean, but in the same time provide all the information to your visitors.

Last but not least, I need your support :) If you like this article, please help me to promote it by adding this post to your bookmark, subscribe to my RSS for more jQuery tutorial and design inspiration posts! AND also, you can BUY ME A DRINK (link in the footer) to motivate me and keep me awake! Thanks!

• TAGS:
• CSS
• HTML
• Javascript
• jQuery
• Tutorial