Automatic jQuery site subscription lightbox

I’ve had many of you email me asking for a tutorial that shows how to create the subscription lightbox that activates for the first time you visit the site, and I’ve finally got around to writing it up.

Getting Started

You’ll need to include the jQuery library as well as the Colorbox lightbox JS and CSS which are included in the download below.

<!-- Color Box CSS -->
<link media="screen" rel="stylesheet" target="_blank" href="css/colorbox.css" />
<!-- Style For the Subscription Box -->
<link media="screen" rel="stylesheet" target="_blank" href="css/popup.css" />
<script language="javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.0/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script language="javascript" src="js/colorbox.js"></script>

The JS Code

Once the page loads we check to see if the cookie exists and hasn’t expired. If it’s expired or doesn’t exist we set the cookie to expire in 15 days, and we show the lightbox.

$("document").ready(function (){ 

       // load the overlay

        if (document.cookie.indexOf('visited=true') == -1) {
			var fifteenDays = 1000*60*60*24*15;
			var expires = new Date((new Date()).valueOf() + fifteenDays);
			document.cookie = "visited=true;expires=" + expires.toUTCString();
			$.colorbox({width:"580px", inline:true, href:"#subscribe_popup"});
		}
		
		$(".open_popup").colorbox({width:"580px", inline:true, href:"#subscribe_popup"});

 });

The HTML

Here’s the HTML for the lightbox. This can go anywhere on your page, although i’d recommend putting it just above the last body tag. There shouldn’t be any surprises here!

<a href="#" class="open_popup">Click here to open the popup</a>

<!-- This contains the hidden content for inline calls for the subscribe box -->
<div style='display:none'>
  <div id='subscribe_popup' style='padding:10px;'>
    <h2 class="box-title">Never miss an update from Papermashup</h2>
    <h3 class="box-tagline">Get notified about the latest tutorials and downloads.</h3>
    <!-- BEGIN #subs-container -->
    <div id="subs-container" class="clearfix">
      <!-- BEGIN .box-side -->
      <div class="box-side left">
        <div class="box-icon"><a class="email" target="_blank" href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=AshleyFord-Papermashupcom&loc=en_US"><img src="images/email.png"/></a></div>
        <h4><a target="_blank" href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=AshleyFord-Papermashupcom&loc=en_US">Subscribe by Email</a></h4>
        <h5>Get alerts directly into your inbox after each post and stay updated.</h5>
        <a class="sub" target="_blank" href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=AshleyFord-Papermashupcom&loc=en_US" title="Subscribe Now!">Subscribe</a>
        <!-- END .box-side -->
      </div>
      <div id="box-or">OR</div>
      <!-- BEGIN .box-right -->
      <div class="box-side right">
        <div class="box-icon"><a class="rss" target="_blank" href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/AshleyFord-Papermashupcom"><img src="images/rss.png"/></a></div>
        <h4><a target="_blank" href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/AshleyFord-Papermashupcom">Subscribe by RSS</a></h4>
        <h5>Add our RSS to your feedreader to get regular updates from us.</h5>
        <a class="sub" target="_blank" href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/AshleyFord-Papermashupcom" title="Subscribe Now!">Subscribe</a>
        <!-- END .box-side -->
      </div>
      <!-- BEGIN #subs-container -->
    </div>
  </div>
</div>
<!-- END subscribe popup-->