tooltips

[melias]

i want to put a mouseover tooltip on a link, and have found a cut and paste one at website abstraction that says it works in IE and netscape. however, i get a javascript error in netscape (the example works in my browser, so the error is in my page). i'm using claris home page. am i putting the code in the wrong places? is claris doing something to it? any suggestions? thanks.
~melias

this is the code i'm using:
http://wsabstract.com/script/script2/tooltip.shtml

 

[MacFromOK]

Wouldn't it just be easier to use the "title=" parameter?

Like this:

&lta href="http://www.altavista.com" title="A search engine">Alta Vista&lt/a>

Hold your mouse over this Alta Vista link:

<a href="http://www.altavista.com" title="A search engine">Alta Vista</a>


Cheers, Mac

 

[melias]

thanks mac,
that works in IE but not my netscape 4.72; however, it sure is easy so i'll try it and at least people using IE will be able to see it!
~melias

 

[MacFromOK]

Hmmm... It doesn't work in NS 4.08 either.

Thanks for the reply, I didn't realize it was
IE specific.

Cheers, Mac

 

[MacFromOK]

You might also consider using a bitmap for the link
and the "alt" parameter for a mouseover (works in
both IE and NS).

Cheers, Mac

 

[melias]

AH! i had thought of that, but didn't know how to do it--i don't want to have a picture be the link, but is it possible to put like an invisible box around the link and then give it the alt name?
~melias

 

[MacFromOK]

Nope, ya gotta have a pic for it to work properly.
Otherwise it has a place for the pic with the
alt parameter (tooltip) showing.

 

[MacFromOK]

Here's how it looks with and without a pic.
The pic can be a URL or a local pic.
Press the "quote" button at the bottom to see the code.

With no pic:

<a href="http://www.altavista.com"> <img src="none" alt="Tooltip"> </a>

With a valid pic:

<a href="http://www.altavista.com"> <img src="http://www.techguy.org/images/menu_logo2.gif" alt="Tooltip"> </a>

BTW, both of these link to Alta Vista...

Cheers, Mac

 

[aliisa]

Just a thought, but have you considered incorporating a couple of transparent gifs, say 6 x 60 pixels, either side of the link text. There's every chance that the user will hover the mouse near to the text before clicking and this will activate the 'ALT' text contained within the gifs.