contextual definition

[Robert Neville]

I am looking for JavaScript examples on expanding contextual
definition. For example, you have a word like POP3 and the user click
on the word expanding it with the following contextual definition.

POP3 (POP3: A common protocol that is used to retrieve e-mail messages
from an Internet e-mail server.)

Sites like Microsoft use the technique throughout their site. I hope
to find the code and an explanation on its usage. Let me know if you
have any sources. Thanks!

 

[Martin Honnen]

I am looking for JavaScript examples on expanding contextual
definition. For example, you have a word like POP3 and the user click
on the word expanding it with the following contextual definition.

POP3 (POP3: A common protocol that is used to retrieve e-mail messages
from an Internet e-mail server.)

Sites like Microsoft use the technique throughout their site. I hope
to find the code and an explanation on its usage. Let me know if you
have any sources.

Use the proper markup (<acronym title="Post Office Protocol 3: a common
protocol that is used to retrieve e-mail messages
from an Internet e-mail server">POP3</acronym> and then you are able to
write some lines of script that insert the value of the title attribute
when the element is clicked:
http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/32124

 

[Robert Neville]

Thanks Martin for your reply.

Your suggestions led me in the right direction. But the method did not
accomplish the desired result. The Contextual definition should be
clickable; thus it should expand and retract. Using the example on
your link suggestion, the results were not predictable; in Mozilla it
expanded the contextual definition, yet did not retract it; in IE
6.0.2, it did not even expand. Maybe, I overlooked something in the
code.

My JavaScript knowledge is elementary. My inquiry serves my own
purpose in converting my troubleshooting notes to html. So I could
view it on any platform. I am not a developer who has the coding
knowledge to reverse engineer the code. Please let me know if you
could give explicit suggestions. Thanks again.

 

[Martin Honnen]

Your suggestions led me in the right direction. But the method did not
accomplish the desired result. The Contextual definition should be
clickable; thus it should expand and retract. Using the example on
your link suggestion, the results were not predictable; in Mozilla it
expanded the contextual definition, yet did not retract it; in IE
6.0.2, it did not even expand. Maybe, I overlooked something in the
code.

Your original post only asked about expansion so I wrote an example
doing that, I have updated the FAQTS entry
(http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/32124) to allow
collapsing the explanation if the <abbr> or <acronym> element is clicked
again. As for IE the FAQTS entry clearly states that IE doesn't support
the <abbr> element so that with IE it is not possible to expand content
marked up with that tag (as there is no <abbr> element in the DOM tree
then on which events are fired).