Hiding <DIV> containing <INPUT> tags onmouseout

[Richard Maher]

Hi,

I'm trying to use the Visibility Style attribute for a Div to effectively
PopUp a lightweight window with some additional context-sensitive
information, when a user mouses over a given field(s). The popping-up seems
to work just fine; it's the tearing down that's giving me grief. If I stick
a onmouseout event on the same input field that caused the
onmouseover/pop-up, it starts to flicker 'cos the <div> is placed for
esthetically desirable reasons over the original field. So I stuck the
onmouseout on the DIV, but when the mouse moves from the DIV background to
one of the display INPUT fields (still within the DIV boundries) IE6 says
I've moused out of the DIV and my code sets it back to "hidden" prematurely.

I'm looking at sticking an itty-bitty "close" button at the bottom of the
DIV to get around the problem (there are also buttons
(next/previous/refresh) active on the sub-Div layer that will result in the
DIV vanishing, but the onmouseout would've been good. Is there anyway, short
of an onmousemove on the Body and a check to see if the coordinates fall on
my Div (while it is visible) that would make the DIV appear as a solid block
as far as the mouseout is concerned?

Cheers Richard Maher.

 

[Richard Maher]

Hi,

Put a little X in the top RHS corner which the user clicks to close it
down.

<div id="PopUpHelp">
<span class="SomeTitleBar">
<span="LeftFiller"></span>
<span="RHSBox"
onclick="PsuedoWindowClose('PopUpHelp')"
title="Close">X</span>
</span>
<span class="SomeContent"></span>
</div

Sounds good, I've been using a button but I think I'd prefer this RHSBox
thingy. Where (not on my w3shools <span> tag page) can I find all of the
valid syntax and options for this <SPAN=> tag? LeftFiller sounds good (as
I'm using several &nbsp to pad out stuff 'cos IE doesn't like "white-space:
pre" without the <!DOC stuff) and RHSBox looks more light-weight than my

I think it's a bad design principle to have your code do things which
you think (as a designer) that the user would 'like' to happen - that
gives the user the impression that the user is not actually in control
of what's going on - which, I personally feel, is a confidence sapping
event. My inclination is to close down any web-page I visit that does
things I haven't personally asked for (open a popup, play background
music, run flash, whatever, ...)

Agreed, in this case if the content of a given field is in Italics then the
user knows if they mouseover it then the pop-up will appear. This is just
part of my (quasi-real-world) example to illustrate an on-demand server
look-up for queue status information. If the user mouseovers a queue name,
the current status information for that queue is retrieved from the server.
It's just to show how, whether anyone wants to do it is up to them. I still
think it would be nice(r) if the mouseout of the div (as a block) would
work. But again if someone wants to track clientX/Y in and out of given
coordinates while DIV is visible/invisible then that's up to them also.

Thanks for the help.

Cheers Richard Maher