Tooltips for dummies?

[Rich Grise]

I've got a photo gallery on my client's website, and it has been suggested
that, rather than show the whole thing full-size on one page (about 9 full-
page images), I should put a thumbnails page and link to the big ones.
This makes sense to me, but I see a snag - these pix have fairly
comprehensive captions, and I don't want the thumnails page to be
dominated by captions.

So, I figured tooltips would be cool.

So, I go googling, and there are THOUSANDS of tooltip scripts.

So, how do I pick one? Just try them out one at a time until I stumble
on one I like?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Steve Swift]

So, I go googling, and there are THOUSANDS of tooltip scripts.

So, how do I pick one? Just try them out one at a time until I stumble
on one I like?

Yes, I'm close to the beginning of this path as well. My recommendations
would be:

1. Try them until you find one you really like
2. Test it against as many browsers as you can (I use IE6, IE7, IE8Beta
Firefox, Opera, Safari as a minimum)
3. Go back to (1) if it fails anywhere.

The important step is (2). You don't want to go to the trouble of
setting it all up, and getting everything perfect only to get a deluge
of email telling you that it doesn't work for them.

 

[MartinRinehart]

So, I figured tooltips would be cool.

So, I go googling, and there are THOUSANDS of tooltip scripts.

For images, none required. Use the title attribute. This will give you
a tooltip in at least MSIE6 and 7, Firefox 1.5, 2, 2/Linux, Opera 9, 9/
Linux and Konqueror.

 

[RobG]

I've got a photo gallery on my client's website, and it has been suggested
that, rather than show the whole thing full-size on one page (about 9 full-
page images), I should put a thumbnails page and link to the big ones.
This makes sense to me, but I see a snag - these pix have fairly
comprehensive captions, and I don't want the thumnails page to be
dominated by captions.

So, I figured tooltips would be cool.

Tooltips are annoying, there is a reason why many applications provide
an option to turn them off or provide a delay before they are displayed.
Tool tips obscure parts of the screen, in a gallery they will obscure
parts of the image they are intended to describe. Also, it isn't
obvious that they are there and users can only see one at a time.

If you want to give your images captions, give them captions.

So, I go googling, and there are THOUSANDS of tooltip scripts.

A better strategy might be to find an image gallery that has tool tips
that you like as see what they use. If you can't find any, there might
be a reason for that (see above).

So, how do I pick one? Just try them out one at a time until I stumble
on one I like?

Perhaps you should first determine what you want them to do, then what
features they need to do that. You will then have some objective
criteria for making a decision. Next you can look at the quality of the
code and go from there. Or write the script yourself, it isn't that hard.

 

[MartinRinehart]

The title attr appears as a tooltip in all major browsers. Your alt
content appears in MSIE if you don't have a title, so for multi-
browser consistency, you should have a title. The title tooltip
appears for sighted viewers; the alt is for visually impaired
(including search engines).

 

[Tom Cole]

Yes, I'm close to the beginning of this path as well. My recommendations
would be:

1. Try them until you find one you really like
2. Test it  against as many browsers as you can (I use IE6, IE7, IE8Beta
    Firefox, Opera, Safari as a minimum)
3. Go back to (1) if it fails anywhere.

The important step is (2). You don't want to go to the trouble of
setting it all up, and getting everything perfect only to get a deluge
of email telling you that it doesn't work for them.

I had some good success with Walter Zorn's library:
http://www.walterzorn.com/tooltip/tooltip_e.htm

 

[Rich Grise]

For images, none required. Use the title attribute. This will give you a
tooltip in at least MSIE6 and 7, Firefox 1.5, 2, 2/Linux, Opera 9, 9/
Linux and Konqueror.

"TITLE"!!! THAT's IT!!!!! I knew there was _something_ simple,
I just couldn't remember the name of the attribute.

Thanks 10^9.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

I had some good success with Walter Zorn's library:
http://www.walterzorn.com/tooltip/tooltip_e.htm

No, you did not.


PointedEars

 

[Andrew Poulos]

No, you did not.

What do you mean?

I've also used it and it does what it says it does. In a recent test it
"behaved" itself under IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

Andrew Poulos

 

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

What do you mean?

You have been deceived. Read the Source, Luke.

I've also used it and it does what it says it does. In a recent test it
"behaved" itself under IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

See?


PointedEars

 

[Andrew Poulos]

You have been deceived. Read the Source, Luke.


See?

What fault(s) have you found with it as I haven't found any?

Andrew Poulos

 

[Gregor Kofler]

Andrew Poulos meinte:

What fault(s) have you found with it as I haven't found any?

You didn't have a look at the source, did you? Since TT relies heavily
on ugly browser sniffing it "works" more or less by coincidence. I
haven't scanned the script for mistakes, but JSLint stops with
"Problem at line 86 character 30: Too many errors. (6% scanned)."
Apart from that, the script oozes this "style from the last millenium":
....tt_tShow = new Number(0)...

tt_u = "undefined"... ...
typeof(eval("w" + "indow" + "." + "o" + "p" + "er" + "a")) != tt_u

Puhleese!

But then: Since tooltips are pretty useless for most of the time, a
broken tooltip script won't be noticed by many...

Gregor