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View Full Version : Replacing mouse-over popups with something better


Twile
11-17-2006, 06:54 PM
This might be something that is being addressed in the Ferrox update, but in case it isn't, here are my thoughts on it.

Above the list of recent things added to your favorites gallery (or regular gallery) there's a thumbnail for the most recent item. Why not use some Javascript to make the thumbnail change to the thumbnail of any submission name you scroll over? When you mouse over the name the thumbnail changes, when you move the mouse off it could change back or stay that way, however they think it would look best. I figure this would save some bandwidth too as you wouldn't make accidental server requests for thumbnails as you're moving your mouse down the page, possibly over the list of submission names. At the least it would get rid of the (sometimes unwanted) popups by giving them a more fixed location to appear. One problem I can think of for this is that, if the thumbnail is off screen, you won't see it. Fortunately, as the list of recent additions isn't very large, it's unlikely that you can't fit the full list and thumbnail on your screen. Other problem I suppose would be thumbnails of different sizes--it might force the browser to resize elements just by scrolling over submission names. This could be addressed by either making the "window" for the thumbnails a standard fixed size (the maximum that could be generated in a popup as is now for any submission) or a dynamic fixed size (the maximum that could be generated in a popup for the submissions in that user's displayed recent items).

TORA
11-17-2006, 07:26 PM
I completely agree, Twile. When I am browsing the submissions, it is a bit annoying to move the mouse and catch a huge popup explaining the pic when I don't want to click on it.

N3X15
11-17-2006, 07:52 PM
We might be getting rid of it completely if it poses traffic problems. If it does stay, though, there'll be some sort of preferences system.

Twile
11-17-2006, 07:58 PM
We might be getting rid of it completely if it poses traffic problems. If it does stay, though, there'll be some sort of preferences system.


Don't get me wrong, I think I speak for most people when I say that having quick access to the most recent half dozen or so favorites or submissions for an artist is awesome. It's convenient and relatively quick. And it's gotta be lower on bandwidth than loading up a page which has the least 12 such thumbnails.

It's just kinda distracting and silly when it pops up over other parts of the page :p

Firehazard
12-04-2006, 11:20 PM
One possible alternative to the mouse-over popups -- which, don't get me wrong, I appreciate in terms of being able to get some info without having to "open" the pictures -- would be to have some sort of sidebar that the info would appear in. The info in this case could stay put until you mouseover another image.

If you really wanted to get fancy you could add code so that this box would slide as you scroll the page so you wouldn't end up in a situation where you mouseover an image way at the bottom of a 64-image browse page and have to scroll all the way up to see its info. Alternately, though, you could set it so that the y-pos of the info box roughly equals that of the image (with exceptions if it's near the top or bottom and too big to fit, of course). This might be a better solution design-wise. Ad hosted sites have kinda given text boxes that move as you scroll a bad rep and to this day I still tend to consider them a bit tacky.

Fennex
01-03-2007, 09:09 AM
Ditto on the annoying popup placement. I've fiddled with various possibilities so far and I must say that Firehazard's sidebar idea appears to work best. (although it takes up a lot of space)


In case anyone would be interested, here are the sidebar popups in a firefox extension (http://users.skynet.be/coming_soon/script/fatooltipssidebar.xpi) and a greasemonkey script (http://users.skynet.be/coming_soon/script/fatooltips.user.js)

lolcox
01-09-2007, 01:39 AM
Ditto on the annoying popup placement. I've fiddled with various possibilities so far and I must say that Firehazard's sidebar idea appears to work best. (although it takes up a lot of space)


In case anyone would be interested, here are the sidebar popups in a firefox extension (http://users.skynet.be/coming_soon/script/fatooltipssidebar.xpi) and a greasemonkey script (http://users.skynet.be/coming_soon/script/fatooltips.user.js)


Greasemonkey script's quite useful, thanks. :)

The popup itself was what bothered me, though I liked the information it provided. ... Provided that my hand doesn't twitch and move the cursor away from the icon.

I'll have to go in and modify the script a little to match some of my quirks (I don't particularly like how the tooltip can shift the entire UI in some cases), but thanks for the script -- wouldn't personally know where to start. :)

Honeymane
01-11-2007, 05:57 PM
It would be nice if the right side thumbs didn't go off the edge of the browser.