Re: position: pointer

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Jussi Kalliokoski
<jussi.kalliokoski@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I wanted to discuss the possibility of adding a new `position` type called
> `pointer`. I came up with the idea as I was thinking about how limited
> `title` attribute tooltips are, which made me check out the JS libraries for
> the purpose, which are crappy as well, and I think JS shouldn't be needed
> for "simple" positioning of elements like this (there may be a few cycles to
> save here as well). The idea is pretty simple, it works kinda like absolute
> or fixed position (in that the element is floating), but the given
> coordinates are relative to the main pointer position.
>
> This would let you make tooltips in pure CSS and HTML (not to mention that
> you could recreate those stars flying around the mouse from the 90s with
> just CSS and HTML ;). I made a small demo [1] [2] to give a better picture
> of what I mean. The actual demo uses a silly JS shim, and I think the
> smoothness speaks for itself about how unsuitable JS is for this kind of
> functionality.
>
> Looking forward to feedback!
>
> Cheers,
> Jussi
>
> [1] (code) https://gist.github.com/3853601
> [2] (result) http://labs.avd.io/position-pointer/

This is pretty reasonable, I think.  You can already achieve some
variant of this effect with custom 'cursor' images, just in a *much*
more cumbersome manner.

It seems really simple to define and understand, and I see some
definite use-cases, especially for games which often display complex
information on hover.

~TJ

Received on Monday, 8 October 2012 17:26:06 UTC