Re: position: pointer

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 8:25 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>

FWIW, you just described the use case I was being frustrated enough with to
come up with this. :) And quite right, in games you often have even
multiple pages of tooltips for a single UI element.

Cheers,
Jussi