Re: position: pointer

On Oct 8, 2012 1:40 PM, "Daniel Tan/BoltClock" <lists@novalistic.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/9/2012 1:32 AM, Jussi Kalliokoski wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 8:25 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com
>> <mailto:jackalmage@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Jussi Kalliokoski
>>     <jussi.kalliokoski@gmail.com <mailto: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
>
>
> I honestly prefer this over something like a ::tooltip pseudo-element. In
fact, in the discussion suggesting using a pseudo-element[1], there was a
bit on introducing a new value to display called 'tooltip' instead.
'pointer' is more general, but the same use cases apply, and it allows for
more sophisticated formatting than a pseudo-element could possibly offer.
>

Can you provide some examples, I am having a hard time thinking of any.  It
almost feels like a pseudo would be pretty nice here, maybe with an idref
argument for proxying like labels do...

> [1]: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012Apr/0246.html
>
> --
> Daniel Tan/BoltClock
> NOVALISTIC • Stellar Software Development & Design
> <http://NOVALISTIC.com>
>