New XUL Element: Popup Definitions

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MXN
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New XUL Element: Popup Definitions

Post by MXN »

Windows help has an interesting and useful feature: <em>popup definitions</em>. In Windows 95, these are denoted by green text with green, dotted underlines. When you click on them, a little yellow box pops up with a brief definition of the underlined text. In Windows 98, the text looks just like hyperlinks, but the same thing happens when you click on them.

If you have Windows, go to <strong>Start</strong> | <strong><u>H</u>elp</strong>. Then, under the <strong><u>C</u>ontents</strong> tab, go to the topic <strong>Introducing Windows 95/98</strong> | <strong>How to Use Help</strong> | <strong>Get more out of help</strong>, and click on the word "frame". In Windows 98, it should look something like <a href="http://www.1ec5.org/mingerweb/img/popup-def01.bmp">this</a>.

Edit: Press the <samp>Go</samp> button once you follow the link; my host doesn't allow "directly downloading images."

This could be useful for Mozilla Help (if anyone even uses it), and for "What's This" help in the Preferences dialog and various managers. I'm thinking it could be useful because Mozilla often has lots of jargon in its interface.

What do you think? (And if this can already be achieved, please correct me.)
Last edited by MXN on June 19th, 2013, 11:33 pm, edited 3 times in total.
urichter
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Post by urichter »

The <<i></i>acronym title="..."> tag can be used for that: <acronym title="some useful explanation">like this</acronym>.

MozillaZine front page has some of these. Still a good idea to add some of them to the help system.
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Zontar
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Post by Zontar »

Shouldn't be difficult to build a reusable widget that does this using existing Mozilla (XUL/XBL) technology.

[ADDED, due to urichter hitting the Submit button exactly 5 seconds ahead of me ;) :] Of course you can already use the title attribute and/or the <acronym> tag to get this effect on mouseover. If you're wanting the onclick functionality that MXN describes, a little CSS plus JavaScript will take care of the problem handily, I think. :)
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MXN
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Post by MXN »

urichter wrote:The <<i></i>acronym title="..."> tag can be used for that: <acronym title="some useful explanation">like this</acronym>.


Well, the <code>acronym</code> tag was meant for acronyms, but I see what you mean. I was thinking of slightly longer definitions, though.

Would using the <code>popup</code> tag with text in it (rather than <code>menuitem</code>s in it) work?
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