Looking for info on a mouseover "crosshair" image

Or something that looks similar. The small image I'm thinking of stays in
view - it remains at the same place on the screen - usually on the right
side bottom - and does not scroll with the page contents. On mouseover, the
image changes to reveal a short text, such as: "Click here to send message."
or another message.

Now I'd like to know how to design an item similar to it, but I don't know
what kind of code I'm looking for. I don't know if this is made with
Macromedia's Flash or a dhtml code - or - does anyone know?

I'd appreciate any advice . . .
Thanks in advance,
Gloria

Claude wrote:

Or something that looks similar. The small image I'm thinking of stays in
view - it remains at the same place on the screen - usually on the right
side bottom - and does not scroll with the page contents. On mouseover, the
image changes to reveal a short text, such as: "Click here to send message."
or another message.

So how does the user know what it does without mousing over it?
What about users with text browsers - what will they see?
If the user doesn't have a mouse, what does "click here" mean?

Why not a recognizable icon like an envelope with a small "contact" text
subtitle?

Now I'd like to know how to design an item similar to it, but I don't know
what kind of code I'm looking for. I don't know if this is made with
Macromedia's Flash or a dhtml code - or - does anyone know?

I'd suggest a separate <div> using CSS position: fixed;. IE won't
support it without some hackery, which may be a problem for you.

Flash would make the page unnecessarily heavy, and DHTML can get very
messy to support all browsers properly.

Take a look at my site using Mozilla or Firefox. I use fixed positioning
for my menu and header bar: you'll need to find a long enough page to
scroll to see the effect. As I said, it won't work in IE.

http://tranchant.plus.com/

Degrades nicely into scrolling content on non-supporting browsers and
plain text suitably ordered in the source for text browsers.

--
Mark.

Thanks Mark: I appreciate your comments, and you're right - the mouseover
I'm looking for is not W3C compliant. But that is because this particular
website does not need or want that distinction ... However, I do like your
idea of an envelope - and I'm going to play with that. Your website now, on
the other hand, is easy on the eyes and nicely developed. It is a pleasure
to visit ...

Thanks again for your help . . .
Gloria


"Mark Tranchant" <mark (AT) tranchant (DOT) plus.com> wrote

Claude wrote:

Or something that looks similar. The small image I'm thinking of stays
in
view - it remains at the same place on the screen - usually on the right
side bottom - and does not scroll with the page contents. On mouseover,
the
image changes to reveal a short text, such as: "Click here to send
message."
or another message.

So how does the user know what it does without mousing over it?
What about users with text browsers - what will they see?
If the user doesn't have a mouse, what does "click here" mean?

Why not a recognizable icon like an envelope with a small "contact" text
subtitle?

Now I'd like to know how to design an item similar to it, but I don't
know
what kind of code I'm looking for. I don't know if this is made with
Macromedia's Flash or a dhtml code - or - does anyone know?

I'd suggest a separate <div> using CSS position: fixed;. IE won't
support it without some hackery, which may be a problem for you.

Flash would make the page unnecessarily heavy, and DHTML can get very
messy to support all browsers properly.

Take a look at my site using Mozilla or Firefox. I use fixed positioning
for my menu and header bar: you'll need to find a long enough page to
scroll to see the effect. As I said, it won't work in IE.

http://tranchant.plus.com/

Degrades nicely into scrolling content on non-supporting browsers and
plain text suitably ordered in the source for text browsers.

--
Mark.