IMG Pointer JS code mostly implemented
Example (valid only today I guess, since I continually edit that page to test whatever aspect I’m working on that day): See the homepage and there the first link to the test course. A static image of how the page looks like is here (184K, GIF).
What I did was this: During a running presentation one needs to point at certain areas occasionally. I created 6 image pointers, 2 basic types: one arrow pointer in four variations (directions) and one circular pointer in two variations. It is possible to show and move those pointers around on top of the presentation area. It is possible to use relative coordinates, relative to any given HTML object (as long as it has an ‘id’). I tested it all with FF 2.0 in Linux and Win XP and with MS IE 7 - the same browsers I test everything with. The current test page animates 4 pointers (in sequence, not all simultaneously). The video object events that later are going to control animation and the presentation have not yet been fully enabled, that is the next step after the basic animation functions are done. TODO with pointers: DIV based pointers to enable rectangles. There advantage: the size can be controlled by Javascript, e.g. to be the same (maybe plus some padding) as the object that is to be pointed out by that pointer. Image based pointers are fixed size, shape and color, obviously.
By now I’ve seen the MS IE 7 behavior described below more often, where it suddenly and without any reason changes the layout of an object although nothing on the page has changed. Below I saw it in a window UL-based drop menu object (for a millisecond it displays one LI on two lines and then immediately resizes it to a wider width and one line), but the above demo page showed the same behavior while the (absolute positioned and with higher z-index - i.e. not influencing the layout!) pointers where moving to the left of the left text box, the text box moved a little. Ergo: MS IE 7 still is significantly worse as a browser than Firefox. Even though users won’t notice, web designers looking for standard (compliant) behavior do!
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