In web page design, what do you call the little window that pops up when you put your cursor over something?

Question

I am only asking the name of this concept....I know it's complicated to actually create. I'm trying to design a web page and I want to add the little windows that pop up to give you more info about something on the page...like on netflix.com, where you put your browser over a movie title and it's full summary pops up in a little window, but it's not flash and it doesn't actually open a pop-up or anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated....I only need to know the name of this concept so that I can learn more. Thanks so much!!!!

Answer 1

It's often called a "tooltip." While there are more complex implementations using CSS, there's actually a very simple way to accomplish it that works in most browsers. Just add a "title" property to your tag. You can do this for a link, a button, or an image, among others. Here's an example for a link:

Some text

This will render as "Some text" with a link to somwebpage.com. When the user hovers over the link, a tooltip will pop up that says "Here's where the tooltip text goes."

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Whilst it is not a full window that you are talking about it is still a pop-up.

I would call it a
pop-up text layer
because it will probably be created using a div tag.

Answer 3

You must add the "title" tag to a text link and if it's an image you add the "alt" tag. So within your text link you would put:



With an image you'd use the following:



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I hope this helps.