[thelist] Advertising POP UPS

[Tim Luoma]

On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, { schaapy } wrote:

> AugustaChronicle.com's Classifieds page has this nice little script that

'nice' is clearly a relative term.... I'd have another word for it.... but
that's not the point. (*)

> shows the AD when you roll over the link. Without testing it much it only
> seems to work on IE 6.0 on a PC. Looks like crap on IE5/MAC.

Sounds like an 'onmouseover'

Unfortunately I couldn't get the URL you provided to work, so I can't tell
if Opera and Mozilla would squash it.

(*)
Eric Meyer has some good suggestions for css-d etiquette:
<blockquote
cite='http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/discuss/info.html#ask-answer'>
Tell the inquirer how to do what they ask.Do not berate or belittle them
for asking it. Follow up your answer with"...but here's something else to
consider" if you feel it important to do so, but only after you've
answered their question. (The classic case here being "How do I set the
font size of my page?")
</blockquote>

So, having suggested that you look at 'onmouseover' let me implore you to
not do this.  Advertizement as annoyance is not a long-term viable
solution.  It is disorienting for the user until they figure out what it
is, and once they figure out what it is, they won't like it.  People are
already starting to immediately close popups, even 'helpful' popups like
free shipping at Amazon.com.  Browser makers will find ways to stop it (if
they haven't already... like I said, Mozilla and Opera already have
options to stop unrequested windows on 'onload' and 'unload' and I'm not
sure if they work on 'onmouseover')

But think about it... someone is trying to click a link, and even before
they click on it, something opens...  something happens that they didn't
expect and not what they wanted.

It's like I tell my 'kids' (teenagers): "Just because you CAN doesn't mean
you SHOULD."  But in the end of course it's your decision.

TjL