Simplest JQuery ToolTips

Well I think I may have developed the simplest tooltips possible using JQuery. Everything out there seemed too fancy and took too much space, so I just whipped up something super simple. All you need is the amazing JQuery library, this javascript method:

$(document).ready(function(){enableTooltips(verticalOffset, horizontalOffset)}) // Set these values how you like, I used 35, 0

function enableTooltips(topOffset, leftOffset)
{
$('[tooltipText]').bind(
{
mouseover: function() {
if ($('#tooltip').length == 0)
$('body').append('

')
var o = $(this).offset()
o.top += topOffset;o.left += leftOffset
$('#tooltip').css(o).html($(this).attr('tooltipText'))
.stop(true).animate({n:0},1000).fadeTo(300,1)
.animate({n:0},5000).fadeTo(500,0)
},
mouseout: function() {
$('#tooltip').stop(true).animate({nothing:0},500).fadeTo(500,0)
}
});
}

And some css like this:

#tooltip {
font:normal 12px Verdanna, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
position: absolute;
z-index: 1000;
border: 1px solid #111;
background-color: #eee;
padding: 2px;
opacity: 0;
filter:alpha(opacity=0);
}

On the items you want tooltips just put a tooltipText property like this:

<input type="submit" src="ButtonHome.gif" tooltiptext="Go to home">

and you win! JQuery is amazing!

The Apple Flash battle is similar to the USB and Floppy transition

Just a short note today as an iPhone user.

It is painful that Apple has booted Flash out of their phone, and as a user it causes me to suffer a bit, but I think change has to hurt. This is just Apple's thing. They like to force innovation to happen, which has made a crucial difference in consumer electronics and software over the years.

Intel invented USB, but could not get it implemented in Windows computers. I was very irritated when Apple tossed their PS2 like serial ports on all their machines but... I think it did have the needed effect of accelerating USB adoption.

They did the same thing with the floppy transition, when they dropped the drives from all their stuff. It was a bit painful for a while but thumb drives and writable CDs came along quickly and solved that.

Apple is irritating people with this, BUT it is absolutely having the effect of making HTML 5 a reality just as it did with USB, and the floppy. Even Microsoft has put very good support in IE 9. I don't think this would have happened nearly as quickly without the iPhone thing, and as a web engineer I appreciate the push.

I must keep my iPhone jailbroken thanks to stupid Apple limitations, but on most things I thank Apple for making me suffer for a bit. Without them we might still be using DOS.