Quick, easy, foolproof field level help - Article

Quick, easy, foolproof field level help 29 January 2001

Never mind all those fancy methods of offering users Field Level Help in the browser, try this quick and easy one.

In Internet Explorer you can set the "Title" HTML Attribute for the field and this will present the user with something similar to that below, when they hover the mouse over the input box:

To do this all you need to do is enter the following in to the HTML Attributes for any field...

To produce something like the field below. Try hovering your mouse over it.

Notes: May be an idea to let users know that this method of help is being used as people who tab between input boxes won't see it.

Feedback

- Roy Rumaner
- Mon 26 Nov 2001
Works well but only with text fields
This method works well, but it only works on text fields. If you have any other type of field (RTF, Keyword), nothing happens.

Reply
1. - George France
  - Thu 17 Jul 2003
  Re: Works well but NOT only with text fields also
  And Date fields And Check boxes And Numeric fields And Radio buttons And Rich Text
  GBF...
  
  Reply
  
  Show the rest of this thread
  1. - Sam
    - Mon 22 Mar 2004
    Re: Works well but NOT only with text fields also
    For those fields where this won't work, just add some passthru HTML before and after the field, like so:
    <span title="Can you see this?"> [field] </span>
    
    Reply
- Jorge Coelho
- Tue 16 Apr 2002
Print to the Status Bar
You can always print to the status bar using the code below on the mouseOver event for the field:
window.status="Can you see this?";
Nice thing about this is works in Notes, Netscape, and IE. That doesn't always happen. You can also clear the status bar using the onMouseOut event.

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Author: Jake Howlett
Category: Quick Tips
Keywords: input; help;

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