Question

I have an html td element with text inside. I want it so you can hover over that element, and display a textbox on top of the active page/element explaining what that td tag’s content means. Some kind of elaboration. Like the <abbr> tag.

Can this be done in CSS or Javascript?

Answer 1

This is possible with CSS, also with javascript. Create a table with an element:

<table>
<tr><td>
    <a href="#">Info
        <div class="tooltipcontainer">
            <div class="tooltip">Here some info</div>
        </div>
    </a>
</td></tr>
</table>

CSS:

/* Container is necessary because td cannot be positioned relative */
td .tooltipcontainer {
    position: relative;
}
td .tooltip {
    display: none;
    position: absolute;
    /* More positioning, heigh, width, etc */
}
td a:hover .tooltip {
    display: block;
}

When you hover over ‘Info’ it will show the text in the div with class=’tooltip’. JavaScript (for example any jQuery tooltip plugin) has solutions with more options.