Pop ups while mouse hovering over images, etc.

[Dan]

FF 7. Whenever I mouse over a pic, link, dialogue box, etc., on a web
page, a popup window appears to "describe" the item, typically just
repeating what is already there on the page with the item in question.
I find this distracting and annoying. Any way to turn this off? I also
would like to remove the bar at the bottom left of the page which shows
the URL of any link hovered over. Can this be killed, as well?

TIA

Dan

[Thomas Boehm]

Dan wrote:
> FF 7. Whenever I mouse over a pic, link, dialogue box, etc., on a web
> page, a popup window appears to "describe" the item, typically just
> repeating what is already there on the page with the item in question. I
> find this distracting and annoying. Any way to turn this off?

Where does this happen, on every page? If not, what page?

I guess this page uses the <title> attribute for images and FF behaves
as it should.

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_standard_title.asp

Or the page uses Javascript to display these tooltips. So either disable
JS or don't visit that page.

> I also would like to remove the bar at the bottom left of the page
> which shows the URL of any link hovered over. Can this be killed, as
> well?

I wouldn't turn that off. Very often it's the only way to see where a
link takes you. I installed the Sataus-4-Evar Addon to get my old status
bar back.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/

HTH
Thomas

[Dan]

On 2/28/2012 2:54 PM, Thomas Boehm wrote:
>
>
> Where does this happen, on every page? If not, what page?
>
> I guess this page uses the<title> attribute for images and FF behaves
> as it should.
>
> http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_standard_title.asp
>

Most pages seem to do it to one degree or another. A particularly
blatant example is http://www.pollaro.com/welcome.php I know it's a
"tool tip", but most of the time it adds absolutely nothing to the
viewing of the page from a user's experience, it just blocks surrounding
information.

>
> I wouldn't turn that off. Very often it's the only way to see where a
> link takes you. I installed the Sataus-4-Evar Addon to get my old status
> bar back.
>
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/

I'll check out the addon. I understand about the desirability of seeing
a URL prior to clicking it. In cases where I want to know this, in the
past, I would simply right click the link & select "copy link location",
then paste this into the navigation bar to view before going to that
link. Easy.

Making info like this available is fine, have it appear on a right
click, but don't have what 99% of the time is redundant or unnecessary
info just appear by default, covering the page the user is trying to
view. I just generally HATE pop ups. I'm trying to SEE something, get
outta my face! Another especially dumb example is seen when doing a
search on a page. Go to a page, click ctrl/F, and enter a search term.
Often, you want to run through the page looking for each occurrence of
that term, one at a time, so you put your pointer on "Next". But
apparently, FF thinks you're so stupid, it has to give a pop up for the
mouseover of the word "Next" in the search bar saying "Find the next
occurrence of the phrase". Really? is that what "next" means??? Even
dumber, "Find" positions the "found" term on the very bottom line of the
displayed page, and the "Find the next occurrence of the phrase" pop up
BLOCKS IT if it's on that side of the page!

Thanks for the reply.

[Dave Pyles]

Disable Tooltips:
In about:config filter on browser.chrome.toolbar_tips and double-click
to toggle it to false
This will disable all the tooltips in the browser including those on
your toolbar icons, if you can live with that.
Dave Pyles

[Dan]

On 2/28/2012 4:48 PM, Dave Pyles wrote:

> Disable Tooltips:
> In about:config filter on browser.chrome.toolbar_tips and double-click
> to toggle it to false
> This will disable all the tooltips in the browser including those on
> your toolbar icons, if you can live with that.
> Dave Pyles

Dave - Still shows the URL thing, but it killed all the tooltips, which
were the worst part. Much better, thanks!

Dan

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Dan wrote:

> Most pages seem to do it to one degree or another. A particularly
> blatant example is http://www.pollaro.com/welcome.php I know it's a
> "tool tip", but most of the time it adds absolutely nothing to the
> viewing of the page from a user's experience, it just blocks surrounding
> information.

That one is most particularly annoying. It covers the entire *page* and
is way out of bounds for the particular usage of the title attribute.

<div id="main" title="pollaro furniture, pollaro custom furniture,
furniture, custom furniture, custom made furniture, handmade furniture,
hand crafted furniture, art deco, art deco furniture, steinway, steinway
piano, steinway pianos, ruhlmann, museum quality furniture, antique,
antiques, antique restoration, riesener, phyfe, biedermeier, dining room
table, dining room furniture, chairs, club chairs">

Normal usage should only be a couple of words, say to describe an image.

--
-bts
-This space for rent, but the price is high

[Thomas Boehm]

Dan wrote:
> Most pages seem to do it to one degree or another. A particularly
> blatant example is http://www.pollaro.com/welcome.php I know it's a
> "tool tip", but most of the time it adds absolutely nothing to the
> viewing of the page from a user's experience, it just blocks surrounding
> information.

It's the "web designer's" fault, not Firefox's. It's a very bad example
of misusing the title attribute for keyword stuffing[1] and might harm
the ranking of that website. I wonder if they have their shop window
plastered with these keywords too...

If it annoys you, vote with your wallet and don't shop there. You
wouldn't buy something from a spam email, would you?


______________
[1] http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66358

[Keith Nuttle]

Will changing this attribute get rid of the pop up that tells me that
the meaning of winter or a square is a four side figure? Examples, but
the real things are equally stupid,

These things are especially a problem on some news sites and such. I
find them annoying, never reading them as I spend most of the time they
are up trying to get rid of them. Some times they are so difficult to
get rid of that I just leave the site.

Yes, I have block popup checked.

[Nemo]

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:09:04 -0500, Keith Nuttle wrote:

...

> Will changing this attribute get rid of the pop up that tells me that
> the meaning of winter or a square is a four side figure? Examples, but
> the real things are equally stupid,
>
> These things are especially a problem on some news sites and such. I
> find them annoying, never reading them as I spend most of the time they
> are up trying to get rid of them. Some times they are so difficult to
> get rid of that I just leave the site.
>
> Yes, I have block popup checked.

Since you haven't given a link illustrating your problem, I'm guessing
what you're talking about is caused by something called "IntelliTXT" (h t
t p : / / e n .wikipedia.org/wiki/IntelliTXT). kona.kontera.com and
infolinks.com may be other sources for the things that you are seeing.

[Thomas Boehm]

Nemo wrote:

> Since you haven't given a link illustrating your problem, I'm guessing
> what you're talking about is caused by something called "IntelliTXT" (h t
> t p : / / e n .wikipedia.org/wiki/IntelliTXT). kona.kontera.com and
> infolinks.com may be other sources for the things that you are seeing.

This is another annoyance on the web. Adblock+ takes care if that :-)

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Keith Nuttle wrote:

> Will changing this attribute get rid of the pop up that tells me that
> the meaning of winter or a square is a four side figure? Examples, but
> the real things are equally stupid,

If you meant Dave's advice of:

Disable Tooltips:
In about:config filter on browser.chrome.toolbar_tips and double-click to
toggle it to false

Yes, changing (eliminating) that title attribute will remove the tooltip,
but that will elimiate them from all your browsing experience. Sometimes
they are worthwhile - when used properly.

> These things are especially a problem on some news sites and such. I
> find them annoying, never reading them as I spend most of the time they
> are up trying to get rid of them. Some times they are so difficult to
> get rid of that I just leave the site.

I sent an email to that pollaro.com site. I politely asked the webmaster
to consider removing his keyword-spamming tooltip from all the pages.

> Yes, I have block popup checked.

A tooltip is not a "popup." Popups are generally separate windows; a
tooltip is presented within the current window.

[Chris Ilias]

On 12-02-29 6:50 AM, _Thomas Boehm_ spoke thusly:

> Dan wrote:
>> Most pages seem to do it to one degree or another. A particularly
>> blatant example is http://www.pollaro.com/welcome.php I know it's a
>> "tool tip", but most of the time it adds absolutely nothing to the
>> viewing of the page from a user's experience, it just blocks surrounding
>> information.
>
> It's the "web designer's" fault, not Firefox's.

I don't think anyone was looking for blame. This seems to be more a
matter of opinion. Dan doesn't like tooltips; big deal. That's why we
have preference settings. :) Just help him get what he wants and move
on. Don't try to turn it into something it isn't.

--
Chris Ilias <http://ilias.ca>
Mailing list/Newsgroup moderator

[Axel Grude]

actually, only unnecessary tooltips (with lots of unnecessary buzzwords), more to the
point. They didn't add any value to the user, but were inserted in a misguided attempt
to raise search engine ratings. And likely achieved the opposite.