Bug 2886

[randomling]

So I'm working on Bug 2886, and for most of it I have a working patch. (Back end, at least - and the front end looks like it will be fairly easy.)

I have one question on the spec here, which I wanted to open out to the wider community.

We're allowing title attributes (ie: hover text) for the user-defined links that show up in the sidebar. Showing them on links was, once I had much hand-holding through the codebase and figuring out what in hell I was doing, not that hard. However - that particular widget also allows users to define headings (by simply plugging in a title and no link).

It turns out it's a much harder problem to figure out how to allow hover text over the headings without breaking everything else, 'cause that refers to the way all the headings for the modules are printed, and hover text is (on most of them) an attribute that will never get used. So it's going to end up with passing a lot of empty strings back to the appropriate function, if I implement this.

So my question is: should I implement the possibility of hover text over headings? What do you guys think? Is that worth the time and effort and rejigging of the codebase to allow it?

It might perhaps be useful to have such an attribute available, should we decide to make more hover-text-related changes in the future.

Anyway - please let me know your thoughts.

(Also, I'm feeling anxious that I have been confusing or unclear. Do let me know if there's anything you need me to clarify or explain further.)

Comments

[roadrunnertwice]

Leaving aside how mobile browsers don't handle hover text: one generally doesn't hover over something looking for text unless there's an affordance for it, and the only affordances that suggest hovering are images, text with a dotted underline (how most browsers render the abbr tag), and links, in that order. Headers aren't on that list, and I don't think it's worth the effort to expose those potential title attributes. (In fact, it might be actively mischievous.)

[mark]

I don't see much call for hover text over things that don't really have then normally. It would be unexpected to hover over something that doesn't already have decoration (underline, image) and get text.

[matgb]

I see no point in titles for non-link headers. Given it's my suggestion and it never occured to me that someone might want that, don't sweat it. Links benefit from title text if it's used well, but titles don't have a use for them.

Also, when you're done LMK so I can write the FAQ entry, I keep meaning to start doing Docs stuff, might as well start with my own suggestion, right?

Thx for doing it BTW, it'll be something I'll use a fair bit.

[fu]

Agreed with everyone else that we don't need hover text over titles, just the links sounds perfect.