The Images

These are the same images used in Snook’s article.

The XHTML

<h2>Example 0: No Script</h2>
<ul id="noscript">
	<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">About</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

<h2>Example A: Top down</h2>
<ul id="a">
	<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">About</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

<h2>Example B: Right left</h2>
<ul id="b">
	<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">About</a></li>
	<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

Three menus. The first will be a simple CSS-only mouseover, the other two will be varying MooTools versions.

The CSS

ul { list-style:none; margin:0; padding:0; }
li { float:left; width:100px; margin:0; padding:0; text-align:center; }
li a { display:block; padding:5px 10px; height:100%; color:#fff; text-decoration:none; border-right:1px solid #fff; }
li a { background:url(snook-animation-bg2.jpg) repeat 0 0; }
a:hover, a:focus, a:active { background-position:-150px 0; }
#a a { background:url(snook-animation-bg.jpg) repeat; background-position:-20px 35px; }
#b a { background:url(snook-animation-bg2.jpg) repeat; background-position:0 0; }

Nothing too notable here.

The MooTools JavaScript

window.addEvent('domready', function() {
	/* example a:  top down */
	$$('#a a').each(function(el) {
		//fx
		var fx = new Fx.Tween(el,{
			duration: 500,
			link: 'cancel'
		});

		//css & events
		el.setStyle('background-position','-20px 35px').addEvents({
			'mouseenter': function(e) {
				e.stop();
				fx.start('background-position','-20px 94px');
			},
			'mouseleave': function(e) {
				e.stop();
				fx.start('background-position','-20px 35px');
			}
		});
	});

	/* example b:  right left */
	$$('#b a').each(function(el) {
		//css
		var reset = false;
		var fx = new Fx.Tween(el,{
			duration: 500,
			link: 'cancel',
			onComplete:function() {
				if(reset) {
					el.setStyle('background-position','0 0');
				}
			}
		});
		//events
		el.setStyle('background-position','0 0').addEvents({
			'mouseenter': function(e) {
				e.stop();
				fx.start('background-position','-150px 0');
				reset = false;
			},
			'mouseleave': function(e) {
				reset = true;
				fx.start('background-position','-300px 0');
			}
		});
	});

});

When you mouseover the last two navigation menu links, the background image animates from one spot to another creating a flash-like effect.

Related posts:

1. Easy to Use Safari Style jQuery Slider Plugin
2. Create a Professional Web 2.0 Layout
3. Create Your Own ActionScript 3.0 Pixel Explosion Effect

My solution relies on CSS Sprites and a few lines of jQuery, but requires a bit of preparation before it can be implemented. It is not recommended for large scale projects and probably best for displaying portfolio pieces.

Wireframe – HTML

First set up an unordered list which we will use as our foundation for the list
of gallery images.

<ul>
	<li>
		<a href="#"><span><img src="image.gif" alt="" /></span></a>
		<h2><a href="#">Image Name</a></h2>
	</li>
</ul>

You will notice that each list will contain an image which is nested within a <span> tag. The <span> tag will be used to crop the image to only show its default state. Take a look at the image below to get a visual.

Styling – CSS

We will style this up as a typical gallery. Only thing unique about the below CSS is that we have the <span> to crop our image as we demonstrated in the above example.

ul.gallery {
	width: 708px; /*--Adjust width according to your scenario--*/
	list-style: none;
	margin: 0; padding: 0;
}
ul.gallery li {
	float: left;
	margin: 10px; padding: 0;
	text-align: center;
	border: 1px solid #ccc;
	-moz-border-radius: 3px; /*--CSS3 Rounded Corners--*/
	-khtml-border-radius: 3px; /*--CSS3 Rounded Corners--*/
	-webkit-border-radius: 3px; /*--CSS3 Rounded Corners--*/
	display: inline; /*--Gimp Fix aka IE6 Fix - Fixes double margin bug--*/
}
ul.gallery li a.thumb {
	width: 204px; /*--Width of image--*/
	height: 182px; /*--Height of image--*/
	padding: 5px;
	border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;
	cursor: pointer;
}
ul.gallery li span { /*--Used to crop image--*/
	width: 204px;
	height: 182px;
	overflow: hidden;
	display: block;
}
ul.gallery li a.thumb:hover {
	background: #333; /*--Hover effect for browser with js turned off--*/
}
ul.gallery li h2 {
	font-size: 1em;
	font-weight: normal;
	text-transform: uppercase;
	margin: 0; padding: 10px;
	background: #f0f0f0;
	border-top: 1px solid #fff; /*--Subtle bevel effect--*/
}
ul.gallery li a {text-decoration: none; color: #777; display: block;}

Step 3. Animation – jQuery

For those who are not familiar with jQuery, do check out their site first and get an overview of how it works. I’ve shared a few tricks that I have picked up along the way, you can check those out as well.

Initial Step – Call the jQuery file

You can choose to download the file from the jQuery site, or you can use this one hosted on Google.

<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3/jquery.min.js"></script>

The logic here will be to fade out the default thumbnail, and set a background image on the <a> tag. Using CSS Sprites, we will position the image to the ‘bottom’ so the greyscaled thumbnail can seep through on hover over.

The following script contains comments explaining which jQuery actions are being performed.

jQuery

$(document).ready(function() {

	$("ul.gallery li").hover(function() { //On hover...

		var thumbOver = $(this).find("img").attr("src"); //Get image url and assign it to 'thumbOver'

		//Set a background image(thumbOver) on the <a> tag - Set position to bottom
		$(this).find("a.thumb").css({'background' : 'url(' + thumbOver + ') no-repeat center bottom'});

		//Animate the image to 0 opacity (fade it out)
		$(this).find("span").stop().fadeTo('normal', 0 , function() {
			$(this).hide() //Hide the image after fade
		});
	} , function() { //on hover out...
		//Fade the image to full opacity
		$(this).find("span").stop().fadeTo('normal', 1).show();
	});

});

Conclusion

I’m sure there are various ways of achieving this technique. I decided to use CSS Sprites technique to prevent glitching on the initial hover over. If anyone has a better solution, have questions, or suggestions, please feel free to let me know!

Related posts:

1. Simple Page Peel Effect with jQuery & CSS
2. Easy to Use Safari Style jQuery Slider Plugin
3. jQuery.popeye – an inline lightbox alternative

In the beginning, there was nothing. And the Developer said: “Let there be pop-ups!” And the Users saw that pop-ups were bad…

Then came Lightbox. Finally, an unobtrusive script allowed to display enlarged versions of thumbnail images embedded in web pages without leaving that web page or breaking the layout. The “simple” solution was to add a semi-transparent overlay to the page, on which the enlarged image is centered.

Since then, we’ve seen a ton of similar scripts used on an ever-increasing number of websites.

While at first, I, like everyone else, was really enthusiastic about this technique, I have come to see some of the downsides of a lightbox-ish image presentation:

• Lightboxes are usually not consistent with the look & feel of the rest of the website, and
• they still feel like a kind of pop-up, since the image leaves the layer of the web page and opens up a new layer.

Besides – I’m getting tired of seeing the same effect, the same UI controls over and over…

So, while working on a client project in which I at first used a jQuery Lightbox plugin, I ended up dissatisfied with the outcome. I had gone through great length to stir up a consistent look & feel, just to see it vanish under the lightbox overlay.

I wanted something more integrated in the flow of the web page – a box with a small preview image with caption, the possibility to flip through an array of more thumbnails and, of course, to show an enlarged version, all in one place. Lightbox offers that. Moreover, I wanted the box to stay anchored to the page layout and not hovering above it disconnectedly. The way to achieve this was writing a script which would fix one corner of the enlarged image to the exact spot where the thumbnail had been.

After toying around for a while, I decided to put the final outcome into a proper jQuery plugin and see, what other people (you!) think. May jQuery.popeye be of use!

Behavior

The plugin transforms an unoredered list of images into a box displaying only one preview image at a time. The box has controls to skim through the preview images and to enlarge a given image. The box expands to accomodate the enlarged version, while the controls are hidden in full image size mode. A simple click on the image returns the box to its compact state.

The compact box has fixed, automatically calculated dimensions. The widht and height are calculated so that all thumbnail images are cropped to the smallest width and height in the set and centered resulting image area (stage).

This behaviour can be overriden in the plugin options.

I have set up a demo page which best shows the behavior of jQuery.popeye.

Usage

jQuery.popeye degrades gracefully into a scrollable list of thumbnails which link to an enlarged version. The HTML-setup should look like this:

Once the plugin has been included in your web page, the popeye(es) can be easily created with the following command:

$(document).ready(function () {
	$('.popeye').popeye();
});

Of course, multiple popeyees can be used together on a single page.

Customization

jQuery.popeye supports a wide range of options. They are, in detail:

Update: These are the options for jQuery.popeye 0.2. The options for the latest version have changed!

To overwrite the default parameters, you can use the following code:

var options = {
	direction:  'right',
	duration:   230,
	stageW:     '200px',
	stageH:     '240px'
}
$('.popeye').popeye(options);

The plugin comes with the mandatory css-file jquery.popeye.css which shouldn’t be altered. Additionally, I have included a second, customizable CSS-file with an example style for you to build upon.

I repeat…

• Get the latest version of jQuery,
• (optional) get the jQuery Easing Plugin,
• see it in action on the demo page,
• get the plugin:

Download jQuery.popeye
from the jQuery Plugin Repository

Considerations

There are still some issues with the first release of jQuery.popeye which I hope to resolve in future versions. They mainly concern the size of the enlarged box (the whole image should stay visible) and the gallery controls (will introduce proper controls to enlarged box).

But for now, your feedback, bug reports, improvements and feature requests are very welcome in the comment section.

“I yam what I yam!” — Popeye

Update March 2009

A new version of jQuery.popeye has been released, addressing many of the below mentioned bugs and featuring a better user interface and interaction behaviour.

Related posts:

1. Easy to Use Safari Style jQuery Slider Plugin
2. Fancy Javascript Popup Library with jQuery UI
3. Lightbox + PhotoNav = LightNav

1. HTML – Page Peel Wireframe

The “pageflip” div will act as the container, mainly used to establish the relative positioning. Then nest the image and the span class of “msg_block” wrapped in an <a> tag. Note – If you don’t have any conflicting absolute/relative positioning properties, you technically don’t need the “pageflip” container at all.

<div id="pageflip">
	<a href="#">
		<img src="page_flip.png" alt="" />
		<span>Subscribe via RSS</span>
	</a>
</div>

2. CSS – Page Peel Styles

Set the image property to a smaller size (50px by 50px) by default and set the absolute positioning to be in the top right corner. The image will be used similar to the “masking” technique in Photoshop or Flash, where it will be placed on top of the hidden message, so only a portion of the message will be shown. Check out the image below for a visual:

The actual message behind the “peeling” effect, is all within the “msg_block” class. By default, it will start at 50px by 50px, positioned on the top right corner of the page. The text-indent will shoot the text off of the page for anyone with CSS enabled.

#pageflip {
	position: relative;
}
#pageflip img {
	width: 50px; height: 52px;
	z-index: 99;
	position: absolute;
	right: 0; top: 0;
	-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;
}
#pageflip .msg_block {
	width: 50px; height: 50px;
	position: absolute;
	z-index: 50;
	right: 0; top: 0;
	background: url(subscribe.png) no-repeat right top;
	text-indent: -9999px;
}

Note that the “msg_block” height is off by 2px compared to the image property – this is taking in consideration of the drop shadow that the image has.

3. jQuery – Animating Page Peel

All we are doing here is expanding the image and msg_block on hover, then retracting to its default size on hover out.

$("#pageflip").hover(function() { //On hover...
	$("#pageflip img , .msg_block").stop()
		.animate({ //Animate and expand the image and the msg_block (Width + height)
			width: '307px',
			height: '319px'
		}, 500);
	} , function() {
	$("#pageflip img").stop() //On hover out, go back to original size 50x52
		.animate({
			width: '50px',
			height: '52px'
		}, 220);
	$(".msg_block").stop() //On hover out, go back to original size 50x50
		.animate({
			width: '50px',
			height: '50px'
		}, 200); //Note this one retracts a bit faster (to prevent glitching in IE)
});

Conclusion

The concept is very simple and may come in handy one day. If you have any questions or know of other techniques, please don’t hesitate to let me know~

Related posts:

1. Greyscale Hover Effect w/ CSS & jQuery
2. Easy to Use Safari Style jQuery Slider Plugin
3. Build a Simple Website Template Using SWFAddress

We love Mac, we love Fish Eye Menu. The idea behind a fisheye control is a strip of icons, being vertical or horizontally laid out that reacts to the user’s mouse as it approaches the icon. Here is a list of Nice Fish Eye Menu for you to dowload and use it in your web application.

CSS Dock Menu

Fish Eye Menu for Prototypejs

Fish Eye Menu for Mootools

DHTML Fish Eye Menu for Text

Fish Eye Menu Tutorial

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1. Ajax.org – Open Source Application Platform for RIAs
2. The Monster List of Freelance Job Sites – 2009 Update
3. Create Snook-Style Navigation Using MooTools