Is there a way to program an mouseover image that controls 2 divs [larger image AND a text description]

Question

the design calls for an image gallery with thumbnails for different characters and when u roll over a thumbnail a larger version of the image appears and in a div to the left with a header and description for each character also appears.

1) is there a way to have a rollover control both divs? (enlarged image and description)

and

2) how would i need to go about syncing this up with a cms?

thank you for reading :)

Answer 1

Yes, store information about the character in the id tag of the trigger element. Like say it is mickey mouse, id="mickey" maybe you are using prototype...

$$('.trigger').each(function (el) {el.observe('mouseover',showInfo.bind(el);});

Then the function showInfo shows the divs that have the larger image and info

function showInfo(ev) {
    // this refers to the element that has the mouse over, which has the descriptive id
    var infoContainerId = this.id+"_info";
    var imageContainerId = this.id+"_image";
    $(infoContainerId).show(); // showing the div id="mickey_info"
    $(imageContainerId).show(); // showing the div id="mickey_image"
}

Well.. just an example...

Answer 2

Try this for a start, not sure what cms you're using etc so nfi how to answer that part:

HTML:

<a class="info" href="" onclick="return false;">
  <img src="thumb.jpg"/>
  <span><img src="large.jpg" /><br />
   description goes here</span>
</a>

CSS:

a.info              {z-index:24; position:relative; color:#999; font-size:11px; text-transform:none; font-weight:normal; text-decoration:none; border:1px solid #999; padding-left:3px; padding-right:3px; margin:5px;}
a.info:hover        {z-index:25; text-decoration:none; color:#333; border-color:#333;}
a.info span         {display:none; position:absolute; top:15px; left:15px; width:240px; color:#000; font-size:12px; background-color:#fff; padding:2px; border:1px solid #333;}
a.info:hover span   {display:block;}

Answer 3

Using jQuery, this is untested but it would be something like this:

$('#myImageThumbnail').mouseenter(function(){

    //Set the description text
    $('#descriptionDiv').html('Insert character description here');

    //Enlarge the image
    $('#myImageThumbnail').attr('height','300');
    $('#myImageThumbnail').attr('width','200');
});

$('#myImageThumbnail').mouseleave(function(){

    //Remove the description text
    $('#descriptionDiv').html('');

    //Return image/thumbnail to original size
    $('#myImageThumbnail').attr('height','150');
    $('#myImageThumbnail').attr('width','100');
});

If you needed to pull dynamic info from a database for the description, simply look at the jQuery $.ajax function and set the description HTML to the returned value.