How would I implement stackoverflow's hovering dialogs?

Question

I am in love with stackoverflow's single-color "click-to-close' hovering dialog boxes that greet a user when they try to vote and aren't logged in or use the site incorrectly. Any idea how and/or what technology Jeff used to implement these neat little devices?

EDIT: I'm specifically talking about the SQUARE dialog boxes that say "Click To Close" on them. I know how to implement the rectangular strip on the top of the screen.

Answer 1

You can use the jQuery library in conjunction with jQuery UI to create dialogs.

Answer 2

Although I was under the impression they used jQuery's UI Dialog for this, I am not too sure anymore. However, it is not too difficult to whip this up yourself. Try this code:

$('.showme').click(function() {
    $('.error-notification').remove();
    var $err = $('<div>').addClass('error-notification')
                         .html('<h2>Paolo is awesome</h2>(click on this box to close)')
                         .css('left', $(this).position().left);
    $(this).after($err);
    $err.fadeIn('fast');
});
$('.error-notification').live('click', function() {
    $(this).fadeOut('fast', function() { $(this).remove(); });
});

With these styles:

.error-notification {
    background-color:#AE0000;
    color:white;
    cursor:pointer;
    display: none;
    padding:15px;
    padding-top: 0;
    position:absolute;
    z-index:1;
    font-size: 100%;
}

.error-notification h2 {
    font-family:Trebuchet MS,Helvetica,sans-serif;
    font-size:140%;
    font-weight:bold;
    margin-bottom:7px;
}

And click here to see it in action.

However, I think you'd still need to tweak it a little bit to give it the right positions depending on the situation in which you are using it. I took care of this for the left position because it is working for the top, but I think there may be some situations in which it won't. All things considered, this should get you started. If you want a more robust implementation, you should check out jQuery BeautyTips which is really awesome and would make this trivial to implement.