The purpose of this plugin is to provide a means to prevent form SELECT boxes and other system controls (i.e., Flash content) from obscuring coolTips in IE version 5.5 and higher. If makes use of the change in the way that IE handles an IFRAME element starting with version 5.5. Previous versions of IE and Netscape 4.x, required that the user place these elements in a layer (i.e., a positioned DIV container), which is hidden when the coolTip appears above it and is reshown when the coolTip is hidden. It appears that these steps are not needed for either Opera 7 or Netscape 7+ for SELECT boxes. In Netscape 6+, only the SELECT scroll controls are not hidden and the procedure outlined here won't work.

To include support for this module just include the following statements in the HEAD section of your document:

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript" SRC="cCore.js"></SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript" SRC="cHideform.js"></SCRIPT>

You only have to make sure that the cHideform.js module is loaded after the core module.

Download this module as a zip file.

The mechanism works by using an IFRAME shim as explained in the article. The arrangement of this IFRAME shim and the actual coolTip content is illustrated schematically in Figure 1 below. This same approach was used for the Bubble and Shadow Plugins.

Figure 1. Schematic illustration of shim and popup content

There are no formal command parameters associated with this plugin because everything is handled automatically when this Plugin is loaded. Note that this module provides no support for Netscape 4.x, which doesn't understand the IFRAME element. To demonstrate how well it works, an example with a SELECT box that is covered by a coolTip is given below: