Hoover button- using javascript to open two frames?

[Rob Gordon]

Hi,

I have a frame based portal at www.caltrade.com. I want to use hoover
buttons to replace some text links, but these use Javascript to open
two frames on a single click. For example, this code opens up a
document called "opportunities" in my main center frame (called
"main") and a second specialized menu in my menu frame (called
"contents) :

<a
target="contents"onClick="top.main.location='http://caltrade.com/opportunities.htm';"
href="http://caltrade.com/menutrade.htm"> Trade Leads</a></font>
</font>

Is there a way to change the hoover code below so that the hoover
button can open two frames?

<font style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight:700" face="Arial Narrow"
color="#000080">
<applet code="fphover.class" codebase="../" width="150" height="24">
<param name="color" value="#000080">
<param name="hovercolor" value="#0000FF">
<param name="target" value="main">
<param name="textcolor" value="#FFFF00">
<param name="effect" value="glow">
<param name="font" value="Dialog">
<param name="fontstyle" value="bold">
<param name="fontsize" value="14">
<param name="sound" valuetype="ref" value="../click.au">
<param name="hoversound" valuetype="ref" value="../beep.au">
<param name="text" value="TRADE LEADS">
<param name="url" valuetype="ref" value="opportunities.htm">
</applet></font></p>


Also, I have my index file for this menu in a directory called
"mainmenu" - does that make any difference? Is there a way to use
absolute references? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

RG

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

No, you can't change the behavior. Also, the hover buttons don't use
Javascript, they use Java. That's a totally different ballgame and something
you may want to consider ripping out. When hover buttons were introduced,
Java was going to be everywhere. The truth now is that hardly any computers
have a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) installed. A JVM is required to take the
Java byte-code and run it. Without it, Java applications and applets can't
be run. Users without a JVM will only see grey boxes where the hover buttons
are. Microsoft was actually forbidden to ship a JVM at the end of the Sun
lawsuit, a ruling which I think has backfired on Sun as that makes adoption
all the harder when you can't ship the thing you need to run a language with
an operating system. MS can't even offer a Java JVM through the Windows
Update system.

That said, you may want to look at Flash buttons, or a regular Image with a
rollover behavior (where a different version of the image is swapped in
place of the standard image when a mouse is moved over the image). The hover
buttons originally performed the same action as an image rollover, but the
browser market at the time had a lot of inconsistencies with dynamic HTML so
image rollovers could be tricky (and image rollovers require you to create
two copies of an image to do an effect which is more diffficult for a casual
user).

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

What is a *hoover* button?

 

[Rob Gordon]

Mark, thank you for an informative post- you saved me from a disaster.
Tom- hoover buttons are cool buttons you can put on your site that
look good and have cool features when you see them in Frontpage, but
apparently don't work in the real world.

Rob

 

[Trevor Lawrence]

Mark, thank you for an informative post- you saved me from a disaster.
Tom- hoover buttons are cool buttons you can put on your site that
look good and have cool features when you see them in Frontpage, but
apparently don't work in the real world.

I thought hoover buttons were buttons that were dropped on the carpet and
then vacuumed up

(In the UK, but not in Australia, "hoover' is a verb synonymous with
"vacuum")

 

[Andrew Murray]

Return of the phantom "Hoover" buttons!

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

I know what a *hover* button is, however, a *hoover* button is an entirely
different animal, which can be seen here:

http://0052102.netsolhost.com/images/Hoover_Logo.jpg

 

[Brian Mailman]

I thought hoover buttons were buttons that were dropped on the carpet and
then vacuumed up

Similar. They suck up bad code.

B/