I need to change the cursor that displayed when I hover over an image button. This is easy to do if you want to use one of the pre-defined cursors.

However, I need to change the cursor to use one of my own. I understand that this can be done in HTML/Javascript using the url() function. However, I need to do this from C# (i.e. from the server side) and need to be able to change it many times in response to certain events.

At the moment I am using the following to change to one of the pre-defined cursors:-
    imgButton.Style["CURSOR"] = "crosshair";

and I need to do the equivalent of:-
    imgButton.Style["CURSOR"] = "url('<myURL>')";

...only that doesn't work!

Does anyone know if this can be done?

First of all: You can't change the cursor on the server. The cursor is rendered by the browser and the only way to change it is by changing the style (in a stylesheet or by javascript). Besides that: The cursor style property is not part of the CSS. Its only supported by IE and not by Netscape, Opera etc.
Finally, I can't think of a way to define your own cursor in IE. You have to use one of the cursors that Microsoft has provided.

Regards

Gerhard Wentink

Hmmm, I am afraid all of this isn't true.....

First of all, gp_mk *is* trying to change the cursor at the client, but through server-side code.

  imgButton.Style["CURSOR"] = "crosshair";

will add a style attribute to the image. That attribute ends up at the client. However, this will of course only take place after the page has loaded; not while the server is processing stuff.

Secondly, the cursor *is* a part of the W3 specs, CSS2: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/ui.html#propdef-cursor

Thirdly, most browsers understand the default stuff like crosshair, etc. I tested this on Opera, Firefox, Mozilla and Netscape and they all displayed crosshair for example with this code:

<p style="cursor:crosshair;">
Hello
</p>

or this code:

p
{
  cursor: crosshair;
}

However, support for the URL way of defining the cursor is not supported very well. From all browsers I tested, only IE seems to handle this well. I added code like this:

  Button1.Style["cursor"] = "url('/3dgnesw.cur'), crosshair";

and I ended up with the custom cursor (copied from Windows\Cursors to the root of my site) called 3dgnesw.cur.

On what browser did you test this? Is the cursor you are referring to available on your Web site? You can't use one of the cursors from the Cursors folder directly....

Cheers,

Imar
---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Imar is right as always. I bow my head



Gerhard Wentink

Thanks Imar,

It turns out there was a problem with the URL I was passing in for the cursor file. The following line now works fine when the "cross.cur" file is in the root of my web site:-

   btnImage.Style["CURSOR"] = "url('cross.cur')";

It's good to know this can be done, as I haven't seen any documentation anywhere for doing this from server-side code

Cheers,
Gary

Well, don't feel too bad about it. With the current inaccessibility of the W3C recommendations / documents, no one will blame you for not knowing about the cursor property ;)

If I am not mistaken, it used to be an IE only invention, and was later added to CSS level 2.

Cheers,

Imar
---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Thanks Imar; feeling a lot better now. I recently bought Eric Meyer's "CSS, The Definitive guide", only to find out that the second edition came out two weeks later. Bought this one too, but did not have the chance to read it, yet.

Regards,

Gerhard Wentink