I am working with tables consisting of 40 to 60 fields and in some cases 100-300 records. Because of the large number of columns I have to abbreviate the column headings. Therefore, I need a way to call up a more detailed description of the column headings. I can't find a simple way to to click on a column heading and then display a detailed description of that heading. That is, I need a relatively simple way to link to a rectangular-shaped box at the top of the database table that describes the particular column in detail.

In addition, I need to link to "PDF" files for each of the records in the database. How can I do that?

I have the WROX "HTML 4.01 Programmer's Reference," but I can't seem to "connect the dots" for the required information.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hi there,

Maybe you can use a tooltip (on Windows and other OSes, that's a yellow square box that appears when you hold your mouse over a specific element)?

In HTML, most (all??) elements have a title attribute that you can use:

<td title="This is a long description">Short Desc.</td>

Linking to a PDF is exactly the same as linking to other content:

<a href="YourFile.pdf">Download</a>

If you want to open the pdf in a new window, add a target="_blank" attribute:

<a href="YourFile.pdf" target="_blank">Download</a>


HtH,

Imar

if u've no problem fancy-ing with javascript, visit:
http://dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex5/dhtmltooltip.htm
http://dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex5/dhtmltooltip2.htm