Displaying abbreviations and legend - ideas needed

[itchyII]

Hi everyone,
I have a customer support website and I am trying to save space on a page that displays a table of information. One of the fields contains a type description which could be one of eight descriptions. Because it is repetitive, I was thinking to abbreviate the descriptions in this column. The user has a way to filter based on this column and in the drop down box, I display the full description. What are your opinions about abbreviating this and if I did, what would be the most effective way to inform the user of the abbreviation's meaning. I thought about some sort of legend but I'm not sure where to put it so that it is the most effective. I also thought about hover text but then thought that this could get annoying. Any ideas?

ItchyII
(-:

 

[YNOTU]

[tt]
I'm not sure if you're populating this table with data from a database or not but, if you are

Here are samples on how to display part of a recordset field.

<%=left(RS(&quot;comments&quot,20)&&quot;...&quot;%>

<%=right(RS(&quot;comments&quot,20)&&quot;...%>

<%=mid(RS(&quot;comments&quot,startingpoint,20)&&quot;...&quot;%>



**************************************************************************
This example shows how to use IF else if the field is greater than the value

<%=left(RS(&quot;Name&quot,40)%><%If Len(RS(&quot;Name&quot) > 40 Then Response.Write(&quot;...&quot%>
<%=left(RS(&quot;Description&quot,40)%><%If Len(RS(&quot;Description&quot) > 40 Then Response.Write(&quot;...&quot%>

**************************************************************************

 

[YNOTU]

[tt]You could then link the displayed text to the entire text in a child pop-up window.

 

[itchyII]

Hi DeCojute, thanks for the quick response but it is not exactly what I am looking for. I know how to get the abbreviations, I just don't know what the proper etiquette is to inform the user of the meaning of the abbreviation. A legend, some hover text....?

ItchyII
(-:

 

[YNOTU]

[tt]
try

http://www.bosrup.com/web/overlib/

http://www.dynamicdrive.com

also has different variations of it.

 

[ChrisHunt]

Try the <acronym> tag:
[tt]
<acronym title=&quot;World Wide Web&quot;>

http://WWW</acronym>

[/tt]
The [tt]title[/tt] appears as tooltip text when you point the mouse at it (you could use the <abbr> tag instead, but it doesn't work in IE >:-<). DeCojute's idea of a pop-up legend window is also a good one.

As to which is the &quot;right&quot; approach to take, that's something you have to decide for yourself based on how you want the site to look, who your users are, how easy the abbreviations are to decode, etc. There's no &quot;proper etiquette&quot; to follow.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk