You know when you are scanning topics or new threads looking for something interesting, a little summary box appears and hovers around for a secound or two? I seem to only read a few words before it disappears, and then you have to move the cursor over again to make it come back. I know this is a bit "nit picky" but is there any way those little boxes can be made to stay around longer?

PK

It is annoying- I understand the sentiment

The vBulletin feature is called "thread preview" I think, and is implemented with the HTML title attribute, which usually causes text to be displayed in a small box when the cursor hovers. Unfortunately, it's your browser's choice for what to do with title text and how long to display it. Duration is not configurable as far as I know, but I don't tweak configurations much. I think Internet Explorer shows it for 5 seconds and I think I've seen that Firefox holds it up maybe 20.

__________________
0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0....

I find it not much annoying , or maybe I read fast , LOL.

Anyway, that's a good suggestion.

If you can keep the mouse pointer on the box, moving the pointer
around keeps the box alive.

As Zero-One said, the time is determined by the browser, and does
not appear to be configurable in Internet Explorer.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

Lately I've found FireFox holding it for extremely brief periods of time until the mouse moves a little, at which time it flashes on and off again. When it's doing this, it only stays for a fraction of a second. I suspect this is what the OP is referring to. It's annoying all right.

Edit: I just checked and it's behavin what I would call normally here at work right now. The little box pops up for about five seconds, which is long enough to read what's in it. I suspect the problem I'm seeing with the very brief flash of the box is happening at home, where I have a newer version of FireFox.

__________________
Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

Personally, I'd like a way to turn 'em off.

What I've seen.

Firefox at home, most recent update, holds a one-line box for 5 seconds or so. If I move the mouse or touch a key, the box disappears.

IE version 7 I think at the local community college, shows a multiple-line box for an unremembered length of time.

Fred

__________________
"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

Will just have to live with it I guess, or learn how to speed read...

Now, at home, the little box is staying on the screen for around five seconds. That's probably about right. I wish I could remember which computer was having the problem of displaying for a fraction of a second.

I did just get an upgrade of Firefox (to 2.0.0.9) as this session started, so perhaps they fixed something.

__________________
Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

Vbulletin could implement an AJAX style box to display the contents of the OP for an undetermined time lapse. It would be of much help. Being able to peek into the whole OP prior to entering the thread would be great.

__________________
"As truth is gathered, I rearrange,
Inside out, outside in - Perpetual change." - A British rock band

You may want to try the Opera browser. The "tool-tip"-like box stays open indefinitely for me.

It would be a good idea to dump Internet Explorer anyway. After many years, MS finally has a browser that can compete on features with Mozilla/Firefox/Opera, but it's still a giant security hole. I only use it when I have to visit one of those annoying sites that isn't web-standards compliant, and those are getting rarer and rarer as time passes.

For the truly paranoid about security, Opera would be a good bet, because its user-base is so miniscule, very few malcreants will take the time and effort to create an exploit targeting it. But from what I hear, Firefox has a big advantage in that it has several very useful plug-ins.