How do I create my own verion of Ask.com's Binoculars?

[veedee]

Hi all, I run a directory listing and I would like to create an effect similar to Ask.com's Binocular tool, which shows you a preview of the website when you hover over the search result.

You can see it in action here:

http://uk.ask.com/web?q=sitepoint&se...=0&o=312&l=dir

I would like to create my own version of this and I don't mind manually taking screengrabs of the site, I just want to know if there is a script out there to create the hover-over effect?

Thanks in advance.

[james_littler]

it could be done with javascript or by css, i've never made this kind of thing but it should be the same in principal, if your going to use css a horizontal flyout menu is what your after

[DaveWoods]

You might find this useful

http://www.snap.com/about/shots.php

It uses JavaScript but as it's enhancing the functionality I think it's perfectly acceptable and applies the screenshots dynamically so no need for you to go through and take screenshots.

If I remember rightly, there's a few settings you can define when setting up (similar to google ads) and then it generates the JavaScript to paste into your page.

Hope that's what you're after?