Back in a simpler time (c. 1997) and space (Geocities pre-Yahoo!) cursor trails (see picture to right) were “cool” to have on your web page. Now (cc. 006) they’re vilified and it is suggested they might even be a trigger for epileptic seizures, brain hemorrhages and Adult Attention Deficit Disorders.
Removing my Snout Trails from Porkopolis in the fall of 2001 was probably the first step Porkopolis.org made towards Web Standards. And now in 2008, cursor trails seldom even work in modern browsers: as of 11/08, Opera, Chrome and Safari still really like them, Firefox thinks they’re OK, but IE7 doesn’t seen to like them much.
I still think they’re sort of cool, though, and so using the links below you can turn Snout Trails on by visiting another similar page and then turn them off again by coming back here to this page. Maybe your browser will set the Snouts free…
Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk. Brain hemorrhages are not a good user experience.
Here’s my original notice of removal. It was a sad day then as the Snout Trails were retired from the Porkopolis.org main page:
8/26/01 – Snout Trails
The set of six pig snouts following your cursor around on this page (if you can see them…) are what I call Snout Trails. These cursor trails have been on the main page of the Porkopolis web site for the last two years. They work with most versions of IE, Netscape and Opera, as well as some other browsers.
While the staff loves the Snout Trails, we have also had a few, er… polite complaints from visitors. Some could not access links on the main page with the snouts getting in the way, others thought the swirling snouts around their cursor were distracting.
I have finally conceded that the Snout Trails might not be the best way to welcome guests to Porkopolis.org. These beloved Snouts have had a good run, but now we are retiring them, sort of… Here is all the info if you want to play with ’em on one of your pages:
The java script comes from www.Dynamicdrive.com where there are a variety of such scripts and images in its “Mouse Trail Effects” archive. Compatible scripts for modern browsers are there and some are kept updated.
The snout images were lovingly crafted by me. Here is a ZIP file (7KB) with all six in “.gif” format for you to use. Enjoy!
And, because the snout is such a quintessential part of the pig, I can not abandon the Snout Trails completely. So just for fun I may occasionally have Snout Trails do an encore on some page or other in Porkopolis.org.