Most websites have some sort of space dedicated solely to displaying the 'Latest News'. In fact, this is so common, that most content management systems by default reserve a good chunk of landscape for exactly this purpose. But what if you're limited in screen space, or you just want to cut down on clutter? This article will describe an attractive way to tuck the news into one neat little scrolling box. Enjoy!
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” Ahh, the familiar tone of the latest news. Whether it's a personal or corporate website, it's always important to be able to prominently display the latest goings-on, in some eye-catching way. But of course, the more that happens to you or your company, the more news there is. Therefore more space is needed just for news items, and this can easily start to crowd out other important items on your home page.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could somehow compress the news, yet lose nothing? And all the while retaining the eye catchy-ness? (For instance, I feel the need to post a news release on my site expressing my delight at having just received a new purple mouse-stick pointer thingy on my laptop, and I don't want it to unnoticed!) Well, this article affirms that Louis Armstrong was right -- it is a wonderful world -- because we can do both of those things thanks to our good buddy JavaScript.
This article will show you how to first establish the initial position and style of our news box, and then the necessary JavaScript code to scroll it oh so beautifully.