Develop Reference

clickable area of a button that scales down on click

I have an element which is acting as a button with a little Javascript and CSS. I'll strip it down to the most bare example, so you can see the problem. The issue originates from the fact that the element is scaled down when it's clicked. Javascript interprets the clickable area of the button as its scaled down size, not the original size. This occurs in all modern desktop browsers.
Here are the important parts. HTML:
<div id="refresh">more</div>
CSS:
#refresh {
background-color: #FFF;
cursor: pointer;
transition: all 150ms ease-out;
}
#refresh:active {
transform: scale(0.8);
}
JS:
var refreshBtn = document.getElementById("refresh");
function newImg() {
// updates an image elsewhere
}
// an event listener based on
// http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2005/10/_and_the_winner_1.html
addEvent(refreshBtn, 'click', newImg);
So my image gets updated when I click on the area occupied by the scaled down button, defined by transform: scale(0.8). If I click outside of that area, in the outer 20% of my button, my JS does not update the image. The proper click transitions occur and the cursor displays correctly as a pointer, but the JS does not count this area as part of the onclick event.
This was covered here, but I find the solution unappealing:
Non-clickable area on transforming anchor
The same solution is offered here:
increasing clickable area of a button
Here's the CSS I used as outlined in those answers:
#refresh:before {
position: absolute;
content: '';
top: -12%;
right: -12%;
left: -12%;
bottom: -12%;
}
These ensure that Javascript now recognizes a bigger clickable area instead of the scaled-down area, but in turn the pointer and the CSS hover effects now react to hovering and clicking well outside the original button element. I consider it an ugly solution. Surely someone else has run into this problem before. Are there any nicer solutions?
Update: Here is a jsfiddle of the situation I've explained: http://jsfiddle.net/cx9ur44e/4/

To solve the issue of the size, you would need to add the click even to a wrapper of the button that will keep the size even if the button is active.
<div id="wrapper>
<div id="refresh">more</div>
</div>

Hover over image, darken background only

I would like to be able to hover over an image and only the background itself to turn black (with opacity to control how much). I already have have an effect for the image itself when it's on hover, but I would like to add an effect where the background which is white to turn to a darker color. Being able to manipulate it later on with opacity and transition would be best, but I have not been able to find css3 or jquery code that works for this so far to get me to that point. Any help would be appreciated.
html
<div class="template_design2" style="margin-top:100px; margin-left:5px;"></div>
css
.template_design2 {
background-image:url(img/template_design2.jpg);
width:740px;
height:280px;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
float:left;
}
.template_design2:hover {
background-position:0 -280px;
}

You need to add a class to your <a>s that contain the background images, so you can target them.
You use .template_design:hover, so to target the first one (since it has no class, but you can use its ID to test it works quickly, then assign all <a>s inside .template_design a class so you can target them all at the same time):
.template_design:hover a#zapzonePoster { opacity: 0.5; }
Here's a fiddle showing how it works:
http://jsfiddle.net/v6aNY/
So once you know that's working, you could then assign a class so it would be more like:
.template_design:hover a.thumbnail { opacity: 0.5; }
... which will target all of them, so you only need one rule to govern it, instead of many.
Here's the same fiddle updated with a class of .thumbnail:
http://jsfiddle.net/v6aNY/1/

Trigger event during a css transition

I want to add a class / set a custom z-index during a css transition.
In my researches, I didn't find anything except webkitTransitionEnd which don't do the work.
I have an animated div on hover but if I hover multiple div, he go below the other, that's why I want to set a custom class during the transition (not during the hover).
Here is a jsfiddle (simplified for webkit)
and the problem in image
Edit: The real problem is when I hover a div, unhover, rehover, hover an other, so it's hard to do a simple timeout...

The problem is that when you "un-hover", the switch to the original z-index is happening instantaneously. So the rotating panel is no longer painted in front of its neighbours.
The easiest way to solve that is to make sure that the z-index value is being transitioned as well. It wasn't transitioning in your code as you had it, because z-index was being set on the parent div.panel but your transition functions were only applied to the child div.front and div.back.
This seems to work even when you switch between panels mid-transition:
http://jsfiddle.net/8Fvdb/1/
.panel{
transition: z-index 1s;
}
(Note that I've commented-out the z-index values on the individual panel faces for simplicity; it doesn't seem to change anything either way on Chrome, haven't tested elsewhere.)

I would give for granted that the CSS transition will succeed, and just remove the class after a timeout equal to the transition time:
with a transition of 2s:
.panel {
transition: opacity 2s;
}
set this timeout to remove the class after 2000 ms:
setTimeout(function(){
//you remove the class after the transition time
$('.panel').removeClass("transition-running");
},2000)
$('.panel')
//you add the class before changing the style
.addClass("transition-running")
.css("opacity","0.1");

Is it possible to give the cursor z-index?

I am guessing no, but it would be really sweet to be able to set the z-index of the cursor with CSS or Javascript.
Let's say you've got some buttons and you want to add a semi-transparent image on top of the buttons for effect. Or in my current case, some SVG paths that have hover and click actions. If I could set the button or SVG z-index to 0, my cursor's z-index to 1 and the image overlays z-index to 2, that would be pretty sweet! The mouse would be going under the overlay and still be able to click on the buttons. It would be even more spectacular to set the visual z-index (which layer the cursor appears to be), separate from the effective z-index (which layer the cursor actually is). So the cursor could appear to be on top of the overlay, but still be able to click on the buttons underneath.
I have my doubts, but I thought I would check if anyone has heard of someone doing this or something like it.

Since no answer has been accepted, I want offer the right answer.
The pointer-events: none is the solution.
See simple CSS example:
.emotion_message {
pointer-events: none;
background-color: rgb(144,238,144,0.5);
height: 20%;
width: 94%;
position: absolute;
top: 40%;
color: darkgreen;
padding: 1%;
text-align: center;
border-radius: 10px;
margin-left:3%;
margin-right:3%;
}
In this example, I wanted to display a chart, with a static summary box over the top, but I wanted the cursor to interact with the chart underneath. I also added opacity to the background-color, so the user can both see and interact with the submerged element (in this case the chart). Now the user sees the box, but the cursor does not.
Thanks #FabricioMatte for this answer in the comments.

You can play with the cursor:none;
See a related Q: Is it possible to put the mouse cursor behind an element or does the mouse cursor have an z-index?

There is no such thing as a cursor z-index.. what you can do is have a jQuery hover function that gets the object that the cursor is hovering over, which in return allows you to find the objects z-index. So really instead of wanting a cursor to have z-indexes, just have hover states.
Then have custom cursors depending on location. Which as everyone is saying cursor:none would be fun to play with for this. Say you want to go under a alpha block, you could just render a cursor under that alpha block to get the effect of the cursor being under it.

Why does changing style via JavaScript gets affected by CSS transition

I am simply changing changing the color and background-color of a button when I click on it.
<input type="button" value="click me" id="myButton" onclick="ChangeColor()"/>
The CSS of this button contains CSS transition for the color and background-color, however, on the :hover pseudo-element I didn't add any styles, I didn't change the color.
#myButton{
color:#3399FF;
background-color:#FFFFFF;
/* These transitions are supposed to change the color in case I hover over the button */
-webkit-transition: background 0.5s,color 0.5s;
-moz-transition: background 0.5s,color 0.5s;
transition: background 0.5s,color 0.5s;
}
#myButton:hover{
/* But since there's nothing here, the color won't change when I hover */
}
Now, when I change the styles via JavaScript, they change while using the transitions, means, the colors will change after 0.5s, and not instantly.
function ChangeColor()
{
document.getElementById("myButton").style.color = "#FFFFFF";
document.getElementById("myButton").style.backgroundColor = "#3399FF";
}
This is a really good thing, and I like it, but I'm just wondering, how does JavaScript respect CSS3 transitions? Is there any documentation for this?

Your transitions are applied whenever the value of the property is changed. It doesn't matter whether you change it on hover, focus, resize (with a media query for example), click or any other event via JavaScript.
In general, you have a transition between two states of the element. You first define the initial state:
#myButton {
color: #39f;
background: #fff;
transition: .5s;
}
When you change the value of either of those two properties (and it doesn't matter whether you do this using the :hover pseudo-class or JavaScript), your element will go into another state and you are going to have a transition between the values of the properties from the initial state and those from this new state.

The method you're using to change the style with JavaScript is essentially a way of manually changing the style attribute directly on the element itself. Any time the style changes to something else and you have a transition defined for it, that transition will activate to change to the new style. That includes changes that JavaScript makes to the styles.