jQuery toggle hover detection

Question

I have a button on my website that I'd like to use to toggle on and off a description box. So when the button is clicked, I want it to show an image preview when you hover over certain elements on the page, but when the button is deselected, it should not show any image previews.

I created a jQuery function and pass it a boolean based on whether the image preview window should or should not show. However, it seems like the hover function ( $(".node").hover(function(e)) is being called regardless of the boolean. What am I doing wrong?

$('.textIcon').click(function(){

        if(textCount %2 == 0){
                        // show preview images
            imagePreview("true");
            textCount++;
        }
        else{
            // hide preview images
            imagePreview("false");
            textCount++;
        }
    });

jQuery script:

<script> 
// create pop up preview box for each step when text labels are off
this.imagePreview = function(on){

    console.log("in imagePreview, on: " + on);  

    /* CONFIG */    
        xOffset = 50;
        yOffset = 140;

        // these 2 variable determine popup's distance from the cursor
        // you might want to adjust to get the right result

    /* END CONFIG */

    if(on=="true"){
        console.log("ON");
        $(".node").hover(function(e){
            console.log("node hover");
            // title of step
            this.t = $(this).data('title');
            this.title = "";
            // image url of step
            this.href = $(this).data('image');
            // show title + image for preview
            if(this.href != null){
                var c = (this.t != "") ? this.t + "<br>": "";
                $("body").append("<p id='preview'>" + c + "<img src='"+ this.href +"' alt='Image preview' style='margin-top:5px' />" +"</p>");  
            }
            // just show title for preview
            else{
                var c = (this.t != "") ? this.t : "";
                $("body").append("<p id='preview'>"+ c +"</p>");    
            }

            $("#preview")
                .css("top",(e.pageY - xOffset) + "px")
                .css("left",(e.pageX + yOffset) + "px")
                .fadeIn("fast");                        

        },
        function(){
            this.title = this.t;    
            $("#preview").remove();
        }); 

        $(".node").mousemove(function(e){
            var dotPosition = $(this).position();
            $("#preview")
                .css("top",(dotPosition.top + xOffset) + "px")
                .css("left",(dotPosition.left + yOffset) + "px");
        }); 
        }
};
</script>

Answer 1

You are assigning a function to the hover event everytime you call imagepreview() instead try assigning the hover event once and check inside if it should show previews or not.

Try something like:

var showOnHover = false; // determines behaviour

$('.textIcon').click(function(){ showOnHover = !showOnHover;  }); // change behaviour onclick

// we assign it once
$(".node").hover(function(e){
   // we look if we need to do something now
   if (showOnHover){
       // onHover activated
       // do your stuff
   }
   // else shouldn't show
});