scripting in css with some creativity

There's no offset property in CSS. with jQuery.css(propertyName) you can only access properties that exist. Everything else will return null.

for example:

jQuery.css('myImaginativePropertyname'); // returns null
jQuery.css('border'); // would return '0px none rgb(0, 0, 0)'

However

You can access the event.target (DOM element) like this:

jQuery('.get-close-to').hover(function(e) {
    var elem = e.target;
    alert( 'Left: ' + elem.offsetLeft + '\nTop: ' + elem.offsetTop );
}, function(e){});

I added the second function so that the code won't be executed twice. If you have only single function as input on jQuery.hover(), it will execute both in hover and blur. If you add a second function as a parameter, the first one will be executed on hover, while the second will be executed on blur of the element.

Here's the fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/JLAK4/2/

Some people may argue to use jQuery(this).offset() instead, but why waste cpu cycles for yet another method call while you already have your DOM element populated and at your disposal? jQuery is a nice compatibility layer, I give you that. But abusing and overusing it makes no sense at all.

Do you want to be using .offset() instead?

jQuery('.get-close-to').hover(function() {
    var offset = jQuery(this).offset();
    alert( 'Left: ' + offset.left + '\nTop: ' + offset.top );
});

Try this:

jQuery('.get-close-to').hover(function() {
    var offset = jQuery(this).offset();
    alert( 'Left: ' + offset.left + '\nTop: ' + offset.top );
});

I think he wanted to say like this: working fiddle

jQuery('.get-close-to').hover(function() {
    var offset = jQuery(this).offset();
    alert( 'Left: ' + offset.left + '\nTop: ' + offset.top );
});

But mistakenly he has typed .css('offset') may be.