whats that thing in facebook called...

[Broadbandplacey]

... you know on facebook, that box that pops up when you want to poke someone. Or when you click on a marketplace item?

it has a name? any help?

and a link to tutorial to create a similar idea would be great

 

[daz]

AJAX I think is what you're after

 

[bitterSTAR]

The Yahoo User Interface (YUI) might be of use to you. It is a javascript library. It'd probably need a bit of customisation for your specific website, but the code needed to create popup boxes is there. If you need the AJAX part (i.e. you need the server to process a command from the popup box without refreshing the page), then you may still need to write the server side script.

YUI is here: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/

There are other libraries/frameworks, but that one focuses on user interfaces. It has many other useful features worth having a look at too.