AutoHotkey Community

[Aj]

Dear Friends,

I think the biggest improvement that could be made to the gui at present would be to enable Tool Tips for the various controls, so that more detailed information could be given on a control's function when hovering over it. Is there any chance?

Aj

[toralf]

With a small workaround (OnMessage()) this is already feasible. For an example see my PSPad syntax highlighting install script.
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Ciao
toralf

[Aj]

Thanks for the "tip" toralf, I learned a lot from that neat bit of coding, but I eventually came up with something a little simpler:

[Veovis]

Heres a nice one that i developed with the help from some other people:

It uses Windows Message 0x200 (WM_MOUSEMOVE) so that everytime the mouse moves the control under the mouse is recorded in %A_GuiControl%, then since we assigned the controls a variable tooltip name we dont have to have a series of else if statements. This creates a very smooth tooltip that disapears instantaneously when you roll off of a control. The KillToolTip function is just in case someone alt-tabs out because then they wouldnt roll of a control, thus destroying the tooltip. 2 problems is that it doesnt work over text, and it does use a little bit of cpu juice. About 20% of my 1.0 ghz when i move the mouse around the gui.

[Chris]

Although hover tooltips are on the informal to-do list, I don't know if/when it will be implemented. In the meantime, the great techniques here and in other topics should be useful. In fact, seeing a definitive implementation of ToolTips in a script may become the foundation of a built-in feature (because almost all the R&D and testing would already have been done).

Thanks.

[Veovis]

@Chris

Please clarify what you mean by "definitive implementation".

And by the way, do you know why text controls are not recognized by the WM_MOUSEMOVE function as the gui control that launched the function, thus making it impossible to give them a tooltip using my method?
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"Power can be given overnight, but responsibility must be taught. Long years go into its making."

[Chris]

[incith]

Thanks for the code, Veovis, it works good. The only overall problem with it is that tooltips don't actually disappear as long as the mouse stays over top of the control. But I am not looking for perfection in this case, and your code works great.

I opted for yours instead of the IfWinActive method as it wouldn't have fit in as nicely.

Edit: I've modified the code to fix the above problem. I did this by creating a global 'PREVIOUS_TOOLTIP' variable, which stores the last A_GuiControl, and if the current A_GuiControl is the same as PREVIOUS_TOOLTIP, the tooltip will not be shown, thus the Remove ToolTip works properly until the mouse is moved to a new control.

[Chris]

Nice example. I've posted a slightly revised version on the GUI page:

Catching other events: Other types of GUI events can be detected and acted upon via OnMessage(). For example, a script can display context-sensitive help via ToolTip whenever the user moves the mouse over particular controls in the window.

[incith]

Yeah, I knew I was on to a Good Thing (tm) when I revised the code. I didn't like how the tooltips stuck around while the mouse was over it. static variables, eh! I'll have to use those a lot more often. Thanks for the revised code Chris.

[BooBoo]

Hello all

Let me start by saying "what a great thread".
I wouldn't have known where to start with a script like this.

I used Chris's version in one of my scripts and it works perfectly, except that when I click on a button that opens another gui and minimises the main gui, the main gui is not minimised if the tooltip is showing. Once the tooltip has gone the button works as it should.

Anyway, the reason for this post is that I decided that the tooltips where a bit annoying/distracting and got in the way, so as an alternative method of displaying info about controls I modified the code to use the status bar instead. I appreciate that this thread is about tooltips but it seems appropriate to post here.

[Chris]

You could try SB_SetText's Style parameter. If that isn't sufficient, you might have to send the SB_* messages directly (assuming the API contains a way to achieve the desired effect).

[BooBoosLastNight]

Thanks Chris.

[jballi]

I apologize for extending this thread but I just wanted to add a couple of penny's worth (or less)...

[userabuser]

It seems very un-elegant to "require" a variable on all the buttons whether they have a tip or not.

I'll take a peek tonight and see what we can do about that.. Though, an answer is not apparent to me at the moment.