Re: Callback based tooltips (Re: New tooltips API, continued)

[Tim Janik <timj imendio com>]

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006, Matthias Clasen wrote:

> On 4/25/06, Tim Janik <timj imendio com> wrote:
> > i don't think there's a point in implementing grouping unless the above
> > question has been answered, i.e. we've gotten a resonable usage scenario.
> > so until that happens, it's probably best to leave groups out of the API spec.
>
> Well, one reason would be that it is in our current tooltip support, and we
> don't just remove features for no reason...

we indeed deprecate "features" when there's no good reason for their
existance. and re-introducing useless features in new APIs definitely
is a bad idea.
however, i'm not even saying we can't have that, since it can easily
be added onto the API i suggested, i'm just saying we should be sure
it's needed and makes reasonable sense. but i've yet to see a good
usage scenrio for seperate tooltip groups.

> The reason for its existance is that it is annoying to have to wait for every
> other tooltip again when you are moving the mouse over the toolbar to see
> them all.

i'm not arguing to leave out the show-next-tooltip-immediately feature,
i'm just saying there's no reason to not apply this to all tooltips.

> And of course, putting all tooltips in one group makes the behaviour
> of tooltips equally annoying, since you then have to hunt for a
> tooltip-less area
> to get out of fast-tooltip mode again...

i don't think this is "of course" obvious.
"hunt" is simply exxagerating here, since you can easily move the pointer
out of the window or into blank space areas like frames.
in any case, this isn't an argument *for* individual groups, because if
the user meant to explicitely see *no* tooltip, individual groups don't
give you that behaviour either, that's because after the intiait tooltip
timeout has passed after leaving fast-tooltip mode in your scenario,
you're getting a tooltip *again*.
you seem to be arguing that it's good for the user to wait a bit until
he can figure the new tooltip (group), that doesn't count as good UI
behaviour in my book though ;)
also, it's always easy to leave tooltip mode by pressing any key, if you 
really are in a full screen view and have an urge to see no tooltip at
all, *and* every place in the app is setup with tips (quite unlikely, eh? ;)


> Matthias

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ciaoTJ