Showing reasons for un-sensitive widgets

["Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <gilbertd treblig org>]

Hi,
  From time to time I find apps where they have menu items or buttons
that are un-sensitive and greyed out but I can't tell why - I'm
thinking if there would be a good way to provide hints to the user.

  I'm trying to figure out the best way to put a demo together of that;
I'd started at the bottm having made a

gtk_widget_set_sensitivity_with_reason

that stored a pointer to the message in the widget if it had
one, however I'm now trying to figure out the best way to display
it.

Can I just misuse the tooltip infrastructure?
Should I still get query_tooltip signals even if the widget is
insensitive and can I just make them respond with the reason?

I think even if that's done at the widget level the right thing
is to then build upwards and associate the messages with GtkAction
and let those bubble down to the widget.

Do people like the idea or think there is a better way of doing it?

All thoughts welcome,

Dave


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