Re: [gtk-list] More Effective Baloon Help/Tool Tips (was: vi bindings for text widgets)

["Scott D. Heavner" <sdh po cwru edu>]

Pat Rogan wrote:
>
> Microsoft has determined that "tooltips" should always be on by default,
> and Apple has determined that this type of help should only be requested
> by the user (by using the "Help" key or menu).

	Apple's balloon help was kind of scary.  It popped up for
everything: this is your desktop, this is an application window, this
is a menu...  It's like a bad school house rock episode where some
boneheaded turtle has stuck signs all over everything.

	Tooltips started out being useful for deciphering other people's
icons.  Now that we're binding 10 different functions to each button
depending on the modifier keys used before, during, and after a mouse
click it would probably be useful to display how to make a button do
the desired action.

	Apple's balloons could be either text or PICT's which was handy
in some cases.  I agree with Pat that Enlightenment's help system.
(There's
a little gif attached to this message for all those who haven't seen it) 
It's handy and is more intuitive than just popping up a long text
description
of how to do things.

> Gtk has a tooltip widget, right?  In what ways could this be used more
> effectively and more automatically?  Consider a global ~/.gtkrc variable
> that says "always show tooltips" or "never show tooltips".  Consider
> every widget automatically displaying a usage tooltip in english based
> on what's hooked into it.  How could this work with the least amount of
> programmer effort?

	I think it might be useful to turn help on in stages.  Also to have
a keybinding to toggle it on/off or change the help level and maybe even
the
timeout.  Or have different timeouts for levels 1 & 2.  I suppose by 
manipulating the timeout, you could effectively turn off the tooltips.

Level 1: Just translate the icon 
Level 2: Level1 + key/mouse bindings or a pixmap

Scott

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