Improved tooltips

[Wolfgang]

I am happy to see that the suggestion of integrating the tooltips into the UI editor was successful. Now I would like to see better, more powerful tooltips

In particular, I suggest

• adding another tooltip attribute allowing the tooltip to disappear automatically after a given time (default of say 3-5 seconds); hence the tooltip would show up with the tooltip delay, show for this specified appearance time, and then disappear automatically. I think that this is the most frequently encountered behavior in other programs. Setting this attribute value to 0 or -1 would imply "show infinitely long"
• adding an attribute TOOLTIPS_WIDTH that would allow for automatic linebreaks, similar to the behavior found in textboxes. Right now, tooltips get infinitely long if no line breaks are inserted manually. Linebreaks, however, depend on font size etc... The width should be specified in pixels (possibly with a default of say 400)
• adding an attribute TOOLTIPS_WRAP_MODE, specifying the wrap mode (character/word/...) as in textboxes
• the possibility of simple text formatting, such as bold or italics. For illustration have a look at the CVI UI editor control panel, e.g. of a text box. Click on the question mark in the upper right corner of the window and then on e.g. line mode: This shows a nice example of what I would like to have to better explain different options (of say a ring control) in a clear way
• additional tooltips for column headers, row headers, even for every cell of a table: Tooltips of a complete table control may not always be useful, while I have several scenarios in mind where these added tooltips would be most useful: - explain the table columns: typically, due to space constraints, table headers are pretty brief and so extra information could be provided via tooltips for each individual column header. - if a table gets larger and is scrolled, table headers disappear: One could use tooltips (per column) to remind the user what he is actually seeing in column 17...

Thanks

[Wolfgang]

OK,

here is just one example (from CVI) what is possible already now for NI, using their own tooltips - why not make these functions available also for the regular user, e.g. allow

• bold / italics / underline
• subscript / superscript
• different fonts (normal, greek, symbol...) and font sizes changed within the text
• formatting (tabs) / left/centre/right alignment
• possibly even links to a user manual... 

[Wolfgang]

I am happy to report that the first wish on my wishlist has been heard.    As of CVI2013 there is the attribute ATTR_TOOLTIP_HIDE_DELAY.

THANKS!