[softwarelist] Re: Ovation Pro Windows - Tooltips
- From: Frank Watkinson <frank@xxxxxxxx>
- To: davidpilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:20:03 +0000 (GMT)
In article <Yn2ElhD75IHEFwyP@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
David Pilling <flist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[Snip]
> >Yes, Shift-F1 provides Help, but if you can't remember which is the
> >button you want, it takes a long time sorting through the buttons.
> That is a good point. With a lot of buttons it is hard to keep doing
> Shift F1 help. Perhaps I could be daring and scrap all the little
> pictures and just have text buttons.
Surely, the buttons would then be too big! (8-)>
[Snip]
> >It takes less effort to move the pointer to make the tooltip disappear
> >temporarily (or even wait the 5 seconds for normal tooltips to
> >self-cancel) than doing Shift-F1 and dropping the "question mark
> >pointer" on the button to be interrogated.
> But needing help is a rare case, tool tips getting in the way is common,
> so overall the time wasted is greater.
I have nothing against Shift-F1 for Help as such, but tooltips (like using
BubbleHelp) give a brief reminder of the buttons function and sometimes a
bit more.
For the buttonbar, the argument that tooltips would get in the way is
false. As I said previously, "Adobe Reader presents a very good model for
a toolbar, where the tooltip pane opens just at the bottom end of the
pointer's shaft, thus not obscuring what is being pointed at."
When you have looked at Adobe Reader, take a look also at Word, at Windows
Explorer (not the Internet one!), at Windows Media Player. I am sure there
are many more examples of applications with non-obscuring tooltips for
buttons arranged across the window.
> >I, for one, would be delighted to have tooltips for the Windows version
> >button bar. By all means make it a payable upgrade. (Follow the Icon
> >Technology model.)
> It is dead easy to add tooltips.
Oh, good!
> >Would it be possible to have a standard "script" insert for the button
> >macros so that individuals could insert their own tooltips (if necessary)?
> The user interface does not support help strings for button macros.
> However the script language does. So it is reasonably easy to edit the
> help information for any button you like.
> The debatable thing is if it is necessary to have a separate tooltip as
> well as the existing help information for buttons. If so I may have to
> extend the define macro function.
While some of the Help information could be shortened, even for Help, the
same text could be used in the tooltip function. But the option to turn
tooltips off by a keyboard short-cut would be a valued function for many
users.
> That's all very easy, but it does mean that anyone who has saved their
> macros would not see any new strings.
So? Publish the new macros?
I'll stop wittering now.
--
Frank Watkinson. email: <frank@xxxxxxxx> Using !Pluto 3.04c on Iyonix
5.09.
Still RPC-SA (4.39 Adjust) for some things.
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