[openbeos] Re: Tool tips (was Re: Quick questions on Filetypes and Tracker)
- From: Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:34:22 +0200
On 2008-09-12 at 11:04:55 [+0200], Cyan <cyanh256@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > But I could see having an option to enable or disable them, at
> > least in tool bars or other normal interface elements.
>
> I think as long as the enable/disable option is global (and thus
> can't be omitted by application developers), that wouldn't be
> too bad. But the user interface guidelines would have to make
> it clear that tool-tips shouldn't be relied upon to convey
> important information.
> Perhaps the guidelines should encourage displaying important
> mouse-over info via other methods, such as in the status bar,
> rather than leaving it completely undefined?
IMHO the status bar is actually not a particularly good option for
mouse-over info, because its location is often quite a bit away from the
mouse location, requiring the user to unnecessarily move the eyes. Tool
tips are pretty much perfect for that purpose. Moreover they can convey
more info by being multi-line. A status bar should really be left to things
related to its name, i.e. displaying a status.
I'm fine with making it possible to enable/disable tool tips on a
system-wide and per-application basis -- maybe even make it a three-level
setting (show all/show info (but no help)/show none) -- but I wouldn't try
to force applications to practically not use them with the argument that
otherwise the user disabling them would lose information. If the user
disables them, it's really her own fault.
CU, Ingo
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