Balloon help, also known as tooltips, is a GUI feature in which a small window containing additional information appears when a pointer hovers over an object in the GUI.
Some shops use "tooltips" for almost any action associated with mouseover, including ...
Tk::Balloon attaches balloons to canvas items, in contrast to most of the example here. However SCoTT SmeDLeY offers a pure Tk analogue [L1 ].
Bwidget has balloons under the title of "Dynamic help"; here's an example how simple that can be (RS):
interp alias {} help {} DynamicHelp::register Button .f.open -image $im(open) -command {starDOM::openFile .t} help .f.open balloon "Open existing XML file"
What: tooltips Where: From the contact Description: Tk program which provides functionality similar to the one Microsoft has. Updated: Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Paul D. Boyer) What: ToolTips Where: From the contact Description: Provides a way to allow one to associate Microsoft-like tooltips to icons in a Tk application. Updated: Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Paul Boyer )
Other packages and applications relating to tooltips or balloon help include:
What: tktray Where: http://www.electricmemo.com/tktray.zip ??? Description: Simple application running as a toolbar app under Windows 95/NT. Set the tooltip text, icons, etc. Written in Delphi 2. Updated: 06/1998 Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Mark Lawson)
What: XWordPad Where: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Campus/6846/ Description: Tcl/Tk text editor supporting plain text of unlimited size. Uses standard menus, supports copy, paste, cut, unlimited undo/redo, toolbar and balloon help, quick search, font, style and size choices, multifile file editing, etc. Runs on Tcl/Tk 7.4-8.x, and works on Unix and Windows. Currently at version 2.1. Updated: 02/2000 Contact: mailto:[email protected]
What: ClassyTcl/Tk Where: http://rrna.uia.ac.be/classytcl/ Description: Dynamically loadable object system (both tcl and C based are available), widget set and GUI builder. ClassyTk is a widget set which includes BarChart, ChartGrid, LineChart, Balloon (help), CmdWidget (command line widget), DefaultMenu (select from user defined defaults), DragDrop, DynaMenu, DynaTool (toolbar), FileSelect, InputDialog, ProgressDialog, SaveDialog, SelectDialog, getcolor, getfont, yorn, Browser, Editor, Fold (foldable frame), HTML, MultiFrame, NoteBook, OptionBox, OptionMenu, Paned, Progress, Table, Tree, ColorEntry, FontSelect, Selector, as well as improved versions of Canvas (supports zooming, undo/redo, rotate, save, load, group, and printing), Entry, FileEntry, ListBox, Message, NumEntry, RepeatButton, ScrolledFrame, Text, and more. The ClassyTcl Builder can be used to graphically create interfaces, and is invoked via the cbuild command. Comes with sample applications such as cedit, ccalc (calculator), ccenter (early stage program manager), cdraw (vector drawing), cedit (text editor), cfiles (early stage file manager), ctester (test ClassyTcl widgets). Requires Tcl/Tk 8.x and ExtraL if ClassyTcl widgets are used. Currently at ClassyTcl and ClassyTk are at version 1.0.0 . Updated: 08/2001 Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Peter.DeRijk)
What: MegaWidget package Where: http://www.purl.org/net/hobbs/tcl/script/widget/widget-0.9.tar.gz Description: Tk 8.x megawidget capability. While tested thru Tk 8.0b2, some problems still remained under Windows with Tk 8. Megawidgets included in this package are combobox, console, hierarchy list display, progressbar, tabnotebook, validating entry widget, and scrolledtext. Also, support for balloon help and paned window management are included. Updated: 03/2001 Contact: mailto:[email protected]
What: Miscellaneous Tcl procs (Corey) Where: http://www.kencorey.com/tcl/answers.html Description: Examples of how to do things like provide balloon help over menu items, do background processing, eat events while a program is busy, do combobox widgets, scroll two text widgets with one scrollbar, scroll to currently focused canvas item, moving graphs, move the nodes of a polygon around dynamically, track what procedures are called (with what arguments), scrolling a grid managed frame in a canvas, using fileevent on a pipe, simple spreadsheet using grid, and a simple listbox inside a text widget. The contact isn't currently updating this page. Updated: 08/1998 Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Ken Corey)
What: tkballoon Where: http://www.multimania.com/droche/tkballoon/ Description: Pure Tcl/Tk implementation of balloon help. Updated: 07/1999 Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Daniel Roche)
What: Win32 Tcl and Tk patches (jessikat) Where: http://www.jessikat.demon.co.uk/ Description: A variety of patches to Tcl and Tk for Win32s. There are patches for wm activate bug, memory debug support, listbox justify, cursor, panics, and tkCanvWind. Also on this page are patches and ports of a variety of extensions and applications such as DDE, tclStruct, BLT, otcl and a clock application. Tiled widgets problematic, bgexec/busy not working, drag&drop ok with dde. Also a small balloonHelp (blnhlp) package is available here as well. Rotating text didn't make it, nor did drag and drop. Also find a general dll caller for the Intel win32 platform which creates a namespace called dll containing the dll routines that can be called. Contact tested with VC++ 6.0 and Tcl 8.0.4. It relies on the way MSC 4.0. Site also has a crypt dll. Updated: 04/1998 Contact: mailto:[email protected] What: pTk Rezic widget collection Where: http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/%7Eeserte/src/perl/ http://www.cpan.org/ Description: Tk::HistEntry provides an Entry widget with a history. Tk::Date is a date widget in development. On CPAN, you can find Tk::Getopt (Tk-Options?), which is a GUI interface for Perl/Tk with interface to Getopt::Long. From the user, you may be able to get the following. Tk::UnderlineAll adds accellerators to menu buttons, entries and notebook pages. Tk::WListbox adds enhanced keybindings for selecting entries. Tk::ContextHelp provides context sensitive help in Perl/Tk. Tk::CanvasBalloon is a module for attaching help balloons to canvas items or tags. Also available are Tk::PNG and Tk::TIFF, to add support for those image formats. Tk::FBox is a perl version of the standard Tk filebox. Tie-Listbox is an experimental module using ties to Tk listboxes. FlatCheckbox is a canvas based checkbox. Updated: 05/1999 Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Slaven Rezic)
Larry Smith: weedesk has a simple balloon help system. The code:
label .help -bd 1 -fg black -bg lightyellow -font fixed -text "default help" set btn3 0 proc popballoon {} { global btn3 if { !$btn3 } { place forget .help } } proc help {w help} { bind $w <Any-Enter> "after 1000 balloon %W $help; after 3000 popballoon" bind $w <Any-Leave> "popballoon" bind $w <ButtonPress-3> "set btn3 1; balloon %W $help" bind $w <ButtonRelease-3> "set btn3 0; popballoon" } proc balloon { w args } { .help configure -text $args regexp {^\.[A-Za-z0-9]*} $w parent if { [ catch { set x [ expr [ winfo x $w ] + [ winfo x $parent ] + 10 ] } ] == 0 } { set y [ expr [ winfo y $w ] + [ winfo y $parent ] - 10 ] place .help -x $x -y $y raise .help } }
To install a tooltip on a particular widget:
help $button_name $helptext
When the mouse enters the widget the tooltip will be displayed about 1 second later and remain up for two seconds (these values are easily adjusted in the first line of the "help" proc). You can also use btn3 to display the tip as long as you like, it will disappear when you release btn3.
Here is one tooltips implementation that I use, which was originally written by someone else and then modified by me. It´s only been tested on Windows. - [RJ 03/16/2006 I tested on Puppy Linux and Solaris 2.8 - works like a charm!]
[stabbingfinger: This is superbly simple. Fixed three problems: 1) toplevel window flashed when tooltip is displayed; 2) tooltip artifacts resulted when flying through a UI too quickly; 3) "wm attributes" assumes Windows. Additions are commented. Thanks for the code!]
[Christian Rapp: This code is great, use it very often. Fixed one thing: a.) The tooltip is not entirely visible when $pointerX + $width is greater than [winfo screenwidth .]. Placed a comment to my changes in the code.]
[Chris Edwards: Modified so that the tooltip is displayed above the pointer when in the bottom half of the screen, to avoid tooltips going offscreen when near the bottom edge (changes labelled b.). Also now has the tooltips centred horizontally on the pointer rather than being left-aligned (changes labelled c.).]
proc setTooltip {widget text} { if { $text != "" } { # 2) Adjusted timings and added key and button bindings. These seem to # make artifacts tolerably rare. bind $widget <Any-Enter> [list after 500 [list showTooltip %W $text]] bind $widget <Any-Leave> [list after 500 [list destroy %W.tooltip]] bind $widget <Any-KeyPress> [list after 500 [list destroy %W.tooltip]] bind $widget <Any-Button> [list after 500 [list destroy %W.tooltip]] } } proc showTooltip {widget text} { global tcl_platform if { [string match $widget* [winfo containing [winfo pointerx .] [winfo pointery .]] ] == 0 } { return } catch { destroy $widget.tooltip } set scrh [winfo screenheight $widget] ; # 1) flashing window fix set scrw [winfo screenwidth $widget] ; # 1) flashing window fix set tooltip [toplevel $widget.tooltip -bd 1 -bg black] wm geometry $tooltip +$scrh+$scrw ; # 1) flashing window fix wm overrideredirect $tooltip 1 if {$tcl_platform(platform) == {windows}} { ; # 3) wm attributes... wm attributes $tooltip -topmost 1 ; # 3) assumes... } ; # 3) Windows pack [label $tooltip.label -bg lightyellow -fg black -text $text -justify left] set width [winfo reqwidth $tooltip.label] set height [winfo reqheight $tooltip.label] set pointer_below_midline [expr [winfo pointery .] > [expr [winfo screenheight .] / 2.0]] ; # b.) Is the pointer in the bottom half of the screen? set positionX [expr [winfo pointerx .] - round($width / 2.0)] ; # c.) Tooltip is centred horizontally on pointer. set positionY [expr [winfo pointery .] + 35 * ($pointer_below_midline * -2 + 1) - round($height / 2.0)] ; # b.) Tooltip is displayed above or below depending on pointer Y position. # a.) Ad-hockery: Set positionX so the entire tooltip widget will be displayed. # c.) Simplified slightly and modified to handle horizontally-centred tooltips and the left screen edge. if {[expr $positionX + $width] > [winfo screenwidth .]} { set positionX [expr [winfo screenwidth .] - $width] } elseif {$positionX < 0} { set positionX 0 } wm geometry $tooltip [join "$width x $height + $positionX + $positionY" {}] raise $tooltip # 2) Kludge: defeat rare artifact by passing mouse over a tooltip to destroy it. bind $widget.tooltip <Any-Enter> {destroy %W} bind $widget.tooltip <Any-Leave> {destroy %W} } pack [button .b -text hello] setTooltip .b "Hello World!"
This was from the bag of Tk algorithms:
proc balloon {w help} { bind $w <Any-Enter> "after 1000 [list balloon:show %W [list $help]]" bind $w <Any-Leave> "destroy %W.balloon" } proc balloon:show {w arg} { if {[eval winfo containing [winfo pointerxy .]]!=$w} {return} set top $w.balloon catch {destroy $top} toplevel $top -bd 1 -bg black wm overrideredirect $top 1 if {[string equal [tk windowingsystem] aqua]} { ::tk::unsupported::MacWindowStyle style $top help none } pack [message $top.txt -aspect 10000 -bg lightyellow \ -font fixed -text $arg] set wmx [winfo rootx $w] set wmy [expr [winfo rooty $w]+[winfo height $w]] wm geometry $top [winfo reqwidth $top.txt]x[ winfo reqheight $top.txt]+$wmx+$wmy raise $top } # Example: button .b -text Exit -command exit balloon .b "Push me if you're done with this" pack .b
DAS: Added an 'unsupported1' command to make this work on macs as well, otherwise raising the balloon window would immediately post a Leave event leading to the destruction of the balloon... The 'unsupported1' command makes the balloon window into a floating window which does not put the underlying window into the background and thus avoids the problem. (BTW, for this to work, appearance manager needs to be present, but that shouldn't be a problem for all except very old macs, otherwise you can try using the older 'unsupported1 style $top floatSideProc' although I had problems with it)
George Peter Staplin: That balloon help has a minor flaw. If the help has something like "rate is %90" the % will cause an error with bind. One way I've solved that in the past with a similar bunch of code is [string map {"%" "%%"} $msg]. However I've been told it's better to use a global array and pass a key into that array. To each his own I guess. Note: the %W usage above will also fail if the widget has a space in its pathname. I'm not sure if spaces should be valid, however Jeff Hobbs has gone through BWidgets and fixed bugs involving spaces in pathnames.
This might work better:
bind $w <Enter> [list after 1000 [list balloon_aux %W [string map {"%" "%%"} $msg]]] ;#GPS
I would rather do it using a global variable to store the help text. Generally I avoid having text in after or callback scripts. More, using a global can be useful for debugging or translating.
I modified the balloons script above. Move the help/ folder in directory lindex $tcl_pkgPath 0
# you can replace 'help' with 'balloon' # i keep the balloon for my quick black dog jumping over lazy foxes
help/pkgIndex.tcl:
package ifneeded help 1.0 [list source [file join $dir help.tcl]]
help/help.tcl:
namespace eval ::help { namespace export set variable delay 1000 } proc help::set {widget txt} { variable help ::set help($widget) $txt bind $widget <Enter> {after $help::delay [list help::show %W]} bind $widget <Leave> {destroy %W.help} } proc help::show {widget} { variable help if {[eval winfo containing [winfo pointerxy .]]!=$widget} {return} ::set w $widget.help catch {destroy $w} toplevel $w -bd 1 -bg black wm overrideredirect $w 1 if {[string equal [tk windowingsystem] aqua]} { ::tk::unsupported::MacWindowStyle style $top help none } pack [message $w.txt -aspect 10000 -bg lightyellow -font fixed \ -text $help($widget)] ::set wmx [winfo rootx $widget] ::set wmy [expr [winfo rooty $widget]+[winfo height $widget]] wm geometry $w [winfo reqwidth $w.txt]x[winfo reqheight $w.txt]+$wmx+$wmy #useless ? raise $w } package provide help 1.0
help/test.tcl:
package require help interp alias {} help {} help::set button .b pack .b help .b "hey \[you\] }{ )( $ %"
EKB: I made a couple of modest changes to the minimalist code (without the fixes for embedding %s and other characters). (And then later on I made modest changes to the modest changes. But when I came here to post the changes, I saw MG's nicer version below. So now I have a dilemma -- use my existing code, or switch to the nicer version? :-)
The main changes:
namespace eval balloon { variable long_delay 750 variable short_delay 50 variable delay $long_delay variable family {} } bind . <Enter> { if {$balloon::family != ""} { if {[lsearch -exact $balloon::family %W] == -1} { set balloon::family {} set balloon::delay $balloon::long_delay } } } proc set_balloon {w help} { bind $w <Enter> "+after \$balloon::delay [list balloon::show %W [list $help]]; \ set balloon::delay $balloon::short_delay; set balloon::family \[balloon::getwfamily %W\]" bind $w <Leave> "+destroy %W.balloon" } # Add these to the namespace proc balloon::getwfamily {w} { return [winfo children [winfo parent $w]] } proc balloon::show {w arg} { if {[eval winfo containing [winfo pointerxy .]]!=$w} {return} set top $w.balloon catch {destroy $top} toplevel $top -bd 1 -bg black wm overrideredirect $top 1 if {[string equal [tk windowingsystem] aqua]} { ::tk::unsupported::MacWindowStyle style $top help none } pack [message $top.txt -aspect 10000 -bg lightyellow -padx 1 -pady 0 \ -text $arg] set wmx [expr [winfo rootx $w]+5] set wmy [expr [winfo rooty $w]+[winfo height $w]+7] wm geometry $top [winfo reqwidth $top.txt]x[ winfo reqheight $top.txt]+$wmx+$wmy raise $top }
MG offers a slightly modified version of the above (the actual balloon code is basically identical). A few changes are:
To clear the balloon text for any widget, just set it blank (i.e., balloon $widget ""). When a widget is destroyed, its balloon text is automatically cleared from the variable via the trace command, which means if you create a new widget with the same name, it won't be carried over by mistake.
Here's the code, with a brief example script:
namespace eval balloon {set last 0 ; namespace export balloon} proc ::balloon::balloon {args} { variable last variable tips set numArgs [llength $args] if { $numArgs < 1 || $numArgs > 2 } { return -code error "wrong # args: should be \"balloon widget ?text?\""; } set w [lindex $args 0] if { ![winfo exists $w] } { return -code error "bad window path name \"$w\"" } if { [winfo class $w] == "Toplevel" } { return -code error "cannot create tooltip for toplevel windows"; } if { $numArgs == "1" } { if { [info exists tips($w)] } { return $tips($w); } else { return ""; } } set text [lindex $args 1] if { $text == "" } { # turn off tooltip if { [set x [lsearch [bindtags $w] "Balloon"]] >= 0 } { bindtags $w [lreplace [bindtags $w] $x $x] } unset -nocomplain tips($w) trace remove command $w delete ::balloon::autoclear return; } # OK, set up a (new?) tooltip if { [lsearch [bindtags $w] "Balloon"] < 0 } { bindtags $w [linsert [bindtags $w] 0 "Balloon"] } if { [lsearch [trace info command $w] {delete ::balloon::autoclear}] < 0 } { trace add command $w delete ::balloon::autoclear } set tips($w) $text };# balloon::balloon proc ::balloon::show {w} { variable tips if { ![info exists tips($w)] } {return} if {[eval winfo containing [winfo pointerxy .]]!=$w} {return} set top "$w.balloon" catch {destroy $top} toplevel $top -bd 1 -bg black wm overrideredirect $top 1 if {[string equal [tk windowingsystem] aqua]} { ::tk::unsupported::MacWindowStyle style $top help none } pack [message $top.txt -aspect 10000 -bg lightyellow \ -text $tips($w)] set wmx [winfo rootx $w] set wmy [expr [winfo rooty $w]+[winfo height $w]] wm geometry $top [winfo reqwidth $top.txt]x[ winfo reqheight $top.txt]+$wmx+$wmy raise $top };# balloon::show proc ::balloon::show8.5 {w} { variable tips if { ![info exists tips($w)] } {return} if {[winfo containing {*}[winfo pointerxy .]]!=$w} {return} set top "$w.balloon" catch {destroy $top} toplevel $top -bd 1 -bg black bind $top <Button-1> [list destroy $top] wm overrideredirect $top 1 if {[string equal [tk windowingsystem] aqua]} { ::tk::unsupported::MacWindowStyle style $top help none } pack [message $top.txt -aspect 10000 -bg lightyellow \ -text $tips($w)] set wmx [winfo rootx $w] set wmy [expr [winfo rooty $w]+[winfo height $w]] wm geometry $top \ [winfo reqwidth $top.txt]x[winfo reqheight $top.txt]+$wmx+$wmy raise $top };# balloon::show8.5 if { [package vcompare [package require Tcl] 8.5] >= 0 } { rename ::balloon::show8.5 ::balloon::show } else { rename ::balloon::show8.5 {} } proc ::balloon::delay {} { variable last set then $last set last [clock seconds] if { [expr {$last - $then}] < 3} { return 50 } else { return 1000 } };# balloon::delay proc ::balloon::autoclear {old new op} { variable tips unset -nocomplain tips([namespace tail $old]); };# balloon::autoclear namespace import ::balloon::balloon bind Balloon <Enter> {after [::balloon::delay] [list ::balloon::show %W]} bind Balloon <Leave> {destroy %W.balloon} console show ############## # test script ############## button .b1 -text "First" ; balloon .b1 "1st" button .b2 -text "Second" ; balloon .b2 "2nd" button .b3 -text "Third" ; balloon .b3 "3rd" button .b4 -text "No tip" pack .b1 .b2 .b3 .b4 -side left -padx 4 # uncomment below to clear the tooltip for "Third" button # balloon .b3 ""
MG Made a few modifications to the above code. You can now call it with one arg, balloon $widget, and it will return the current balloon text for that widget (or an empty string if none is set). Also, it no longer lets you set balloon text for toplevel windows, because when you do so it doesn't play nice, and gets itself into an infinite loop, which Tcl kindly catches, but still looks ugly. (I suspect that a 'break' in the <Leave> binding might sort this, but haven't bothered to check it - IMHO, not being able to tooltip a toplevel is a shame, but not being able to run custom <Leave> bindings for one is unacceptable, so it's better this way.)
Kevin Walzer 2005-12-13: Changed tclplatform/macintosh bits to tk_windowingsystem/aqua (the "Macintosh" platform, which refers to Mac OS <= 9, is now obsolete).
gold added pix
Barry Skidmore:
I was quite bored so decided to try my hand at an extensible tooltip system for Tcl using iTcl. It may not be the best, but certainly worth a look. This was my first iTcl code ever. So be kind :)
The Object:
#===== ITcl Class ToolTip ==================================# # Initialize a Tool Tip object. (Creates window if needed) # # Usage: ToolTip objName widgetName tipMessage # # Configuration Options: # # tipMessage: Message to display in tooltip window # # tipDelay: Time to wait before showing/hiding tip # # Default value is 400 # # xOffset: X coordinate offset for the tootip window # # yOffset: Y coordinate offset for the tooltip window # # Default value is 20 # #===========================================================# itcl::class ToolTip { public variable widgetName "" public variable tipMessage "" public variable xOffset 20 public variable yOffset 20 public variable tipDelay 400 constructor { name msg } { set widgetName $name set tipMessage $msg bind $name <Enter> {foreach itclTip [itcl::find objects -isa ToolTip] {if {[$itclTip cget -widgetName] == "%W"} {$itclTip show}}} bind $name <Leave> {foreach itclTip [itcl::find objects -isa ToolTip] {if {[$itclTip cget -widgetName] == "%W"} {$itclTip hide}}} } method show {} { if {![catch {toplevel .tipWindowItclClass -bg black -bd 1 -height 1 -width 1 -relief solid} blah]} { label .tipWindowItclClass.text -bg lightyellow -justify left -text "$tipMessage" grid .tipWindowItclClass.text -row 0 -column 0 -sticky w wm overrideredirect .tipWindowItclClass 1 wm withdraw .tipWindowItclClass } .tipWindowItclClass.text configure -text " $tipMessage " wm geometry .tipWindowItclClass +[expr [winfo pointerx .] + $xOffset]+[expr [winfo pointery .] + $yOffset] after $tipDelay { wm deiconify .tipWindowItclClass raise .tipWindowItclClass } } method hide {} { after $tipDelay { wm withdraw .tipWindowItclClass } } destructor { destroy .tipWindowItclClass } }
The Sample:
frame .top -relief flat -bd 0 label .atext -relief flat -bd 0 -text "blah0" label .btext -relief flat -bd 0 -text "blah1" label .ctext -relief flat -bd 0 -text "blah2" label .dtext -relief flat -bd 0 -text "blah3" pack .atext -in .top -fill both pack .btext -in .top -fill both pack .ctext -in .top -fill both pack .dtext -in .top -fill both pack .top -fill both ToolTip #auto .atext "This is a Test" ToolTip #auto .btext "This too" ToolTip #auto .ctext "Yup again" ToolTip #auto .dtext "It's over now"
Balloon help was introduced by Apple in 1991, Microsoft later introduced Tooltips with Windows 95.
PYK 2016-01-29: Migrated the information here from tooltips to this page, as both pages were about the same tools, and contained some of the same code and comments. Deduplicated data, refreshed symlinks where possible, and tracked down other tooltips tools that weren't mentioned on either page.