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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Kicker tooltip placement
From:       "Eric Ellsworth" <whalesuit () softhome ! net>
Date:       2002-05-21 20:24:51
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> Michael's point about the tooltip obscuring what it describes is good. One
> option is have the tooltip always appear below the mouse cursor so that
> whatever the mouse is directly pointing at is not obscured. A second
option
> would be to have the tooltips appear outside Kicker entirely, i.e. stuck
to
> the edge of the panel next to the button.

Yes, this point is definitely right on:

With Kicker at the bottom of the screen, you can't put the tooltips below
the mouse pointer, nor should you when the toolbar (of any sort) is
vertical - you'd be putting the tooltip over another button.  This says to
me that it's best to put it outside the toolbar altogether.

> > A cartoon like bubble with some
> > very basic info about the icon pointing down to it.

I'm for this, as long as it's lightweight - I was thinking of just adding a
little gray line from the tooltip down to the pointer.  This way the shape
of the tooltip wouldn't need to change for the line to follow the mouse.
Cartoon bubbles would let you do thinks like persistent and clickable
tooltips, which appear in the taskbar in Windows XP (other tooltips appear
over the icons in Windows...), but they'd need to have a shape which allowed
them to point towards the pointer, or at least the object being explained.

I also second Michael's point that tooltips should disappear as soon as the
mouse leaves the icon.  In some cases the tooltip can persist for long
enough to interfere with clicking on other screen objects.  This is
confusing behavior.

A question for the coders: are tooltips implemented in a single class for
all KDE toolbars, or does Kicker have a separate implementation?  That is,
are we talking about changes across KDE, or just in Kicker?

Cheers,

EE


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Simon Edwards" <simon@simonzone.com>
> To: <kde-usability@mail.kde.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 12:47 PM
> Subject: Re: Kicker tooltip placement
>
>
> On Tuesday 21 May 2002 12:40, Michael W. Collette wrote:
> > First off, the tooltips should appear immediately upon having the mouse
> > over an icon.  A user, even an experienced one, shouldn't have to wait
to
> > have an icon identified.  Additionally, that very same tooltip should
> > immediately vanish upon the mouse leaving an icon.  That much isn't
> > happening very well now.
>
> There is a *very* good reason why there is a delay between the mouse
> stopping
> and the tooltip appearing. If there is no delay, then tooltips will
flicker
> on and off during normal button operation, which sucks big time. IIRC,
> tooltips are desendant from Mac balloon helps years ago. Balloon help used
> appear immediately too and no one really liked it. There is/was a switch
on
> screen to turn it on/off I believe. MS took the idea and added a delay and
> left it always turned on. And the rest is well history...
>
> > The real problem here is where the tooltip is showing up.  Right on top
of
> > the very thing a user is trying to see.
>
> true, the tips should never obscure the thing.
>
> > A cartoon like bubble with some
> > very basic info about the icon pointing down to it.
>
> I don't think a bubble adds anything useful.
>
> Is it just me or is the time delay for normal tooltips in KDE (on a
toolbar
> for example) different than the one for the Panel?
>
> --
> Simon Edwards             | Guarddog Firewall
> simon@simonzone.com       | http://www.simonzone.com/software/
> Nijmegen, The Netherlands | "ZooTV? You made the right choice."
>
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