[RESOLVED] Dynamically adding tool-tips to controls

[Reapism]

Objective: I want to specify a control in a form to display a tooltip dynamically to that object when the mouse is hovered. I tried to fool around a little bit and I have this... I am probably not close to what I need to achieve but I gave it a shot.

I know one fundamental problem, Me.MouseHover only works on the form itself and not the controls of that form.

    Public Sub determineControl() Handles Me.MouseHover
        Dim c As Control = Me
For Each ctrl As Control In c.Controls
            If TypeOf ctrl Is GroupBox Then
                Dim tip As New ToolTip
                tip.SetToolTip(ctrl, ctrl.Tag)
            End If
        Next

    End Sub

The issue is that when I hover over a control in the form, it doesn't generate the tooltip. How do I get this code to do what it should do? It seems to look write but when it runs, and you hover over a control, it doesn't actually create a tooltip.

Also I will create the tooltip on load and just change its properties based on the control its on.

EDIT: I just had another read of what you've said. Do I change the handler to MouseMove?

HUGE EDIT: I am using a tab pages. I want it to loop through the groupboxes in the tab page!
I want it to loop through all the controls in the selected tab page.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Okay, so what's the issue? That's not the correct signature for a method that handles a MouseHover event, since it takes the wrong arguments, but maybe you left the signature out of the post.

I took a look at some code I had that dealt with it, and notice that I was setting the tooltip in MouseMove, but only if the current text associated with the control has changed. That was because the tooltips I was displaying depended on what part of a control the mouse was over.

Ah, I noticed one key mistake: You don't create a ToolTip like that. Add one to the form at design time by dragging it from the Toolbox. It doesn't matter whether you set text for it at design time, and if you have no text associated with a control, it won't show at all. So, you want the tooltip already there. What you are doing dynamically, is changing whether or not it is shown and what is shown. If you have no text, it won't show, if you set text, then it will.

[Reapism]

The issue is that when I hover over a control in the form, it doesn't generate the tooltip. How do I get this code to do what it should do? It seems to look write but when it runs, and you hover over a control, it doesn't actually create a tooltip.

Also I will create the tooltip on load and just change its properties based on the control its on.

EDIT: I just had another read of what you've said. Do I change the handler to MouseMove?

HUGE EDIT: I am using a tab pages. I want it to loop through the groupboxes in the tab page!
I want it to loop through all the controls in the selected tab page.

[wes4dbt]

sh, said

Okay, so what's the issue? That's not the correct signature for a method that handles a MouseHover event, since it takes the wrong arguments, but maybe you left the signature out of the post.

This is what the form MouseHoover Event looks like.

    Private Sub Form1_MouseHover(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.MouseHover

    End Sub

[boops boops]

Okay, so what's the issue? That's not the correct signature for a method that handles a MouseHover event, since it takes the wrong arguments, but maybe you left the signature out of the post.

From .Net Framework 4 (or so) onwards, you are allowed to leave out the (Sender As Object, e As EventArgs) bit if you don't need the arguments. I understand that's something to do with Relaxed Delegates.

@Reapism: if you want to do it all in code, you can use just one tooltip and set the appropriate captions all in one place, for example the form's Load sub:

  Private Sub Form1_Load() Handles MyBase.Load
      Dim tt As New ToolTip
      tt.SetToolTip(Me, "This is your Form speaking.")
      tt.SetToolTip(GroupBox1, "Hi, I'm GroupBox 1!")
      tt.SetToolTip(GroupBox2, "Help, a mouse (pointer)!")

      For Each tPage As TabPage In TabControl1.TabPages
         For Each ctrl As Control In tPage.Controls
            tt.SetToolTip(ctrl, "Hi, I'm " & ctrl.Name & " on " & tPage.Name)
            'etc.
         Next
      Next

      '...and so on for all your controls
   End Sub

This way of doing it is needed if you want to change the caption texts dynamically at runtime. Otherwise, if you have a lot of controls with different texts, doing it in the designer will probably be easier.

BB

[Maverickz]

If the tooltips are not going to change for a given control then it is MUCH better to do this in the Designer and forget about it.

If the tooltips are not going to change BUT you HAVE to do it in code, then the solution by boops boops is the best route.

If the tooltips will change for any given control then you need to decide if it will be by control name(TextBox1, TextBox2, etc.) or by control type (TextBox, ComboBox, Button, etc.)

By name sample, you will need this block for each control:
NOTE: WHATEVERCONTROLNAME will be changed to the specific control name, and the first line Dim change to the proper type for the control being used.

    Private Sub WHATEVERCONTROLNAME_MouseHover(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles WHATEVERCONTROLNAME.MouseHover
               Dim sndr as TextBox
               Dim tt As New ToolTip
               tt.SetToolTip(sndr, "This is your tip.")
    End Sub

By type sample:
NOTE1: You will need to add all of your controls that you want to add tips to, to the Handles clause of the Sub.
NOTE2: It might be possible to attach the ToolTip to sender directly without the Select Case but I am not sure, I haven't tried it either way.

    Private Sub Multi_MouseHover(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles Control1.MouseHover, Control2.MouseHover, Control3.MouseHover
               Dim type As String = sender.GetType.ToString
               Select Case type
               Case type = "TextBox"
                   Dim sndr as TextBox
               Case type = "ComboBox"
                   Dim sndr as ComboBox
               Case type = "Button"
                   Dim sndr as Button
               End Select
               Dim tt As New ToolTip
               tt.SetToolTip(sndr, "This is your tip.")
    End Sub

[Reapism]

From .Net Framework 4 (or so) onwards, you are allowed to leave out the (Sender As Object, e As EventArgs) bit if you don't need the arguments. I understand that's something to do with Relaxed Delegates.

@Reapism: if you want to do it all in code, you can use just one tooltip and set the appropriate captions all in one place, for example the form's Load sub:

  Private Sub Form1_Load() Handles MyBase.Load
      Dim tt As New ToolTip
      tt.SetToolTip(Me, "This is your Form speaking.")
      tt.SetToolTip(GroupBox1, "Hi, I'm GroupBox 1!")
      tt.SetToolTip(GroupBox2, "Help, a mouse (pointer)!")

      For Each tPage As TabPage In TabControl1.TabPages
         For Each ctrl As Control In tPage.Controls
            tt.SetToolTip(ctrl, "Hi, I'm " & ctrl.Name & " on " & tPage.Name)
            'etc.
         Next
      Next

      '...and so on for all your controls
   End Sub

This way of doing it is needed if you want to change the caption texts dynamically at runtime. Otherwise, if you have a lot of controls with different texts, doing it in the designer will probably be easier.

BB

Based on your input, I was able to get exactly what I want.

In the load method, I just call the method.

This is the method.

Public Sub determineControl() Handles Me.MouseHover        
For Each tPage As TabPage In tabSettings.TabPages
            For Each ctrl As Control In tPage.Controls
                Dim tip As New ToolTip
                tip.ToolTipTitle = ctrl.Text
                tip.SetToolTip(ctrl, "Help: " & ctrl.Tag)
            Next
        Next
End Sub

How does that look?

[Reapism]

This gave me good insight as to how I wanted to approach this. Essentially in each group box, I specify its tag property with the help text I want to display. Works like a charm!

[Reapism]

Last post on the code. I have gotten something that is quite nice.

A description of the method is provided in the comment block.

    ''' <summary>
    ''' determineControl()
    ''' Description: In each tabpage in tabSettings, it will look for each control that
    ''' is a GroupBox, and create a help tooltip that is associated with each groupbox
    ''' and list the help from the GroupBox's Tag property.
    ''' </summary>
    Public Sub determineControl() Handles Me.MouseHover
        For Each tPage As TabPage In tabSettings.TabPages
            For Each ctrl As Control In tPage.Controls
                If TypeOf ctrl Is GroupBox Then
                    Dim tip As New ToolTip
                    tip.ToolTipTitle = ctrl.Text
                    tip.SetToolTip(ctrl, "Displaying help for " & ctrl.Text &
                                   "." & System.Environment.NewLine & ctrl.Tag)
                End If
            Next
        Next
    End Sub

[boops boops]

Last post on the code. I have gotten something that is quite nice.

A description of the method is provided in the comment block.

    ''' <summary>
    ''' determineControl()
    ''' Description: In each tabpage in tabSettings, it will look for each control that
    ''' is a GroupBox, and create a help tooltip that is associated with each groupbox
    ''' and list the help from the GroupBox's Tag property.
    ''' </summary>
    Public Sub determineControl() Handles Me.MouseHover
        For Each tPage As TabPage In tabSettings.TabPages
            For Each ctrl As Control In tPage.Controls
                If TypeOf ctrl Is GroupBox Then
                    Dim tip As New ToolTip
                    tip.ToolTipTitle = ctrl.Text
                    tip.SetToolTip(ctrl, "Displaying help for " & ctrl.Text &
                                   "." & System.Environment.NewLine & ctrl.Tag)
                End If
            Next
        Next
    End Sub

I have some comments on that.

Firstly, I wouldn't declare multiple tooltips insided the loop. You can't access those tooltips from elsewhere, e.g. if you want to allow the user to disable tooltips, because the identifier "tip" goes out of scope at the end of the loop. Besides, it's inelegant when one tooltip will do the same job for all the controls on the form.

More problematic is putting the loop inside a MouseHover event handler. The event could fire thousands of times during the lifetime of your application. That means each control will end up with thousands of tooltips to render, one on top of another. (You can check that this is true by defining 2 tooltips for the same control and giving the first one a longer text than the second one. At runtime you will see the first tooltip poking out behind the second one, meaning both tooltips are drawn.) What is more, the Garbage Collector won't be able to get rid of all those tooltips, even though they are out of scope, because they are attached to controls. It would be quite a burden on your application's performance, and it's so unnecessary when you actually only need one tooltip per form.

There may be scenarios where you might think of using more than one tooltip object (for example, one per user language), although I expect there would be better ways of doing the job with just one.

Finally, you could make your code a bit more compact if you want by replacing the loop beginning For Each ctrl As Control ... with this:

For Each ctrl As Control In tPage.Controls.OfType(Of GroupBox)
        tip.ToolTipTitle = ctrl.Text
        '... etc.
Next

BB

[Reapism]

I have some comments on that.

Firstly, I wouldn't declare multiple tooltips insided the loop. You can't access those tooltips from elsewhere, e.g. if you want to allow the user to disable tooltips, because the identifier "tip" goes out of scope at the end of the loop. Besides, it's inelegant when one tooltip will do the same job for all the controls on the form.

More problematic is putting the loop inside a MouseHover event handler. The event could fire thousands of times during the lifetime of your application. That means each control will end up with thousands of tooltips to render, one on top of another. (You can check that this is true by defining 2 tooltips for the same control and giving the first one a longer text than the second one. At runtime you will see the first tooltip poking out behind the second one, meaning both tooltips are drawn.) What is more, the Garbage Collector won't be able to get rid of all those tooltips, even though they are out of scope, because they are attached to controls. It would be quite a burden on your application's performance, and it's so unnecessary when you actually only need one tooltip per form.

There may be scenarios where you might think of using more than one tooltip object (for example, one per user language), although I expect there would be better ways of doing the job with just one.

Finally, you could make your code a bit more compact if you want by replacing the loop beginning For Each ctrl As Control ... with this:

For Each ctrl As Control In tPage.Controls.OfType(Of GroupBox)
        tip.ToolTipTitle = ctrl.Text
        '... etc.
Next

BB

It doesn't seem to run more than once. I have call the method on load.

[Alhen1000]

It doesn't seem to run more than once. I have call the method on load.

I know this thread is old and maby outdated, but someone could find this usefull.

    Private Sub ShowTooltip(ByVal ControleName As Control, ByVal InputText As String, Optional TextLength As Integer = 40, Optional Titel As String = "Information", Optional DisplayTime As Integer = 5000)
        'Add Private TT1 as New ToolTip in top of Class (Under the classname), to make it work as a form all over tooltip
        Dim ActiveText As String = InputText
        Dim Output As String = String.Empty
        Dim PartOfstring As String = String.Empty

        While ActiveText.Length > 1
            If ActiveText.Length < TextLength Then
                Output &= ActiveText
                ActiveText = String.Empty
            Else
                Dim SpaceBar As Integer = 0
                SpaceBar = InStr(Mid(ActiveText, TextLength, ActiveText.Length), " ")
                PartOfstring = Mid(ActiveText, 1, TextLength + (SpaceBar - 1)) & Environment.NewLine
                Output &= PartOfstring
                ActiveText = Mid(ActiveText, TextLength + SpaceBar, ActiveText.Length)
            End If
        End While

        TT1.ToolTipTitle = Titel
        TT1.AutoPopDelay = DisplayTime
        TT1.Show(Output, ControleName)
    End Sub

You will use it as this example:

    Private Sub Lbl_Besked_MouseHover(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Lbl_Besked.MouseHover
        ShowTooltip(Lbl_Besked, Lbl_Besked.Text,, "Test Info")
    End Sub

I know you have to write it in all form elements you wanna show tooltip on, but it is working as it should. Use it as an idea or leave it.