VB6 - Customizable Balloon Tooltips for all controls (supports Unicode)

[VanGoghGaming]

This is another spin on "Customizable Balloon Tooltips" for your controls (mainly inspired from Elroy's example in this thread). All relevant code for the tooltips is encapsulated in the "cTT" class which is predeclared for ease of use. This class keeps track of all added tooltips and they are displayed automatically when the user hovers the mouse over a control that has a balloon tooltip attached.

• All tooltips are fully customizable as seen in the screenshot below.
• You can toggle enabling or disabling the display of tooltips either for specified controls or for all at once.
• Once created, a tooltip can be modified later without creating a new one
• The class supports both regular controls (those with a "hWnd" property) as well as windowless controls ("Label" for example)

Here is the demo project: BalloonTooltips.zip

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Very snazzy!

[yokesee]

Very nice job.

It can be done without a resource file, it is to move it to a dll.

greetings

[VanGoghGaming]

As long as the main executable is manifested for the modern theme you should be able to move the "cTT" class into a DLL just fine. You seem to like moving everything to DLLs, maybe make your very own RC# collection!

[yokesee]

As long as the main executable is manifested for the modern theme you should be able to move the "cTT" class into a DLL just fine. You seem to like moving everything to DLLs, maybe make your very own RC# collection!

if I use many DLLs like regfree.
I like to separate my work into dlls, so I can reuse them.

maybe make your very own RC# collection!

I wish I could, my knowledge is reduced

[AAraya]

This looks great!

A couple of questions for you:

1. Does this support unicode text?
2. What does this offer that Elroy's does not?

I'm asking as someone who's already using Elroy's class so trying to figure out if I should switch classes.

[VanGoghGaming]

It's in the thread's title (supports Unicode)...



I recommend you download it and give it a whirl. The whole idea came from the thread linked in the first post. There Elroy posted a BAS module, not a class.

[AAraya]

It's in the thread's title (supports Unicode)...

Haha! Well in my defense I have about a dozen new VBForums threads open at one time that I'm quickly glancing through to see if there's anything new for me to learn.

Thanks for pointing out what I missed.

[Condor3]

thanks for your work on this, VanGoghGaming!

Questions:
1. At least on my machine, your VB6 project shows the tooltips in a compiled EXE, but not when running in the VB6 IDE. Is that expected?

2. In my case (I suspect typical), I just need UNICODE and multi-line tooltips.
Could you release a simplified version to avoid the icons & the dependency on resource files?
If not, could you explain how to handle the .res, .rc, and MAKERES.BAT files to integrate your .res into an existing project that already has a different .res file?

[VanGoghGaming]

1. If you want the tooltips to show up in IDE you need to manifest your VB6.EXE for the modern theme. You can take the included manifest, rename it to "VB6.EXE.manifest" and copy it in the same folder as "VB6.EXE". Depending on your Windows settings (there is a registry key, I forgot what it's called) this may or may not be enough. If it still doesn't work you can always embed the manifest inside the "VB6.EXE" file using "MT.EXE" (the manifest tool from the Windows SDK, free download).

2. The tooltip function is fully customizable mate, you can choose "TTI_NONE" for the icon parameter if you don't like icons. There is no simplified version, this is it, you don't need any separate icons or anything (those are the default Windows icons). What you do need is the manifest for the modern theme as explained in post #4 above. I have included such a manifest as a courtesy but if your app is already manifested then you can safely ignore the included resource file (which contains only this manifest)!

[Condor3]

I did apply the manifest for VB6. Turns out we also need to update the modified date of the VB6.EXE (to bust caching).
The tooltips now work both in the IDE as well as in the compiled EXE. Thanks!

The tooltips work only if the project uses your BalloonTooltips.res.
I would like to use VBCCR18SideBySide.res so I tried, but failed, to merge the 2 res files (using Resource Hacker).
Could you describe how they should be merged?

Also, after some tooltip interaction, some of the tooltips stop popping for some of the controls.
After some further clicks, they tend to come back. Is this a known issue?

Many Thanks!

[VanGoghGaming]

The tooltips work only if the project uses your BalloonTooltips.res.
I would like to use VBCCR18SideBySide.res so I tried, but failed, to merge the 2 res files (using Resource Hacker).
Could you describe how they should be merged?

I should say that I am not familiar with VBCCR18SideBySide.res so I don't know what it contains but if you open it in "Resource Hacker" and you see a resource of type "Manifest" then you're not meant to add another one! You could edit the existing manifest and look for this code:

<dependency>
    <dependentAssembly>
      <assemblyIdentity type="win32" version="6.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="x86" name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" language="*" publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"/>
    </dependentAssembly>
  </dependency>

That will enable the modern theme for your app, including the balloon tooltips!

Also, after some tooltip interaction, some of the tooltips stop popping for some of the controls.
After some further clicks, they tend to come back. Is this a known issue?

Yes, this behavior is by design, tooltips are not meant to be annoying for the user so they seem to take a break if abused!

[Condor3]

Many thanks for the speedy reply!
The current resource is the one for Krool's UNICODE controls. Resource Hacker shows it as:



You provided some code and stated: "You could edit the existing manifest and look for this code..."
Did you mean insert this code... ?

Thanks for the clarification about the "dormant" tooltip behavior.

[VanGoghGaming]

If it's not there then yes insert it, that should take care of the balloon tooltips problem.

[Condor3]

Many Thanks!

[Condor3]

Oops; the merged res file, shown below:



causes a loss of styling, as provided by Krool's controls:



The tooltips still work, but the form styling should not be lost while supporting the side-by-side res file to simplify deployment.

[VanGoghGaming]

Have you tried the other way around? Copying the side-by-side info (file tag) into the BalloonTooltips manifest and recompiling the resource file?

I haven't used Krool's controls but it seems there's also a "Std-exe" version that doesn't rely on external OCX files. As far as I can tell, it also includes a resource file with the dependency tag for the modern theme already present. Have you tried that?

Ultimately it's worth asking Krool as well since he is the most qualified to solve this issue.

[HackerVlad]

I also did my own project on tooltips. I really like it too. It was especially difficult to make a tooltip that automatically moves, following the mouse pointer, at the same distance as in Windows OS.

[fan2006]

thx,and i fit it into twinbasic for x64.
prjBalloonTooltips.7z

[HackerVlad]

It's a good project, but it's worth noting that the tooltips (balloons) use the style of the old Windows XP, not the style of the current OS. This will not be acceptable for everyone, but I was developing my own project where the tooltips adopt the style of the current OS.

[massimodan]

fantastico

[fabel358]

Why does the Balloon ToolTip flash if the text is long?