Tooltip hints added
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2019 4:19 pm
We have released versions of BASICtools, MakeItC and TclTerm with tooltip hints. We publish the TclTk source for our IDE tools, and one of our users is taking advantage of this to build an IDE system the way he likes it. One of the things added was a popup hint or tooltip when you place the mouse over a certain area, button or menu item. This was a library we were not aware of, but think it is a valuable addition to the IDE.
Our philosophy has always been to keep the interface simple and uncluttered. But some menu items are more complex than one or two word descriptions. And trying to find those descriptions might be hard in the help files.
This is always a tradeoff between usefulness and annoyance. For instance Microsoft Excel's overly cute assistant is too big and often in the way. So we make some of these hints go away when you use the item, and we also allow include a global shutoff in the help menu.
Our philosophy has always been to keep the interface simple and uncluttered. But some menu items are more complex than one or two word descriptions. And trying to find those descriptions might be hard in the help files.
This is always a tradeoff between usefulness and annoyance. For instance Microsoft Excel's overly cute assistant is too big and often in the way. So we make some of these hints go away when you use the item, and we also allow include a global shutoff in the help menu.