Tooltip for groups

[J. Landman Gay]

On 11/15/03 10:37 AM, jbv wrote:

>>
>>For me this is pretty much a non-issue. I routinely solve this problem
>>by placing a transparent button or empty image object behind everything
>>else. Make it layer 1 in the group. That way, objects on top of it which
>>have tooltips will respond with their own tip. Spaces between objects
>>respond with the layer-1 object tooltip. It's a very easy fix and
>>doesn't require any engine changes or even any scripting.
>>
> 
> 
> Yep, except that it doesn't solve the problem : with your solution,
> you'll never display a unique tooltip when user points at the group
> (except if you set all tooltips of all the objects of that group to the
> same content - and if that content needs to be changed on-the-fly,
> then some scripting is required).
> Besides, placing a transparent object behind everything will show
> a tooltip when pointing at empty spaces between objects, which is
> not really usefull...

I guess I misunderstood what you were after. I thought the above was 
what you wanted. After reading your reply to Scott Rossi, I see now what 
you are trying to do; you want a tooltip that acts as though a grouped 
set of controls were a single control.

I can see some potential interface problems with this though. If your 
group has only a single functionality -- for example, clicking on the 
group as a whole produces a single action -- then a transparent button 
over the top would give you what you want. You could script the button 
to trigger the necessary action.

If the group instead has several buttons or controls, each of which 
respond independently to user actions, then I'm not sure a single 
tooltip is the best choice. Each control should probably have its own 
tool tip. But I'm still not clear on what you need, so maybe I'm off base.

Can you explain more what the group does and how it reacts?

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com