Hiya guys im building a database for a client and im looking for a script that will allow me to hover my mouse over a button and a window will put up explaining what the button does, ive been told i might need a plugin for this, but im not sure. All the information you could give me would be great.

FileMaker does not offer traditional Mouse Over(s). The better way for you to accomplish this is to assign a unique number to each button. When the user Clicks on a button with a Modifier depressed such as ALT, Command, Control, Option, Shift or any combination of such you can set a global field to a number defined in the script.

The global could be related to another field in you HELP file where it would pull up the meaning of the button.

Another thought is to use Troi Dialog Plug in this way you can create dynamic dialog boxes with your data.

Or you can see another approach to this in the Starter Template I posted in the Sample Files forum... when you hold Shift and click on any button, it displays help text from that button in the status area of the window.

For more than one- or two-word descriptions, I actually consider that superior to pop-ups on mouse-over... you don't want to be popping up long descriptions... and the status area can be used for lots of other stuff, too.

HTH.

this may not be what you're looking for, but i always make the field labels act like a button that run a script that does Show Message["whatever you want to display"]

I created a help script that checked the name of the current button script when a modifier key was held down and then displayed an appropriate message. This could also be adapted to place the help definition in a status field as well.

Set Error Capture [ Off ]

Freeze Window

If [ g_cur_scriptname = "" ]

Show Message [ Buttons:

Hi Tom,

You may be interested to take a look at a demo file which is available (free) from my website at the following URL:

http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/demos/ClickTips.fp5

The technique shown in the file closely resembles roll-over tips, but the tips are invoked by holding the shift key down while clicking on the button. The tip then stays on the screen as long as the shift key remains depressed, disppearing automatically as soon as the key is released.

I've found over a period of time, that most users seem to prefer this method to conventional 'tooltip' rollovers, because with the ClickTips method, you only get them when you want them, so the rest of the time the distraction of uninvited 'mouse poppers' is held in check.