Dynamic Tooltips

[wonfuji]

Anyone willing to share a little code that would make a tooltip popup change each time the cursor went over it? I'm told that a "Simple LET" and a few variables will do this but I can't crack the nut on it. I've seen this in action so I know it works.

Stephen

[SteveB]

Look at my post of 2/22/06 in this forum for one methodology uing a CF. I've also made dynamic tooltips, like displaying phone numbers when you're in a portal on a record. Just make a calculation out of it.

Steve

[wonfuji]

I gues what I mean is:

cursor pass 1 = "The Help System is activated" - this increments a value that toggles the CF

cursor pass 2 = "This button does this..." the value increments again so the returned text string is different again.

Picture this.

CHOOSE(_gToggle,0,"The Help System is activated", "This button does this...", "This is the third pass over this button", "This is the fourth and last"). And _gToggle is incremented by activation of the tooltip. Someone did this at the Devcon last summer - but brain meltdown prevents my recalling the session.

[JerryD]

I used something like this:

Let(

  [

    $$TipNo=If(IsEmpty(MultipleTips::g_Tips[$$TipNo+1]);1;$$TipNo+1)

  ];

MultipleTips::g_Tips[$$TipNo]

)

Tips.fp7.zip

[LaRetta]

That's a great idea, Jerry! Thank you for sharing it!!

[wonfuji]

Jerry,

Thanks very much for that - it's just what was required.

Thanks for sharing.

[SteveB]

Can you give me a real-world example for this type of tooltip? Why would a user think that each time he passes his curor over the same spot, he gets a different tip? Definately a non-standard interface function.

Steve

[LaRetta]

Three reasons I can think of, Steve (and I realize you didn't ask me, blush):

1) We want Tool Tips short. Most Users would read it once and then respond or move on. But some Users may need a bit more help. If they don't get it on the first pass (the Reader's Digest version), they can read it a second time - much expanded and worded differently. It could make all the difference in the world to THAT User. As a matter of fact, we can control what the tip says by the User logged in (which would be great to consider while training someone new). If a User passes the cursor over the same object again, it's probably because they didn't understand it the first time so displaying the same short sentence probably wouldn't help them.

2) I got excited mostly because of using variables and cycling through repetitions. It opens up a world of possibilities yet unseen (by me at least). I have no idea how all I might take advantage of some information I absorb (such as this). But that doesn't stop me from getting excited about it nonetheless. It's another tool in my bag of tricks!

3) No one says Tool Tips must be used as Tool Tips. Take that any way you wish.

I don't discount or throw away ANYTHING I learn. One never knows when it might come in handy.

L

[wonfuji]

And a few more.

Imagine a tooltip system that was help oriented.

Pass 1 "This button will generate a daily cashflow report"

Pass 2 " The report uses the current date but can be adjusted to meet different needs."

Pass 3 "A more detailed explanation can be seen by clicking the button now."

..and the button has an attached script that uses a bifurcation at script start that tracks the value set for Pass 3 and deviates to a HELP layout or whatever instead of running.

That's one way to use it...

One also can't ignore the "cool" factor when building systems that involves users!

Stephen

Edited March 12, 2006 by Guest
"cann;t" "invlove"

[SteveB]

I'm not arguing with the need to present lots of help information to the user. I also make use of dynamic tooltips to display phone #s and addresses, etc. But it seems to me your attempts, however well-intentioned, are trying to get around the fact that we can't control the time the tip is on the screen. But my guess is that most users will never realize that a 2nd or 3rd tip is available.

Steve