SuperTip Demonstrates Tool Tips in an MFC Application

• The Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), used with:
  • Microsoft Visual C++, 32-bit Editions, version 5.0sp3

SUMMARY

The SuperTip sample demonstrates some common uses of tool tips in an MFC application:

• Tool tip support for toolbars



• How to use EnableToolTips



• A CToolTipCtrl object in a view, creating tools for windows and rectangular regions

MORE INFORMATION

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SuperTip.exe

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Task 1: Tool tip support for toolbars

1. When calling CToolbar::Create(), pass CBRS_TOOLTIPS in to SetBarStyle(). This process is already done for the default toolbar in AppWizard- generated projects.



2. For each button on the toolbar, add a string to your string resource table corresponding to the button's command ID in the form:

   "This is the fly-by text\nThis is what shows up in the tool tip"

   This process is also done automatically for you by AppWizard. For example, ID_FILE_NEW, the first button on the toolbar has the string entry "Create a new document\nNew." "New" is the text that shows up in the tool tip. You need to add a string to your string resource table corresponding to the button's command ID for any buttons or toolbars that you add.
   
   That's it! Because AppWizard does this for you, by using AppWizard you already have a toolbar with working tool tips.
   
   However, the process is more complicated if you want to change the text shown in a tool tip at run time:



3. On the Project menu, click Settings, and click the "C/C++" tab. Choose "General" in the Category field; in the Preprocessor Definitions edit box add "NO_ANSIUNI_ONLY" (without the quotation marks) as one of the preprocessor definitions.



4. Add the following message map entries to the message maps of your CMainFrame class and CchildFrame class:

   
         ON_NOTIFY_EX_RANGE(TTN_NEEDTEXTW, 0, 0xFFFF, OnDynamicTipText)
         ON_NOTIFY_EX_RANGE(TTN_NEEDTEXTA, 0, 0xFFFF, OnDynamicTipText) 

   Note that this method is for an MDI application. If your application is SDI, you won't have a CChildFrame class.



5. Add a function to both your CMainFrame class and (if MDI) CChildFrame class called OnDynamicTipText that handles the TTN_NEEDTEXT notification and enters the appropriate text into the NMHDR structure based on the idFrom that comes in. Refer to the SuperTip sample for a complete example of how to do this.

Task 2: How to use EnableToolTips

Q140595 DOC: How to Display Tool Tips After Calling EnableToolTips

1. In the OnInitialUpdate() of your view, call EnableToolTips(TRUE);.



2. Add handlers for the TTN_NEEDTEXT notification to your view class only, as described in steps 4 and 5 under Task 1 above.



3. If you don't need to dynamically change the tool-tip text at run time, add code to your handler to load a string from the string resource table and place it in the NMHDR structure. Otherwise, determine in your handler what text you want to display and place it in the NMHDR structure.

Task 3: CToolTipCtrl

1. Add a CToolTipCtrl object to your view. The SuperTip sample creates a CToolTipCtrl object as an embedded member of the CSuperTipView.



2. Call the Create member function of your CToolTipCtrl object. Provide the TTS_ALWAYSTIP style if you want the tool tips displayed even when the parent window of the tool tip control isn't currently active. Note that tool tips for this tool tip control are displayed even when the application isn't active and is in the background.



3. Add tools to the CToolTipCtrl object for each desired tip location. There are two ways to define the area that causes the tool tip to be displayed:
   
   
   1. Specify a rectangular region of the client area of the CToolTipCtrl's parent window
   
   
   
   2. Specify that a tool tip show for the entire area of a child window on the view.
   
   
   
   Additionally, there are two ways to specify what text to display for the tool tip.
   
   
   1. Pass in a string that is automatically used for that tool.
   
   
   
   2. Pass in the value defined by LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK. This causes the tool tip control to send the notification TTN_NEEDTEXT whenever a tool is about to be displayed; this a request that the recipient dynamically supplies a string to be displayed.
   
   
   
   LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK is always used when using tool-tip support for toolbars (Task 1) or CWnd::EnableToolTips (Task 2). MFC provides a default handler for TTN_NEEDTEXT in CframeWnd, which gets the requested string from the string resource table. The SuperTip sample intercepts the TTN_NEEDTEXT message so that the default MFC handler is never called. The handler function in this sample provides the default support (grabs text from string table) or supplies some dynamic text. Refer to the Needtext.cpp file to see this handler. The SuperTip sample does the following:
   
   
   1. The sample adds a tool to the Plain View for a rectangular region with pre-specified text (not LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK.)
   
   
   
   2. The sample adds a tool to the Plain View for a rectangular region with LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK specified so that our NeedText handler is called.
   
   
   
   3. The sample adds a tool to the Plain View for a child window on the view with pre-specified text (not LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK).
   
   
   
   NOTE: When the application is run, the text for the child window and the "Big Blue Rectangle" doesn't change when "Dynamic Tips" are selected on the menu. This is because the tool tips associated with child window and the Big Blue Rectangle do not specify LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK. If you changed the AddTool calls to use LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK, then tool tips for these two items would display text similar to other tools in this application.



4. Relay messages to the tool tip control so that it can determine when to show the tool tip using the RelayEvent member function of CToolTipCtrl.



5. If you specify LPSTR_TEXTCALLBACK for any of the tools that you add to your tool-tip control, you need to provide a handler for the TTN_NEEDTEXT(A/W) messages in the view.
   
   Because the TTN_NEEDTEXT message is sent through MFC's command routing architecture, there can be some confusion as to what handler is being called. The SuperTip sample routes all TTN_NEEDTEXT notifications to a single handler function, NeedText(). NeedText handles requests for tool-tip text in a general way, whether the tool tip is for a toolbar button, a child window, a rectangular area, and so on.
   
   Technically, if you have the handles for the WM_NEEDTEXT(A/W) messages in your frame windows as added in Tasks 1 and 2, the TTN_NEEDTEXT notification finds a handler anyway. The handlers in SuperTipView are included here only for completeness.



6. In MFC versions 4.0 and 4.1, all CToolTipCtrl objects in an application are deactivated when a modal dialog box is created. The CtoolTipCtrl objects are not reactivated when the dialog box goes away. To correct this problem, the SuperTip sample calls Activate(TRUE) before relaying any messages to the tool-tip control.

REFERENCES

NOTE: There are several problems in versions of VC++ earlier than VC++ 5.0, Service Pack 3 (SP3), involving tool tips that cause SuperTip sample to work incorrectly. For more information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q140595 DOC: How to Display Tool Tips After Calling EnableToolTips

Q167650 FIX: Problems with ToolTips on Windows 95

Q172276 FIX: CToolTipCtrl Not Displaying Text After VS SP1, SP2 Install

© Microsoft Corporation 1999, All Rights Reserved.
Contributions by Jason Strayer, Microsoft Corporation

Additional query words: tooltips CToolTip CtoolTipCtrl kbDSupport kbdsi kbmfc500 kbspack kbuidesign kbfile

Keywords : kbfile
Version : winnt:5.0sp3
Platform : winnt
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