Tooltips and menus

Tooltips and menus

[Richard Stallman]

While navigating menus, I find that tooltips are a pain because they
often obscure part of the menu.  They don't obscure the menu item that
the mouse is on, but they obscure the item below it.  And when the
mouse is on an item that leads to another menu, such as Help -> More
Manuals, sometimes the tooltip obscures part of the submenu, which is
a real pain.

I suppose it is impossible to position tooltips in a way that can
never obscure what the user wants to see next.  But is it possible to
determine where the submenu is, and avoid obscuring that?

GNU Emacs 22.0.50.48 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 2006-05-03 on ututo-xs

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Leon]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> While navigating menus, I find that tooltips are a pain because they
> often obscure part of the menu.  They don't obscure the menu item that
> the mouse is on, but they obscure the item below it.  And when the
> mouse is on an item that leads to another menu, such as Help -> More
> Manuals, sometimes the tooltip obscures part of the submenu, which is
> a real pain.
>
> I suppose it is impossible to position tooltips in a way that can
> never obscure what the user wants to see next.  But is it possible to
> determine where the submenu is, and avoid obscuring that?
>
> GNU Emacs 22.0.50.48 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 2006-05-03 on ututo-xs

Display tooptips in minibuffer would be nice:-)

-- 
Leon

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Chong Yidong]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> While navigating menus, I find that tooltips are a pain because they
> often obscure part of the menu.  They don't obscure the menu item that
> the mouse is on, but they obscure the item below it.  And when the
> mouse is on an item that leads to another menu, such as Help -> More
> Manuals, sometimes the tooltip obscures part of the submenu, which is
> a real pain.
>
> I suppose it is impossible to position tooltips in a way that can
> never obscure what the user wants to see next.  But is it possible to
> determine where the submenu is, and avoid obscuring that?

Apparently not.  This is why most applications, as far as I can tell,
avoid using tooltips in menu entries.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Bill Wohler]

Leon <sdl.web@gmail.com> writes:

> Display tooptips in minibuffer would be nice:-)

This would break de-facto usability guidelines.

The minibuffer should not be used for functions that are initiated by
the mouse. If you mouse over an item, you get a tooltip, not text in
the minibuffer. If you select a menu item which requires input, you
get a popup, not a question in the minibuffer.

The reason for this is that the user is looking at the mouse, not the
minibuffer.

-- 
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and MH-E. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Ralf Angeli]

* Leon (2006-05-21) writes:

> Display tooptips in minibuffer would be nice:-)

M-x customize-variable RET tooltip-mode RET

-- 
Ralf

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Andreas Schwab]

Leon <sdl.web@gmail.com> writes:

> Display tooptips in minibuffer would be nice:-)

See tooltip-use-echo-area.

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, schwab@suse.de
SuSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
PGP key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Leon]

Ralf Angeli <angeli@caeruleus.net> writes:

> * Leon (2006-05-21) writes:
>
>> Display tooptips in minibuffer would be nice:-)
>
> M-x customize-variable RET tooltip-mode RET

Thank you, Ralf. Good to know that it's already implemented.

-- 
Leon

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Richard Stallman]

    Apparently not.  This is why most applications, as far as I can tell,
    avoid using tooltips in menu entries.

Should Emacs do that too?

Re: Tooltips and menus

[David Kastrup]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     Apparently not.  This is why most applications, as far as I can tell,
>     avoid using tooltips in menu entries.
>
> Should Emacs do that too?

I am using Emacs with GTK (though I don't think the toolkit makes much
of a difference) and I find the tooltips on menu entries not
disruptive (they do a pretty good job at disappearing).  I don't use
the menus very much though, probably like most advanced users.  The
tooltips help keeping the menu entries themselves concise and thus
recognizable.

I'd vote to keep them.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
> Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 17:17:31 +0200
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, Chong Yidong <cyd@mit.edu>
> 
> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >     Apparently not.  This is why most applications, as far as I can tell,
> >     avoid using tooltips in menu entries.
> >
> > Should Emacs do that too?
> 
> I am using Emacs with GTK (though I don't think the toolkit makes much
> of a difference) and I find the tooltips on menu entries not
> disruptive (they do a pretty good job at disappearing).  I don't use
> the menus very much though, probably like most advanced users.  The
> tooltips help keeping the menu entries themselves concise and thus
> recognizable.
> 
> I'd vote to keep them.

Same here.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Richard Stallman]

    I am using Emacs with GTK (though I don't think the toolkit makes much
    of a difference) and I find the tooltips on menu entries not
    disruptive (they do a pretty good job at disappearing).

I wonder whether this is a difference in opinions or a difference in
the behavior of Emacs.  (I don't use Emacs with GTK.)

When you say "they do a pretty good job at disappearing", could you
elaborate?  When you put the mouse on Help > More Manuals,
and the submenu appears, and then the tooltip appears,
what action makes the tooltip disappear again?

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Luc Teirlinck]

Richard Stallman wrote:

       Apparently not.  This is why most applications, as far as I can tell,
       avoid using tooltips in menu entries.

   Should Emacs do that too?

I do not know what you are _exactly_ suggesting.  I definitely believe
it would be bad to display no help text whatsoever.  Rather than not
displaying it at all, the text can always be displayed in the minibuffer,
as is already the case right now if you customize certain variables.

Sincerely,

Luc.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Chong Yidong]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     Apparently not.  This is why most applications, as far as I can tell,
>     avoid using tooltips in menu entries.
>
> Should Emacs do that too?

I suggested this some time ago.  The consensus on this list was to
keep using tooltips; the reason offered was that the tooltips provide
extra information.  Personally, I think that menu entries should be
written in such a way that all the necessary information is right
there, without need for tooltips.

If that's too radical a concept for people to swallow, another idea is
to remove tooltips for menu entries that open up submenus.  Tthat's
what the Gnome menu does, and will probably solve the particular
problem that Richard noticed.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>
> Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 21:26:35 -0400
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Personally, I think that menu entries should be written in such a
> way that all the necessary information is right there, without need
> for tooltips.

In my experience, this is impossible in practice.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Jan Djärv]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
>> Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 17:17:31 +0200
>> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, Chong Yidong <cyd@mit.edu>
>>
>> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>>
>>>     Apparently not.  This is why most applications, as far as I can tell,
>>>     avoid using tooltips in menu entries.
>>>
>>> Should Emacs do that too?
>> I am using Emacs with GTK (though I don't think the toolkit makes much
>> of a difference) and I find the tooltips on menu entries not
>> disruptive (they do a pretty good job at disappearing).  I don't use
>> the menus very much though, probably like most advanced users.  The
>> tooltips help keeping the menu entries themselves concise and thus
>> recognizable.
>>
>> I'd vote to keep them.
> 
> Same here.

Since they are very uncommon in other applications, I vote for turning them of 
by default, with an option to turn them on.  An alternative would be to have 
them displayed in the minibuffer by default.

	Jan D.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Jason Rumney]

Chong Yidong wrote:
> If that's too radical a concept for people to swallow, another idea is
> to remove tooltips for menu entries that open up submenus.  Tthat's
> what the Gnome menu does, and will probably solve the particular
> problem that Richard noticed.
>   
I agree. Tooltips only appear when the mouse stays over a menu item. For 
normal menu items, this probably means the user is hesitating and could 
do with some help. But for submenus, the user might leave their mouse 
over the submenu entry while they scan through the items in the submenu. 
In that case the tooltip gets in the way.

It might be useful to introduce a third setting for tooltip-mode that 
means "not-menus", to give the behaviour of some UIs where menu help 
appears in the status bar (equivalent to the minibuffer in Emacs), while 
elsewhere help is given in tooltips.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[David Kastrup]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     I am using Emacs with GTK (though I don't think the toolkit makes much
>     of a difference) and I find the tooltips on menu entries not
>     disruptive (they do a pretty good job at disappearing).
>
> I wonder whether this is a difference in opinions or a difference in
> the behavior of Emacs.  (I don't use Emacs with GTK.)
>
> When you say "they do a pretty good job at disappearing", could you
> elaborate?  When you put the mouse on Help > More Manuals,
> and the submenu appears, and then the tooltip appears,
> what action makes the tooltip disappear again?

Moving the mouse into the submenu.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Tooltips and menus

[David Kastrup]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> Chong Yidong wrote:
>> If that's too radical a concept for people to swallow, another idea is
>> to remove tooltips for menu entries that open up submenus.  Tthat's
>> what the Gnome menu does, and will probably solve the particular
>> problem that Richard noticed.
>
> I agree. Tooltips only appear when the mouse stays over a menu
> item. For normal menu items, this probably means the user is
> hesitating and could do with some help. But for submenus, the user
> might leave their mouse over the submenu entry while they scan
> through the items in the submenu. In that case the tooltip gets in
> the way.

For what it's worth, I can agree here as well.  Tooltips are detail
information, and the submenu itself provides better details than the
tooltip would.  Generally removing a submenu tooltip whenever a
submenu opens seems like a good idea.

> It might be useful to introduce a third setting for tooltip-mode
> that means "not-menus", to give the behaviour of some UIs where menu
> help appears in the status bar (equivalent to the minibuffer in
> Emacs), while elsewhere help is given in tooltips.

I think we should generally refrain from using tooltips on submenus,
but I don't think that the rest requires a different option.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Tooltips and menus

[David Kastrup]

Jan Djärv <jan.h.d@swipnet.se> writes:

> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
>>>
>>> I'd vote to keep them.
>>
>> Same here.
>
> Since they are very uncommon in other applications, I vote for
> turning them of by default, with an option to turn them on.

The question is whether they are considered helpful in general, not
whether other applications have them.  Emacs has a lot of things that
other applications don't.  My vote to keep them was because I
considered them useful.  Turning them off by default will, like most
other user convenience settings, have the effect that nobody ever
notices their availability.  In particular those users who would
profit from them.

> An alternative would be to have them displayed in the minibuffer by
> default.

That's less natural.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Jan Djärv]

David Kastrup skrev:
> Jan Djärv <jan.h.d@swipnet.se> writes:
> 
>> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>>> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
>>>>
>>>> I'd vote to keep them.
>>> Same here.
>> Since they are very uncommon in other applications, I vote for
>> turning them of by default, with an option to turn them on.
> 
> The question is whether they are considered helpful in general, not
> whether other applications have them.  Emacs has a lot of things that
> other applications don't.  My vote to keep them was because I
> considered them useful.  Turning them off by default will, like most
> other user convenience settings, have the effect that nobody ever
> notices their availability.  In particular those users who would
> profit from them.

I was kind of assuming that users don't find them useful and as a result other 
applications don't have them.  But I may assume too much here.

FWIW, I do find them annoying sometimes.  They tend to obscure other menu 
entries.  For the most part, they don't say any more than the menu entry 
itself.  For example Options => Show/Hide => Toolbar is pretty obvious.  The 
tool tip is "Turn tool-bar on/off" which adds nothing IMHO.

	Jan D.


	Jan D.

RE: Tooltips and menus

[Drew Adams]

There should never be a tooltip for a submenu title - no need.

Eliminate all tooltips that just repeat the menu item without adding
anything.

Tooltips on menus should be on by default, but you should be able to turn
them off (without turning off tooltips everywhere).

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Richard Stallman]

    If that's too radical a concept for people to swallow, another idea is
    to remove tooltips for menu entries that open up submenus.  Tthat's
    what the Gnome menu does, and will probably solve the particular
    problem that Richard noticed.

That could be a good idea.  After all, when you put the mouse
on such an item, you see the whole submenu to give you added
information, which gives you more information than a tooltip would.

(The submenu could even have a title to explain its overall purpose
if that is not self-evident.)

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Richard Stallman]

    There should never be a tooltip for a submenu title - no need.

    Tooltips on menus should be on by default, but you should be able to turn
    them off (without turning off tooltips everywhere).

I agree with those two suggestions.  Would someone like to implement them,
then ack?


I don't think we should delete "uninteresting" tooltips because
(1) the absence will look like a bug, and
(2) turning off tooltip display for menu items that lead to submenus
will solve most of the problem.

RE: Tooltips and menus

[Drew Adams]

    I don't think we should delete "uninteresting" tooltips because
    (1) the absence will look like a bug, and
    (2) turning off tooltip display for menu items that lead to submenus
    will solve most of the problem.

You're right.

I guess the point here really is that we should try most of the time to have
the tooltip say something more than just repeat the menu item verbatim.

Re: Tooltips and menus

[Richard Stallman]

    I guess the point here really is that we should try most of the time to have
    the tooltip say something more than just repeat the menu item verbatim.

I agree.

If someone who has signed papers wants to improve such tooltips,
please go ahead and do it.