Re: Tooltips on w32 slow and strange

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> Stephan Stahl wrote:
>
>>I reported this too a while ago but got no answer:
>>http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2004-06/msg00060.html
>>
>>As far as i understand tooltips on w32 emacs does not use normal
>>w32-tooltips but special emacs frames that are stripped of everything
>>(modeline, toolbar, minibuffer,...).  Maybe this could be changed..
>>  
>>
> Emacs uses frames for its tooltips on all platforms. To change this on
> Windows would make it more difficult to maintain, and would lose
> functionality.

Are you sure about that?  Under X11, tooltips come without any
decoration and without any impact on the focus (I have
focus-follows-mouse policy).  I never noticed _any_ problem with them.

In contrast, the XEmacs "balloon-help" indeed uses frames, which come
with decoration (like borders and a headline) and most particular
which cause problems with the input focus being diverted for a moment.

We don't want such effects enabled by default on _any_ platform,
believe me.  A mode of mine explicitly enabled the balloon-mode
mechanism on XEmacs, and due to user complaints we have been forced to
create an option for turning it off, and later change this option's
default to off.

If users of Emacs on Windows experience similar effects, this will
significantly hamper acceptance and usability.  So I'd strongly to
those working on the Windows port to see whether something can be done
in that regard.  I can't see at all what functionality could possibly
be lost.  At least the X11 tooltips on Emacs provide no functionality
whatsoever except popping up some text in a single font AFAICS.  No
face support, no clickable areas, nothing.  So if there is a function
for popping them up in the system, I can't see what we could lose by
using it.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum