Visual C++ MFC - Dynamic Tooltips for MenuItems

Dynamic Tooltips for MenuItems

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Topic: Dynamic Tooltips for MenuItems

Posted By: mfproudman
Subject: Dynamic Tooltips for MenuItems
Date Posted: 02 July 2010 at 9:24am

We would like to have dynamic tooltips associated with Toolbar and Menu items. The purpose would be to tell users why the update handler has turned a menu or toolbar selection on or off.

I have the obvious static resource-based tooltips working for MenuBars and Toolbars, but is there a way to change text dynamically, perhaps from the OnUpdateUI handler?

I have tried handling WM_XTP_CONTROLSELECTED. I get a pointer to the control and hence to the ID of the menu item, but SetTooltip() seems to have no effect. In the following, I get the TRACE, but not the tooltip (I get the static resource-based tooltip string):

LRESULT CMainFrame::OnXTPControlSelected(WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)

{

CXTPControl * ctrl = (CXTPControl *)wParam;

if(!ctrl) return NULL;

CString msg;

msg.Format("id=%d\n", ctrl->GetID());

TRACE(msg);

ctrl->SetTooltip(msg);

return lParam;

}

Is this supported? Controlling at runtime the tooltip associated with a menu item must be possible; it seems a pretty obvious idea.

Any comments appreciated,

Mark Proudman

mfproudman@gmail.com

-------------
Mark Proudman

Replies:

Posted By: mfproudman
Date Posted: 06 July 2010 at 10:15am

Two points further to this post:

1. I made a mistake in the original post, and cut and pasted the wrong code.

Handling WM_XTP_CONTROLSELECTED works (almost - see point 2 below) with CXTPControl::SetTooltip() _when called from CMainFrame_ to update the tooltip on the application main menu (or a submenu thereof).

But it does not work when called to update a Context right-click popup menu invoked with TrackPopupMenu() from a view. In that case, I get my trace, but no tooltip. In other words, the following code is invoked, but puts no toolitp on the context menu:

LRESULT CMyView::OnXTPControlSelected(WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)

{

CXTPControl * ctrl = (CXTPControl *)wParam;

if(!ctrl) return NULL;

CString msg;

msg.Format("id=%d\n", ctrl->GetID());

TRACE(msg);

ctrl->SetTooltip(msg);

return lParam;

}

Is there a way to get dynamic tool tips on a context menu?

2. Even when called from CMainFrame to update the application menu menu, the WM_XTP_CONTROLSELECTED message gets there late. (There is a forum post of 16 December 2009 on this, but no followup). WM_XTP_CONTROLSELECTED gets handled _after_ the tooltip is displayed, so the first tooltip the user sees is the _second last_ tooltip set with CXTPControl::SetTooltip().

Is there a way around this? Either another message (WM_XTP_CONTROL_ABOUT_TO_BE_SELECTED?), or a way of intercepting something like WM_XTP_INITMENU, so that a current and up to date tooltip can be provided?

I'm sure that more than one developer has wrestled with this.

Thanks for any input,

Mark Proudman

mailto:mfproudman@gmail - mfproudman@gmail

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Mark Proudman