45522 - [meta] tooltips should disappear on input/motion

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: XUL, defect, P3)

Description

[tor]

Recent changes to mozilla make it pop up a tooltip anytime you hover over 
a second or so.  While sometimes useful, it can also be annoying for some
people.  There should be a preference setting that turns off tooltips.

Comment 1

[Sebastian Späth]

I don't know if that is exactly what the bug reporter meant, but:
Currently all links will give a "Location:..." tooltip.
Sometimes you will see the link location on the screen anyway. Even if not, the
location will appear in the status bar (JavaScript shouldn' be allowed to
override that BTW).
There will be seldom the need to display links as tooltips and it can often be
annoying.
So, when link tooltips are not turned off all the time, there should be an
option to do that.

Confirming & moving bug to XP/Toolkit Widgets, where most other tooltip bugs are

Comment 2

[Sebastian Späth]

And reassigning to pinkerton, just because he has lots of tooltip bugs :-).
Sorry if you were the wrong one.

Comment 3

[R.K.Aa.]

Correcting URL by removing it and placing it as summary instead.

This bug is somewhat related to the fix for bug 27828, and it seems that the
"Location:" and "URL will open in:" aren't quite the spec. Furthermore, tooltips
should not trigger over links without the TITLE tag set, but they currently do.

Comment 4

[Sebastian Späth]

I think we don't need another pref for this when tooltips on links are only 
triggered by a TITLE tag, which IMHO would be ok (There are already enough 
prefs).
Although I'm not the reporter of the bug, I take the freedom the change the 
summary from "Need tooltip preference" to: "Don't show tooltip over link without 
TITLE tag".

Comment 5

[Brendan Donohoe]

From a UI perspective, I'd say that unless we change the tooltip behavior, 
we DO need a tooltip preference.  As it stands, tooltips will pop-up after 
the specified period of time, no matter what, not just when there's no 
activity.  Along the same lines, tooltips will pop up in the middle of an 
action like opening a menu (try the keyverbs menu) or typing a URL and 
display on top of the action, obscuring whatever's happening underneath.  
In such a state, there had better be a way to turn off tooltips.

Tooltips should pop-up only after the specified period of inactivity -- 
meaning the mouse stops moving, there are no clicks, there are no key 
presses.  If ANY of those activities occurs before the tooltip displays, the 
timer should be reset.  Once the tooltip displays, however, it's a 
semi-modal state; now moving the mouse around to different controls 
displays the tooltip immediately.  Clicking or pressing a key would exit the 
state and clear the tooltips, requiring the specified interval of inactivity to 
display again.  Likewise, the tooltip mode should timeout, hiding tooltips 
after a single tooltip has displayed for a specified period of time (5 or so 
seconds).  Also, tooltips should never appear for a control underneath the 
active item, e.g. for the button which called a menu while the menu is 
already open.  If this behavior is implemented correctly, tooltips won't get 
in the way, won't pop-up unexpectedly in the middle of an action, and won't 
obscure what you're working on.  In such case, a preference is less 
necessary and could be scrapped in favor of simplifying an already 
complex dialog.

So, that said, I recommend returning this bug to its original intention and 
not hijacking it for another smaller issue.  Tooltip behavior is irritating and 
we need to fix it or provide a way to turn it off (or both).

Comment 6

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

We should improve tooltip behavior, not force the user to choose between broken 
tooltips or none at all.

Let's change this bug to "improve tooltip behavior".

Comment 7

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Righto, resummarizing.

Correction to Brendan's comment that `If ANY of those activities occurs before 
the tooltip displays, the timer should be reset':
`the timer should be reset' -->
`the timer should be turned off'.
The `timer should be reset' behavior is how 4.x for Mac OS works, and it's a bug. 
The timer should only be reset if the cursor leaves and then re-enters the 
tooltipped item.

So, a tooltip should disappear permanently (where `permanently' has the meaning 
given above) when:
* the cursor moves *at all*
* the tooltipped item moves beyond the cursor (e.g. an animated page element)
* the tooltipped item disappears (bug 45497)
* (possibly) a timeout occurs (bug 45530)
* any other input device (such as a keyboard) is used.

If someone wants to file separate bugs for those items listed above which don't 
already have their own bugs, this bug can turn into a tracker.

Comment 8

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Also when:
* mousedown occurs (bug 39078).

Comment 9

[Mike Pinkerton (not reading bugmail)]

won't get to this one any time soon.

Comment 10

[Peter Trudelle]

Adding meta keyword, since this appears to have morphed beyond a defect report.
I don't think we'll get to any of this, so if anyone feels strongly about it,
now would be the right time to submit patches that fix it.

Comment 11

[Mike Pinkerton (not reading bugmail)]

so many bigger fish to fry

Comment 12

[timeless]

[ue2] ??? adding ue2 keyword. Would someone please explain what [ue2] means?

Comment 13

[Luis Villa]

cc: (sorry about the spam)

Comment 14

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

The big about hiding the tooltip upon keyboard input is fixed by the work I'm
doing for bug 93839.  I'll just take this one from pinkerton, I'm sure he won't
mind.

Comment 15

[John Levon]

re-summarizing to be less vague

Comment 16

[Neil Fraser]

Maybe as a simple fix, could we just set the onmouseover on a tooltip to nuke
the tooltip?  If you point at the top of your back button, wait for the tooltip
to arrive, then mouse down onto the tooltip, Mozilla starts flashing
uncontrolably (Windows 98 with Xmouse behaviour on).

In MS Word and IE the tooltip simply vanishes when your mouse moves over it. 
But the tooltip does NOT vanish if you move the mouse within the confines of the
host object (which is what seems to be proposed in this bug).

Comment 17

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

15 years without any activity on this meta bug, closing.