461980 - Tooltip display duration is fixed at 5 seconds with no means to specify a preference

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 395668

(Core :: Layout, defect)

Description

[John Morkel]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008102815 Minefield/3.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008102815 Minefield/3.0.3

Tooltips on buttons, links, images, etc. autohide after 5000ms, which is specified in mozilla/layout/xul/base/src/nsXULTooltipListener.h in the enum kTooltipAutoHideTime.

It would be nice if this value could be increased for reading RSS feeds and image alt text in tooltips. A setting under about:config is probably all that is required seeing as this is not something that absolutely everyone will want to change.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Place cursor over an image with alt text making tooltip appear
2. Wait 5 seconds
3. Poof! Tooltip is gone!
Actual Results:  
The tooltip disappears after 5 seconds with no way to change the duration.

Expected Results:  
There should at least be a setting under about:config where this can be changed.

I have written a patch that I believe suitably solves the problem. It is attached in the comments.

Comment 1

[John Morkel]

Attachment: Proposed patch

This patch reads the tooltip display duration from a preference called "browser.preferences.tooltipHideTime"

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

This is one possible approach to fixing bug 395668.

Comment 3

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Maybe you could make an extension, so that people can try it out?

Comment 4

[John Morkel]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Maybe you could make an extension, so that people can try it out?

I'm not sure if it's possible to change this functionality from within an extension. If someone has an idea of where to start implementing this in an extension, please let me know.