Re: finding the face of a popup

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 29.08.2007 um 18:30 schrieb Allan Gottlieb:

> But you knew that the name of the face was tooltip; that is
> exactly the information I didn't know (actually, forgot).

The term ``tooltip´´ is in common use and it is not only GNU Emacs  
that uses them. Apple had before Mac OS X the balloon help, M$ is  
using screen tips. It is also obvious that a pop-up menu needs an  
action to happen before it can pop up, while the tooltip appears when  
the cursor comes close to some "magical" area.

When you don't know what a tooltip is, then a *Help* window with  
character properties, including those of the tooltip, won't help you  
either. It could give a hint, at least ...


I haven't read the tutorial for 25 years or so – could you check it  
and send a bug report (from Help menu), asking for an enhancement to  
describe tooltips? The Frames section of the Emacs info node has the  
tooltips:


Tooltips (or "Balloon Help")
============================

   Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
mouse position, typically over text--including the mode line--which can
be activated with the mouse or other keys.  (This facility is sometimes
known as "balloon help".)  Help text may be available for menu items
too.

   To use tooltips, enable Tooltip mode with the command `M-x
tooltip-mode'.  The customization group `tooltip' controls various
aspects of how tooltips work.  When Tooltip mode is disabled, the help
text is displayed in the echo area instead.

   As of Emacs 21.1, tooltips are not supported on MS-Windows.  So help
text always appears in the echo area.


I haven't read this node until now. I really prefer the harder way  
using commands from the apropos family and then sort the hits into  
useful and not so useful ones. And even from these one can learn a  
few things. Another source of useful hints are the indexes in the  
Emacs info node: key, command, variable, concept, and option indexes.  
Again, when the term tooltip is unknown, then these indexes can't be  
of great help instantaneously. Realising that a tooltip is some kind  
of help that comes automatically, it seems sensible to me to look  
which ``help´´ entries the concept index offers. I just checked –  
it's real promising. Even on how to search documentation efficiently ...

--
Greetings

  Pete

To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists  
solutions
are things that are still all mixed up.