[kde-guidelines] Styleguide: Tool-tips

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Thursday 04 July 2013 14:40:33 Heiko Tietze wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 4. Juli 2013, 13:30:19 schrieb David Edmundson:
> > Would you call the hovering over an icon in SystemSettings a "tooltip" ?
> 
> It's an infotip in contrast to simple, single line hints. The distinction
> makes sense when using different methods like property for hints/tooltips
> and special controls or calls for info-tips.
> 
> >With regards to "static" I've heard one designer say "if a button is
> >disabled your tooltip should say why", which I think makes a lot of sense.
> 
> Imagine such an interface that is controlled by hints, because if you show
> the reason for the disabled button you can do all other stuff as well in
> this way. Horrible!

Well, actually that "one designer" was me ;) See my blog post:
http://sessellift.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/if-you-disable-something-tell-your-users-why/
We should not encourage developers to "Create an interface that is controlled 
by hints". However, currently in KDE applications in most cases there is no 
information whatsoever as to why a control is disabled, which is the worst 
case scenario.
I am still convinced that giving a user who hovers over a control the reason 
why it is disabled is a good idea, but it should remain the only reason for 
changing tooltips.

> Whether a control is enabled or not should be clear from the workflow, the
> placement of controls, and if really neccessary by means of static text.
> With variable tooltips one need always to check if devs have placed some
> easter egg there.

We're not talking about tooltips that do pretty much anything. The usage 
should still be limited to "Tell the user what the control does" and "Tell the 
user why the control is disabled".
I do not see where for example the reason for a disabled button toolbar should 
be placed. You cannot change the placement, you cannot place static text, yet 
pretty often toolbar buttons get disabled for some reason, and if users cannot 
find out the reason, they get pissed.

It's not like there is nothing in between "Completely static" and "Total 
chaos". I was talking about two states, no more.
Usually, the reason for a control being disabled is always the same, anyway, 
so the tooltip doesn't change.