Display ToolTip in any place on the screen

• Download demo project - 4 Kb
• Download source - 18 Kb

Introduction

This article shows how to display tooltips at any location on the screen.

To create a tooltip it is necessary to create a window of class TOOLTIPS_CLASS, then to fill a TOOLINFO structure:

typedef struct tagTOOLINFO{
	UINT      cbSize; 
	UINT      uFlags; 
	HWND      hwnd; 
	UINT_PTR  uId; 
	RECT      rect; 
	HINSTANCE hinst; 
	LPTSTR    lpszText; 
    #if (_WIN32_IE >= 0x0300)
	LPARAM lParam;
    #endif
} TOOLINFO, NEAR *PTOOLINFO, FAR *LPTOOLINFO;

We determine two parameters in this structure which are interesting to us: uFlags and lpszText.

uFlags it is chosen equal TTF_TRACK, that gives us an opportunity of use message sending to choosing a position for ToolTip and control visibility.

lpszText - the task of the text which we want display.

Now we send the message in system, about desire to create the emerging help where we transfer the reference to our structure TOOLINFO

SendMessage (hwndTT, TTM_ADDTOOL, 0, (LPARAM) (LPTOOLINFO) *ti);

Then we send a TTM_TRACKPOSITION message  which sets the coordinates of ToolTip

SendMessage (hwndTT, TTM_TRACKPOSITION, 0, (LPARAM) (DWORD) MAKELONG (m_x, m_y));

where m_x and m_y coordinates x and y on the screen.

And finally we send the message to activate the ToolTip

SendMessage (hwndTT, TTM_TRACKACTIVATE, true, (LPARAM) (LPTOOLINFO) *ti);

where the true value indicates we will display the ToolTip. If we specified false, the ToolTip will be hidden.

History

1 Sep 2002 - updated source code

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Everything U need & Nothing U Don't pg--az 20:23 24 Apr '09   Your code solved my problem because it was so simple I could understand it. It reminds me of Nancy Cluts, her sample code on MSDN was always stripped to the bare bones so that you could see the example while being confused as little as possible by the minimally-necessary-other-stuff-to-make-it-work. Great style ! pg--az Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink To create Tooltip for picture control in MSVS 2008(VC++) shruthikl 2:03 26 Aug '08   Hi, Can anyone tell me how to create ToolTip for a Picture control in VC++ .net 2008? Shruthi Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) GDI OBJECT LEAK carloscorpia 0:17 10 Mar '06   Hi, Only one remark to your job. After ::SendMessage(hwndTT, TTM_TRACKACTIVATE, false, (LPARAM)(LPTOOLINFO) &ti); you have to destroy the window Created with ::SendMessage(hwndTT, WM_DESTROY, NULL, NULL); If you don't do it, there is a GDI object leak with the window created. CARLES Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink De source does not work... the sample exe does. Peter Hendrix 3:09 11 May '05   I don't get it. When I run your sample application, all works well. When I build and debug/run your code I don't get to see any tooltip at all! What is going on. I am running WindowsXP SP2 (with latest updates) and VS.NET 2003 enterprise edition. Regards, Peter. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 3.00/5 (1 vote) Re: De source does not work... the sample exe does. Zarembo Maxim 18:40 11 May '05   read thread with subject C++ .NET question Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) Re: De source does not work... the sample exe does. [modified] GMBarak 21:10 16 Jan '07   if you want to display tooltip in any way, just read MSDN's: "Using ToolTip Controls" article, here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms650455.aspx[^] it has all the information you need after you create the tooltip, you just modify it with sending any of the messages specified in: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms674760.aspx[^] general information about tooltips can be found at: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms650446.aspx[^] -- modified at 3:39 Wednesday 17th January, 2007 Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: De source does not work. vs manifest pg--az 20:19 24 Apr '09   Be sure that the common-controls 6.0 is hooked up via the manifest and InitCommonControls() pg--az Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink MAHAssistance: a Nifty program that used this article (Thanks to Author) Behzad Ebrahimi 23:48 7 Nov '04   MAHAssistance is a "Winamp 2.xx" & "Modern Winamp 5" General Plugin. With MAHAssistance you can control easily the - Winamp Volume Remotely - Seek Current Track Remotely - Auto Play & Resume last play position - Song Deleter (If you do NOT like current playing song, delete it easily!) See and Download MAHAssistance in Winamp.com[^] If you have a suggestion please feel free and email to me: B.Ebrahimi@Gmail.com Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: MAHAssistance: a Nifty program that used this article (Thanks to Author) Zarembo Maxim 10:31 8 Nov '04   Very good, interesting plugin. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Thanks very much! Chris Hills 6:04 7 Jul '04   Your article was a great help to me when I was wanting to display a tooltip while dragging a scrollbar. I've submitted an article on this, it's here[^] . Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Thanks very much! Zarembo Maxim 2:21 29 Jul '04   I am glad, that my article was interesting for you. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Wrapping the text Balkrishna Talele 1:49 22 Apr '04   IF i have too long text, how will i wrap the text??? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Wrapping the text Zarembo Maxim 3:56 22 Apr '04   SendMessage(hwndTT, TTM_SETMAXTIPWIDTH, 0, m_Width); text must have blank space in programm ToolTipZEN v.2.2. release http://www.softzenware.com/tooltipzen_eng.html you can see many capability in ToolTip. All you can find in MSDN. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Unregistering Tooltips rect Majid Shahabfar 2:28 16 Dec '02   Hello, You now that we can register a tool with a ToolTip control by using TTM_ADDTOOL. Now how can we remove the registered tooltips? I know about using TTM_DELTOOL but I'm looking for another ways. Thank you in advance. BOOL CMyToolTip::AddRectTool(CWnd *pWnd,LPCTSTR pszText,LPCRECT pRect,UINT nIDTool) { TOOLINFO ti; ti.cbSize = sizeof (TOOLINFO); ti.uFlags = TTF_SUBCLASS; ti.hwnd = pWnd->GetSafeHwnd(); ti.uId = nIDTool; ti.hinst = AfxGetInstanceHandle(); ti.lpszText = (LPTSTR) pszText; ::CopyRect (&ti.rect, pRect); return (BOOL)SendMessage(TTM_ADDTOOL, 0, (LPARAM) &ti); } Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Excellent article dabs 1:36 3 Sep '02   Thanks for your great article. It helped me adding functionality to my app I didn't know how to implement. While reading the code I noticed that you create the tooltip window each time a tooltip is added but that window is never destroyed. Not that it matters much in a small test project like this. Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beierhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput! Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Adding tooltip to picture control Anonymous 1:38 2 Sep '02   How can I add tooltip to a picture control? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 (1 vote) Re: Adding tooltip to picture control Chopper 1:27 18 Dec '02   Hi, perhaps a little off-topic, but since you got no answer here, i thought you might be interested to visit www.tooltips.net. It has tooltips that you can attach to any visual object, including the picture control. Regards, Vitaly Tomilov Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.17/5 (3 votes) res directory missing from source Andreas Saurwein 23:59 1 Sep '02   You should repackage the source zip because it is missing the ./res directory. Although it doesnt contain any unique files, they are necessary to compile it. int x=1, y=5; x^=y^=x^=y; // whats the content of x and y now? "http://www.codeproject.com/tips/StupidXORTrick.asp" target="_blank">ClickHereForHelp(); Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: res directory missing from source Anonymous 0:47 2 Sep '02   Thank you very much. I don't understand how that happen and why this error only now see. Work project find it in my website http://maxim.z.tripod.com/visual_c/tooltipzen_src.zip Zarembo Maxim Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink C++ .NET question Anonymous 4:45 12 Aug '02   Thanks for this cool code posting. I had one question about it though...I was able to put this in a project using Visual Studio 6 and it worked perfectly. I tried to put it in a different project using Vicual C++ .Net and it wouldn't work at all. It seems like all the calls were successful but nothing was displayed. Do you know of any reason things would change in .NET? Either way, thanks for the post! Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: C++ .NET question Anonymous 22:19 12 Aug '02   I am glad, that my source was useful for you. Now I haven't .Net and i can not advise any things. But I saw this problem already, but haven't time for decide this problem. When at me time will appear, I necessarily shall solve this problem and I shall send its decision to you. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: C++ .NET question Anonymous 1:05 2 Sep '02   Now this sources don't support .Net and i not know how do it. Zarembo Maxim Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: C++ .NET question Redwings 7:42 18 Sep '02   Insert the following code segment to stdafx.h and make sure it is ahead of any "#include" statement. #define WINVER 0x0400 #define _WIN32_WINDOWS 0x0400 #define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0400 #define _WIN32_IE 0x0500 Edwin Geng Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: C++ .NET question Anonymous 18:01 16 Oct '02   Thanks! You 'da man! Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: C++ .NET question JaseNet 0:51 3 Dec '04   Thank you. How on earth did you discover this. My conbtrols have become useful once more. best regards Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

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