DLL to provide simple, formatted tool tips
Last updated March 23, 2023
NOTE: This is my very first attempt to use git to share a
project, so please bear with me while I make mistakes.
Probably quite a few.
This DLL is the result of my inability to get Windows' built-in tooltip control to behave in a reliably consistent manner when I tried to add custom draw features to my existing tips. So I created my own tip windows that I could control completely and this is the result.
I'm sorry to say that I haven't yet mastered the use of UNICODE, so this project uses only plain ASCII strings. If anyone finds this useful, perhaps they might add that capability... (smile)
I had two (self-imposed) primary requirements:
- Allow much more text formatting
- Support resizing the fonts used
- The bold title lines are part of the formatting instead of using the separate title and body strings that the system tooltip control use.
- The icon images used were created using my limited skills with graphic tools. Icons may also be loaded by name from the customer application instance.
This package takes a specially encoded string and renders it into tooltip (like) window that may be displayed on demand at a specific location.
The string encoding was inspired by html, and supports:
<ff:name></ff> To use the registered font named 'name'
Font names may also be used as tags without the leading ff:,
if desired. Any closing font tag will be accepted to stop
using the currently selected font.
<fg:color></fg> To set a foreground color (bg for background)
<br> For a line break. NOTE: There is no terminating symbol for a line break
<a:align> Set alignment for text
<l@:#> Left Align text, starting at column #
<c@:#> Center Align text, around column #
<r@:#> Right Align text, ending at column #
<d@:#> Decimal Align text, with decimal in column # |
# may be a specific column (determined using the current font's average
character width) or a fraction (i.e. <r@:2/5>) to a fraction of the
current total width or ^ for the current center point (based on the
current total width) or * to re-use the most recently computed @ value
(useful in case variable text may increase the width)
<ne> No tags or escapes between this symbol and its end </ne>
This means that NONE of the html-like or escaped character symbols will be interpreted (except for the end of 'no escapes' sequence.)
To terminate an effect, use </xx> where xx is the symbol being ended.
These controls may be nested, but may not overlap. That means that
termination symbols MUST appear in the opposite sequence from where
the symbols were started!
<sc:#> Set start column to column # (using default font's average
character width)
NOTE: <sc:#> does not allow a terminating symbol
Escaped character strings supported:
\n Same as binary newline character
\t Same as binary tab character
\ooo Octal character code (1-3 octal digits)
\xxxx Hex character code (x followed by 1-3 hex digits)
I simply destroy the current FancyTip and create a new one using the appropriate font sizes when my application is resized.