Enterprise Architect 13 cannot display tooltips

[cataylor559]

I have installed the latest Enterprise Architect 13 on a Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 and the toolbox items will not display the tooltips. 

[Helmut Ortmann]

Hi,

have you looked into the status line (last line)?

Regards,

Helmut

[Boron]

Oh my god  .
Did Sparx really remove tooltips in favor of text in the status bar?
I also was wondering where the tooltips are, since I installed EA 13. Good thing I mostly know the icons.
Nevertheless, this is crazy. Tooltips are standard nowadays.

[qwerty]

Yes, they moved them. There's a thread where Geert (?) discussed this issue with Sparx.

q.

[PeterHeintz]

On "Customize/Options/Toolbar/Show Screen Tips on toolbars" you can return to the old useful behavior.

[skiwi]

With these settings

tooltips show only on the status bar (build 1307).
IMHO this doesn't work, e.g. hovering over class relationship icons in the Toolbox its too far for the eye to travel.

[skiwi]

Actually its in these settings (Visual Styles)

[Eve]

IMHO this doesn't work, e.g. hovering over class relationship icons in the Toolbox its too far for the eye to travel.

That's great. Everything on that dialog is there because different users want to see things differently.

[qwerty]

The eye travel is that from the element to the tool tip. And that's definitely too large.

q.

[Eve]

So, you think Enterprise Architect is unique in putting information about what is hovered over in a status bar?

Maybe you should try hovering over a hyperlink in any web browser. How is the eye travel in that scenario? Would you like that to be a pop-up tooltip?

[skiwi]

Well its interesting you say that, because in both Word and EA hovering over items in the ribbon produces a tooltip adjacent to the cursor   .

I'd suggest that a browser UI is not an appropriate comparison for EA. In a browser you may wish to see for a specific link what the underlying URL is, in EA you may want to examine a number of adjacent items to determine what they are - it is this repeated eye traversal that makes the eye movement distance important.

Fortunately you have provided a means of turning it off so that tool tips are by the cursor. So we can both be happy.
It would be interesting to know what your telemetry (you do have telemetry don't you?) tells you about the use of this option.

[Glassboy]

So, you think Enterprise Architect is unique in putting information about what is hovered over in a status bar?

Maybe you should try hovering over a hyperlink in any web browser. How is the eye travel in that scenario? Would you like that to be a pop-up tooltip?

It is pretty common for terminal apps going right back to mainframe days to have a status line where messages were displayed too.  I suspect the problem is that you haven't written EA to be a fruity app running on a fruity O/S and any other standard interface element is going to grate with the curmudgeons.

[Eve]

There's different scenarios and different types of information to be displayed. There is a compromise going on between having the information available where you are already looking vs making sure it's not in the way.

In nearly all circumstances where I see a toolbar in a modern application, the description of a button is displayed as a pop-up tooltip. Based on that, the default behavior in the latest version of EA does go against convention. That doesn't mean it's bad though.

In contrast, most places don't show any information for menu items. I suspect this is because it feels like it's getting in the way too often. Additionally, the browser view of a hyperlink action is just another example of where a pop-up would have the impact of hiding the content being worked with. As a result, it's more likely to have a worse problem with being in the way.

If you don't like the default, just be glad that there is an option there and move on.

[qwerty]

I think, that's fine with the option. I have another app where the tooltip shows as balloon and I can't turn it off. And of course it always hides things I'd like to see rather than a tool tip I already know.

q.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Just an observation...

I would have thought that a status bar would be for status and a tooltip for tips.  Since the "tip" has NO status information as far as I can see, it probably shouldn't appear in a status area...

Paolo