How do I enable automatic tooltips for buttons on a toolbar? - windows

Question

As described here, if I do not set the BTNS_SHOWTEXT style to a button, will not shown on the button text, but when the mouse hovers over the button, you will see tooltip with the text.
So I do not understand why this code sample text displayed on the button, and not shown a tooltip?
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <CommCtrl.h>
#pragma comment(lib, "comctl32.lib")
LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM);
HINSTANCE instance;
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
instance = hInstance;
WNDCLASSEX wcex;
wcex.cbSize = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX);
wcex.style = CS_HREDRAW | CS_VREDRAW;
wcex.lpfnWndProc = WndProc;
wcex.cbClsExtra = 0;
wcex.cbWndExtra = 0;
wcex.hInstance = hInstance;
wcex.hIcon = LoadIcon(hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDI_APPLICATION));
wcex.hCursor = LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_ARROW);
wcex.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH)(COLOR_WINDOW+1);
wcex.lpszMenuName = NULL;
wcex.lpszClassName = L"Example";
wcex.hIconSm = LoadIcon(wcex.hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDI_APPLICATION));
RegisterClassEx(&wcex);
HWND hWnd = CreateWindow(L"Example", L"", WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW, CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT,
500, 500, NULL, NULL, hInstance, NULL);
// Initialize common controls.
INITCOMMONCONTROLSEX icex;
icex.dwSize = sizeof(INITCOMMONCONTROLSEX);
icex.dwICC = ICC_COOL_CLASSES | ICC_BAR_CLASSES;
InitCommonControlsEx(&icex);
// create toolbar
HWND hWndToolbar = CreateWindowEx(0 , TOOLBARCLASSNAME, NULL, WS_CHILD | TBSTYLE_TOOLTIPS,
0, 0, 0, 0, hWnd, (HMENU)0, instance, NULL);
HIMAGELIST hImageList = ImageList_Create(16, 16, ILC_COLOR16 | ILC_MASK, 3, 0);
SendMessage(hWndToolbar, TB_SETIMAGELIST, (WPARAM)0, (LPARAM)hImageList);
SendMessage(hWndToolbar, TB_BUTTONSTRUCTSIZE, (WPARAM)sizeof(TBBUTTON), 0);
TBBUTTON tbb[1] =
{
{ 0, 0, TBSTATE_ENABLED, TBSTYLE_BUTTON, {0}, 0, (INT_PTR)L"New" },
};
SendMessage(hWndToolbar, (UINT) TB_ADDBUTTONS, 1, (LPARAM)&tbb);
SendMessage(hWndToolbar, TB_AUTOSIZE, 0, 0);
ShowWindow(hWndToolbar , SW_SHOW);
// show the main window
ShowWindow(hWnd, nCmdShow);
MSG msg;
while (GetMessage(&msg, NULL, 0, 0))
{
TranslateMessage(&msg);
DispatchMessage(&msg);
}
return (int) msg.wParam;
}
LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hWnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
switch (message)
{
case WM_CREATE:
return 0;
default:
return DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam);
}
}

Answer 1

Quoting from the MSDN article you linked:
Version 5.81. Specifies that button text should be displayed. All buttons can have text, but only those buttons with the BTNS_SHOWTEXT button style will display it. This button style must be used with the TBSTYLE_LIST style and the TBSTYLE_EX_MIXEDBUTTONS extended style.
There are three requirements listed here. Let's tackle them one by one.
Version 5.81
That's a version of common controls that requires a manifest in your executable. If it is missing then you'll get the legacy version, v4.70 from c:\windows\system32. Which doesn't know anything about BTNS_SHOWTEXT. The easiest way to specify the manifest entry is by inserting the /MANIFESTDEPENDENCY linker option with a #pragma in your code. Make it look similar to this:
#include <CommCtrl.h>
#pragma comment(lib, "comctl32.lib")
#pragma comment(linker,"/manifestdependency:\"type='win32' name='Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls' version='6.0.0.0' processorArchitecture='*' publicKeyToken='6595b64144ccf1df' language='*'\"")
With the last line added. That should be immediately visible if you didn't yet do this, the highlight for the button now shows a gradient. Other parts of your window will similarly have acquired the visual styles theme.
must be used with the TBSTYLE_LIST style
That requires changing your CreateWindowEx call, include that style bit:
// create toolbar
HWND hWndToolbar = CreateWindowEx(0 , TOOLBARCLASSNAME, NULL,
WS_CHILD | TBSTYLE_TOOLTIPS | TBSTYLE_LIST,
0, 0, 0, 0, hWnd, (HMENU)0, instance, NULL);
and the TBSTYLE_EX_MIXEDBUTTONS extended style
That requires using the TB_SETEXTENDEDSTYLE message to turn that extended style bit on:
SendMessage(hWndToolbar, TB_AUTOSIZE, 0, 0);
SendMessage(hWndToolbar, TB_SETEXTENDEDSTYLE, 0, (LPARAM)TBSTYLE_EX_MIXEDBUTTONS);
ShowWindow(hWndToolbar , SW_SHOW);
With the second line added. You'll now see the tooltip as expected when you hover over the toolbar button. You will still need to do something to make the button actually visible to the user, right now it doesn't have a distinguishing feature. A bitmap is the usual approach.

Answer 2

Your code is almost right, it's only missing a single line:
SendMessage(hWndToolbar, TB_SETMAXTEXTROWS, 0, 0);
You can put it somewhere between the creation of the toolbar window and where you display it. It's just more initialization code. For test purposes, I added it before sending the TB_AUTOSIZE message.
Now it works just as described: hover over the toolbar button and you see a tooltip containing the button text. Only one caveat: the button's text is not actually displayed in the button itself.
If you think about it, that kind of makes sense. Basically, there's no point in showing the text in a tooltip if the entire string is already visible on the button itself. The only way that the automatic tooltip is going to be shown is if the button's text doesn't fit. Sending the TB_SETMAXTEXTROWS message ensures that the text will never fit by setting the maximum number of rows available for text to 0.
This is covered in more detail in an MSDN how-to article: How to Display Tooltips for Buttons.