Class: FlyByHelp

• Inheritance
• Description
• Class protocol
  • accessing
• Instance protocol
  • defaults
  • event handling
  • help texts
  • private
  • queries
  • show & hide help
• Examples

Inheritance:

   Object
   |
   +--EventListener
      |
      +--ActiveHelp
         |
         +--FlyByHelp

Package:

stx:libview2

Category:

Interface-Help

Version:

rev: 1.85 date: 2018/04/16 15:31:54

user: stefan

file: FlyByHelp.st directory: libview2

module: stx stc-classLibrary: libview2

Description:

an instance of me is used to provide tooltips 
(sigh: smalltalk was ahead of its time in the early 90's:
 initially called 'activeHelp', then renamed to 'flyByHelp' 
 and now commonly known as tooltip).

I will watch the mouse movements via an event hook, and determine
where the mouse pointer is. Then ask the underlying view about its
helpText and display it in a little floating popup view.

The hool is installed via:
 FlyByHelp start
and possibly deactivated/uninstalled via:
 FlyByHelp stop

There can be only one FlyByHelp at any time - the start/stop methods
assure that.

Class protocol:

 currentlyShownView

 maxNumberOfColumns

 maxNumberOfLines

Instance protocol:

 flyByHelpTimeoutMillis

abort flyby help text generation, if no text can be generated within that
time delta. This is used to abort long-lasting parsing/scanning/analysis in
large methods when the mouse is moved over some syntactic constructs, and
it takes too long to parse...
The returned time is given in ms

 buttonMotion: buttonAndModifierState x: x y: y view: aView

the help-bubble itself

 buttonPress: button x: x y: y view: aView

hideHelp nils the currentView

 keyPress: key x: x y: y view: aView

generate a line suitable for the resources file (a null translation)

usage example(s):

^ super keyPress:key x:x y:y view:aView

 mouseWheelMotion: state x: x y: y amount: amount deltaTime: dTime view: aView

 pointerLeave: state view: aView

clear the do-not-show-in-this-view mode (see keyPress)

 helpTextFromModel: aModel view: aView at: aPointOrNil

helper: ask aModel for its helpText.

 helpTextFromView: aView at: aPointOrNil

helper: ask aView for its helpText.

 hideIfPointerLeft: aView

hide help, if the pointer is not in aView

 initiateHelpFor: aView at: aPointOrNil now: showItNow

ask aView for helpText, passing x/y coordinates;
start a timeout process to display this helpText after some delay;
Normally used internally, but can also be used by widgets to force
re-negotiation of the displayed helpText
(for example in a menu, when the selection changes)

 currentlyShownView

 toolTipFollowsMouse

if true, the tooltip-window moves with the pointer
so that it stays away from (does not cover) the mouse pointer

 activeHelpViewForApplication: applicationOrNil text: helpText onDevice: aDevice

(ActiveHelpView for:'Hello' onDevice:Display) open

 hideHelp

hide the help text

 showHelp: aHelpText for: view

show the help text for aView

 stopHelpDisplayProcess

Examples: