How to query and change the time it takes for a QToolTip to appear?

Question

Is it possible to change the time delay between the mouse being still in a window, and the tooltip's show event?

Is there a Qt wrapper for something like TTM_SETDELAYTIME? According to the Windows documentation, the default value depends on the double-click interval.

Related but not the same: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13720465/how-to-remove-the-time-delay-before-a-qtooltip-is-displayed — Andreas Haferburg, May 31 '16 at 15:33

jonspaceharper · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-28T17:22:47.073

6

You'll have to set a custom QProxyStyle that overrides styleHint() and returns your preferred value for QStyle::SH_ToolTip_WakeUpDelay. Sample code below.

class CustomStyle : public QProxyStyle
{
Q_OBJECT
\\...
public:
    int styleHint(StyleHint hint, const QStyleOption *option = nullptr,
                  const QWidget *widget = nullptr, QStyleHintReturn *returnData = nullptr) const override
    {
        if (hint == SH_ToolTip_WakeUpDelay)
            return someCustomValue;
        else
            return QProxyStyle::styleHint(hint, option, widget, returnData);
    }
}

edited Nov 28 '21 at 17:22

answered May 31 '16 at 15:52

jonspaceharper

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Unfortunately only in Qt 5. Thank you though. I'm sorry I didn't say that in the question, but I'm using 4.8.7. Do you know a solution that works in that version? – Andreas Haferburg May 31 '16 at 17:05
I'm afraid not. =/ – jonspaceharper May 31 '16 at 19:27

Andreas Haferburg · Answer 2 · 2016-05-31T15:54:32.957

1

Apparently that's not possible with the built-in Qt Tooltips. In 4.8 qapplication.cpp they use magic numbers:

d->toolTipWakeUp.start(d->toolTipFallAsleep.isActive()?20:700, this);

So the default behavior is to show a tooltip after 700 ms, and start a 2000 ms fall-asleep timer. If we hover over another window(widget) with the fall-asleep timer still active, the delay will be reduced to 20 ms, probably under the assumption that the first tooltip was not the one the user wanted.

edited May 31 '16 at 15:54

answered May 31 '16 at 15:30

Andreas Haferburg

5,189
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Wow, yet another reason why Qt is a terrible UI framework. This is unforgivably sloppy. It doesn't even respect platform settings when it is eminently possible to do so. Accessibility requires the ability for a user to change tooltip timeouts, and it's something that should be configured at a system level, not per-application. If I do that on Windows, Qt applications happily ignore it, making my life more difficult. – Cody Gray - on strike Jun 01 '16 at 05:08
1

@CodyGray Don't hate on them. :) UI frameworks are incredibly complex. In the 4.8 code there's actually a comment saying that they planned customization for Qt 5. Maybe they didn't get around to it earlier, or it never came up. And yes, I agree, the default should come from a system-wide setting. – Andreas Haferburg Jun 01 '16 at 09:27
I realize they are complex. I've written a few. Nowhere near as comprehensive as Qt, of course, because they haven't been for public consumption. But to be on version 4 of a public-facing framework, used by lots of different vendors, and still not respect platform settings is inexcusable. I have a general policy of not considering the use of applications not written using a native UI. Things like this are the reason why. "Cross-platform" is seductive-sounding, until you realize it means your app is fundamentally broken on *all* platforms. Oops. – Cody Gray - on strike Jun 07 '16 at 09:25
@CodyGray i.e. Java, broken everywhere. But Qt is fun, you can always hack around everything. In this case, you can implement a custom tooltip mechanism. – user1095108 Mar 06 '20 at 14:52

How to query and change the time it takes for a QToolTip to appear?

2 Answers2