WPF tooltip best practices

Question

I'm about to change my application to include tool tips for all buttons, combo boxes, etc. I was wondering if there are any recommendations on doing this.

For every control I'd like the tooltip to show the control's name in bold, followed by the description. I want to keep the style separated from the control, so I can change the tooltip style globally.

What I would like to have, unless there's a better suggestion, is two additional fields per button/combobox/etc: 1-ToolTipName and 2-ToolTipDesc, both containing a string. How can I accomplish this (and is it even possible?).

Answer 1

If you want this to be separate from the style of the controls, and you want to specify multiple "properties" per control, then an attached property may be an option.

I would recommend looking into Behaviors from the Blend SDK. They would make this fairly easy (especially if you're using blend), as it would allow you to make a tooltip behavior that you could just drag onto your controls.

Answer 2

I recommend using ToolTips with all toolbar and iconic controls.

You need to guard against having ToolTips in places where it is obvious what is happening in the UI, or the ToolTip hides information from the user forcing a mouse move.

The Popup control in WPF might also offer you the UI presentation you are looking to show additional information.

Super ToolTips, as in Microsoft Office Ribbon, also offer the ability to present additional information to the user.