Looking for suggestions on how to create an enhanced tooltip

Question

currently I am using a tool tip to display information when it hovers over a region on a winform. This works well and I don't have any complaints, but the boss want's to display more complex data, that would best be displayed in a grid rather than text. Is there a way that perhaps I could embed a usercontrol or a datagridview in a tool tip.

thanks

C#, .Net 2.0, windows.Forms

Answer 1

You can write a custom control (shouldn't be too hard, just a yellow rectangle with a drop shadow) with a data grid on it. It just needs to fade out when the mouse moves away and get displayed after the mouse rests on it for a couple of seconds.

Answer 2

There's such a thing as an owner-drawn tooltip. You'd have to handle the painting of the grid yourself. You wouldn't get any interactivity, although a tooltip that lets you click and scroll sounds odd anyway.

If your boss is willing to spend money on this then I can happily recommend the DevExpress tooltip control, for its customisability.