Create Tool Tip Using mfc ctooltipctrl

Tool-tips—those little yellow boxes that pop up with helpful text—add a touch of polish to your user interfaces. They guide users by providing context-sensitive information about buttons, text fields, and other controls. While MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) offers a built-in CToolTipCtrl class for tool-tips, let’s create a custom helper class to streamline their use and open up possibilities for future enhancements.

Understanding MFC Tool-Tips

Let’s refresh the basics:

• Tool: A control within your MFC dialog (e.g., a button, edit box).
• Tip: The descriptive text that appears in a yellow box when the user’s mouse hovers over the tool.
• MFC’s CToolTipCtrl: The underlying MFC class that manages tracking mouse movement and displaying the tip.

Creating Our Helper Class

1. New MFC Class (CToolTipCtrlExt)
   • Right-click your MFC project in Visual Studio and select “Add” -> “Class…”.
   • Name it CToolTipCtrlExt and make it derive from CToolTipCtrl.
2. The Display_tooltip_text Function Inside CToolTipCtrlExt.h:
3. C++
4. void Display_tooltip_text(LPCTSTR display_text, CWnd* pWnd);

1. Implementation (CToolTipCtrlExt.cpp)
2. C++
3. void CToolTipCtrlExt::Display_tooltip_text(LPCTSTR display_text, CWnd* pWnd)
4. {
5.     TOOLINFO ti;  
6.     ti.cbSize = sizeof(TOOLINFO);
7.     ti.lpszText = (LPSTR)display_text;  
8.     ti.hwnd = pWnd->GetParent()->GetSafeHwnd(); // Parent of the control
9.     ti.uFlags = TTF_IDISHWND | TTF_SUBCLASS;
10.     ti.uId = (UINT_PTR)pWnd->GetSafeHwnd(); // Handle of the tool
12.     SendMessage(TTM_ADDTOOL, 0, (LPARAM)&ti);
13. }

Using CToolTipCtrlExt in Your Dialog

1. Include Header:
2. C++
3. #include “ToolTipCtrlExt.h” 

1. Declare Member:
2. C++
3. CToolTipCtrlExt m_ctrl_tooltip_ext; 

1. OnInitDialog Setup:
2. C++
3. BOOL CMyDialog::OnInitDialog() {
4.     // … existing initialization …
6.     m_ctrl_tooltip_ext.Create(this); // ‘this’ refers to your dialog 
7.     m_ctrl_tooltip_ext.Display_tooltip_text(“Saves the Data”, &m_ctrl_btn_save);
8.     // … add more tool-tips as needed …
10.     return TRUE; // …  
11. }

Let’s Test It! Run your project. Hover your mouse over the designated controls and see the tool-tips appear.

Customization Possibilities

Our CToolTipCtrlExt now encapsulates basic tool-tip setup. Think about enhancements:

• Dynamic Text: Change tool-tip text based on user actions.
• Styling:  Experiment with colors, borders, and even hyperlinks inside the tool-tip.