Bubble Help for Bitmap Push Buttons (Functions/Subroutines/Programs)

Introduction

OpenInsight supports bubble help for bitmap push buttons. Bubble help is most commonly used for toolbars, which are typically composed of equally-sized buttons with meaningful bitmaps assigned to each button. When the user places the mouse over a button that has bubble help, a "floating bubble" will appear over the button, containing text which clarifies the meaning of the bitmap. For example, moving the mouse over the diskette button in the User Interface Workspace displays the help text "Save Entity" in case the user does not recognize the archaic storage media.

Setting Bubble Help in the Form Designer

Using the Form Designer, status-line and bubble help can be specified by setting the "Text" value for a bitmap push button. The syntax is "<status-line text>|<bubble text>" (the status-line text followed by the vertical bar followed by the bubble help text). For example, the "Text" value for the Save button in the User Interface Workspace is "Save the Contents of the Current Window|Save Entity".

Setting Bubble Help using Properties

The TEXT property for a bitmap push button represents the status-line text and the HELPTEXT property represents the bubble help text. (See the STATUSLINE property for information on how to specify a status-line for a form.)

Limitations

Bubble help and the "Combine Text/Bitmap" option are mutually exclusive. (The "Combine Text/Bitmap" option in the Form Designer is represented by the DRAWTEXT property.) If the "Combine" option is used, the text that would have been displayed in the bubble help is drawn onto the bitmap button instead.

Bubble help does not wrap text; only a single line of bubble help text is displayed.