Better tooltip for MXP menus?

[freshman]

Hi people, I'd like to hear your opinions and concerns about sth:

Right now, if there is an MXP <SEND> menu, it display a mouse-over tooltip like this:

old_menu_hint.png (19.33 KiB) Viewed 18169 times

I find this very unintuitive and confusing. There is no indication what will happen if you click. (well, it does 'health'. But how can you predict this?).
Also, to select one of the other choices, you first have to right-click to get this menu:

menu_selection.png (8.49 KiB) Viewed 18169 times

There you can actually select one of the choices (note the screenshot does not include the mouse pointer, here it is over score).

I made a tiny patch, which changes the mouse over hint to:

new_menu_hint.png (3.48 KiB) Viewed 18169 times

This indicates what happens when you click and how to get to other options. The menu shown when right-clicked remains the same.

What do you think about this? Is it a good idea?

Also, my current patch only affects the behaviour of MXP. But the 'old' tooltip is actually made elsewhere, so I think it also affects clickable menus made with lua, maybe Geyser. Maybe it should be changed there, since other GUIs suffer from the same problem?

Again, I'd love any comments and opinions.

THX,
Michael.

[Tamarindo]

if there are multiple options, could we fast-forward to the (now) right-clickable screen and click on those options?

[freshman]

Hmm, just to be sure I understand you right: You mean either (a) if you click on the link (left or right) it pops up the actual, full menu to select your choice or (b) the mouse over tooltip is already the active popup and you click your choice there right away?

I mean, in principle, everything can be done, though right now, I don't know how and what the capabilities of QT are. Definitely this is something that needs to be changed in TTextEdit and I assume this will have GUI consequences beyond MXP. Personally, I have some doubts /hesitance going this far.

Personally, I think it would be a bit uncommon and irritating if a fully active menu pops up when you just move the mouse over the screen. I think (am I wrong?) that you usually only get mouse over 'hints'. To perform an action, even popping up a selection window to trigger another action, you have to do something like hit a key or button. But this is just me, are there any examples in apps I'm not aware off?

As a long, actually very long, time MXP user I also like the idea of having a quick, standard action (like examine) being triggered by left click and the option to have more choices by right click. This is how all MXP clients I know do it. But this is maybe just me.

Just looked up the protocol itself; it does not define if there is a default command for left click (though that is exactly what all clients do) and the full menu can be brought up with right.

On the other hand, there is the notion of a tooltip for the whole menu, so when you go into the selection right away (b above), when do you display it? The MXP standard reads a bit more like (a): You have to click to get the menu, but there is no notion of a default entry for left-click.

That's a really interesting idea that did not come to me at all, thank you for this valuable input to the discussion. I'm interested how/what other people think about it.

[Tamarindo]

The hover version (b). It already displays text when there is a hover over it. Most of those hovers would be purposeful / willful to use the MXP.