[Hooker]

In this tutorial we'll learn about the tooltip control. These are cool controls which display small tips when the mouse is hovered over the specified control such as buttons, edit controls etc.

The important thing is to invoke InitCommonControls in anywhere in the program

To create a tooltip in CreateWindowEx use tooltips_class32 as class name and WS_POPUP or TTS_NOPREFIX or TTS_BALLOON as window styles.

Then we have to set our window top of other windows so we use SetWindowPos to do it.

The main task here is to fill the members of TOOLINFO structure

TOOLINFO STRUCT 
    cbSize             DWORD      ? 
    uFlags             DWORD      ? 
    hWnd               DWORD      ? 
    uId                DWORD      ? 
    rect               RECT      <> 
    hInst              DWORD      ? 
    lpszText           DWORD      ? 
    lParam             LPARAM     ? 
TOOLINFO ENDS

cbSize- We'll be passing the size of TOOLINFO structure here.
uFlags- Flags used in our tooltip we use TTF_SUBCLASS or TTF_IDISHWND, we use or to add them together.
hWnd- handle of our main window.
uId- we'll be using the handle of the child controls.
rect- we use TTF_IDISHWND flag so we can ignore this member.
hInst- Instance of our program
lpszText- Text to be displayed in the tooltip contol

After filling the members of TOOLINFO we register the tooltip by TTM_ADDTOOL message

I've attached full source of the program. I used dialog box as main window to make this simple dialog procedure only explained here,

.if uMsg==WM_INITDIALOG
	invoke GetDlgItem,hWin,IDC_BUTTON1002
	mov hwndbut1,eax
	invoke GetDlgItem,hWin,IDC_BUTTON1003
	mov hwndbut2,eax
	invoke GetDlgItem,hWin,IDC_EDIT1004
	mov hwndedit,eax
	;create our tooltip
	   invoke CreateWindowEx,WS_EX_TOPMOST,addr ttclass,NULL,
          WS_POPUP or TTS_NOPREFIX or TTS_BALLOON,0,0,0,0,hWin,NULL,hInstance,NULL
         mov htooltip,eax
            invoke SetWindowPos,htooltip,HWND_TOPMOST,0,0,0,0,
          SWP_NOMOVE or SWP_NOSIZE or SWP_NOACTIVATE
        
        ;intialize members of ti struct
        mov ti.cbSize,sizeof TOOLINFO
        mov ti.uFlags,TTF_SUBCLASS or TTF_IDISHWND
        push hWin
        pop ti.hWnd
        push hInstance
        pop ti.hInst
   	
       push hwndbut1
       pop ti.uId
       mov ti.lpszText,OFFSET ttxt1
          invoke SendMessage,htooltip,TTM_ADDTOOL,0,addr ti
    	
       push hwndbut2
       pop ti.uId
       mov ti.lpszText,OFFSET ttxt2
            invoke SendMessage,htooltip,TTM_ADDTOOL,0,addr ti
  	
       push hwndedit
       pop ti.uId
       mov ti.lpszText,OFFSET ttxt3
                 invoke SendMessage,htooltip,TTM_ADDTOOL,0,addr ti

.elseif uMsg==WM_CLOSE
	invoke EndDialog,hWin,0
.else
mov eax,FALSE
ret
.endif
mov eax,TRUE
ret
Dlgproc endp

Explanation:

     .if uMsg==WM_INITDIALOG	
	invoke GetDlgItem,hWin,IDC_BUTTON1002
	mov hwndbut1,eax
	invoke GetDlgItem,hWin,IDC_BUTTON1003
	mov hwndbut2,eax
	invoke GetDlgItem,hWin,IDC_EDIT1004
	mov hwndedit,eax
	

I have created two button controls and a edit control in a resource editor and get the handle to the button control using GetDlgItem API ,Dialog Boxes do not send WM_CREATE message instead it sends WM_INITDIALOG message, this is where all the initial setting of the dialog box done and all controls are created. This is a suitable place for creating the tooltip control, get the handles of child controls etc.

	 invoke CreateWindowEx,WS_EX_TOPMOST,addr ttclass,NULL,
          WS_POPUP or TTS_NOPREFIX or TTS_BALLOON,0,0,0,0,hWin,NULL,hInstance,NULL
         mov htooltip,eax
            invoke SetWindowPos,htooltip,HWND_TOPMOST,0,0,0,0,
          SWP_NOMOVE or SWP_NOSIZE or SWP_NOACTIVATE
	

Using the CreateWindowEx code create a tooltip and set the window on top of all others using SetWindowPos. SWP_NOMOVE to retain the current position, SWP_NOSIZE to retain current size and SWP_NOACTIVATE to not to activate the window. If this flag is not set, the window is activated and moved to the top of either the topmost or non-topmost group.

	mov ti.cbSize,sizeof TOOLINFO
        mov ti.uFlags,TTF_SUBCLASS or TTF_IDISHWND
        push hWin
        pop ti.hWnd
        push hInstance
        pop ti.hInst
	

Its time to fill the members of TOOLINFO structure. As discussed earlier move the size of the TOOLINFO structure to the cbSize member of structure using the "sizeof" macro in MASM
Set the flags,set the handle and also the handle of the instance.

	push hwndbut1
        pop ti.uId
        mov ti.lpszText,OFFSET ttxt1
        invoke SendMessage,htooltip,TTM_ADDTOOL,0,addr ti 
     	

Push and pop is an alternative way to move data, since we cannot move memory to memory. Here we push the handle to the button to the top stack and pop the handle to the uId member of the ti structure. Move our text to be displayed on the tooltip to the member of ti structure. Now its time to register our tooltip by sending TTM_ADDTOOL message.

	push hwndbut2
	pop ti.uId
   	mov ti.lpszText,OFFSET ttxt2
        invoke SendMessage,htooltip,TTM_ADDTOOL,0,addr ti
  	
      	push hwndedit
      	pop ti.uId
        mov ti.lpszText,OFFSET ttxt3
        invoke SendMessage,htooltip,TTM_ADDTOOL,0,addr ti
	

Similarly register other controls by changing the uId member of ti structure ie. handle to the next child control for which tooltip to be registered and the text to be displayed in tooltip. And finally register using TTM_ADDTOOL message.

Attached File(s)

•  DIC 2.zip (9.55K)
  Number of downloads: 750

This post has been edited by GunnerInc: 20 October 2012 - 08:36 AM
Reason for edit:: Fixed typos and grammer