#2944 NORM Untriag: Tooltips and palettes for insensitive buttons

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#2944: Tooltips and palettes for insensitive buttons
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 Reporter:  Eben         |       Owner:  dhopkins 
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new      
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:  Untriaged
Component:  sugar        |     Version:           
 Keywords:               |    Verified:  0        
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 This is a wishlist item.  Please provide feedback so we can see if there
 is any potential for it.

 '''The idea:'''  In some cases buttons will be insensitive.  This is a
 common case in many interfaces, and is generally handled by "graying out"
 the control when it isn't available.  Another option, of course, is
 contextual controls which appear only when they are available for use.
 For discoverability reasons, we opted to use the toolbox (with tabs) to
 allow smart context swaps while keeping all buttons available at all
 times, and as such, we ''do'' require insensitive controls.

 These buttons, according to guidelines, should have at least a "tooltip"
 (primary palette) which identifies the function of the button.  In the
 ideal circumstance, this tooltip would be available even when the button
 is inactive, since it can provide useful information about what it is if
 the icon doesn't make it clear, again aiding in the discoverability
 factor.  Additionally, these buttons may also have associated secondary
 actions and controls (secondary palette) which provide variations on the
 primary button or other controls for specifying parameters for the button.
 Of course, when the button is insensitive these don't have a function
 either.  It would be great to take advantage of that, and instead use the
 secondary palette as a detailed tooltip, which has a short string
 (provided by the activity via some API) indicating the reason the button
 isn't active (eg. "You must be within a table to add a row")  That way,
 not only is the action of the button discoverable, but some meaningful
 info about how to make the button sensitive exists contextually, further
 enhancing its discoverability.

 I assume (and Ben also tells me) that GTK isn't really capable of any of
 this.  Of course, we're doing all kinds of interesting things it shouldn't
 be capable of, and this sounds like a pretty cool idea.  I know Don has
 been experimenting with this within the context of Sugar, but I'm not sure
 what came of it.  (Don, I've assigned this to you for lack of a better
 person...) Hopefully we can get some discussion going around this as a
 potential addition in the future.  Thoughts?

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Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/2944>
One Laptop Per Child <http://laptop.org/>