Address Missing or Poor Tooltips #37429

New Issue

Jonathan Williamson · 2013-11-14T01:55:58+01:00

2013-11-14 01:55:58 +01:00

Many tools and options have poorly written or even missing tooltips. These should be reviewed and addressed to ensure they're user friendly, helpful, and above all clear.

One suggestion when reviewing tooltips, is that we ensure no option uses the related name within the tooltip. For example, a (now fixed) tooltip that violated this was Brownian Motion. The tooltip read "Amount of Brownian Motion". No matter how simple, or how obvious a settings it, the tooltip should describe explicitly what it is. In this case the tooltip was reworked to read "Amount of random, erratic particle movement"

Tooltips to Address
Put any poor tooltips found in the WIKI here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Tooltips

Many tools and options have poorly written or even missing tooltips. These should be reviewed and addressed to ensure they're user friendly, helpful, and above all clear. One suggestion when reviewing tooltips, is that we ensure no option uses the related name within the tooltip. For example, a (now fixed) tooltip that violated this was **Brownian Motion**. The tooltip read "Amount of Brownian Motion". No matter how simple, or how obvious a settings it, the tooltip should describe explicitly what it is. In this case the tooltip was reworked to read "Amount of random, erratic particle movement" **Tooltips to Address** Put any poor tooltips found in the WIKI here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Tooltips

Jonathan Williamson commented

2013-11-14 01:55:58 +01:00

Changed status to: 'Open'

Jonathan Williamson commented

2013-11-14 01:55:58 +01:00

Added subscribers: @JonathanWilliamson, @brecht

Jonathan Williamson self-assigned this 2013-11-14 01:56:16 +01:00

Linus Wiklander commented

2013-11-20 02:51:47 +01:00

Added subscriber: @wiklander

Linus Wiklander commented

2013-11-20 02:51:47 +01:00

This is a pretty big task... :)

Is there a good way to break things down and let people report bad tooltips and suggest new ones?
I think putting everything in one discussion could be hard to handle and keep an overview of.
Perhaps use the wiki or another system?

How do you envision the process and the tools?
Tooltips seem to be a great thing to crowdsource somehow :)

This is a pretty big task... :) Is there a good way to break things down and let people report bad tooltips and suggest new ones? I think putting everything in one discussion could be hard to handle and keep an overview of. Perhaps use the wiki or another system? How do you envision the process and the tools? Tooltips seem to be a great thing to crowdsource somehow :)

Jonathan Williamson commented

2013-11-20 03:29:25 +01:00

@wiklander, before we get too involved in fixing tooltips we need to improve the actual tooltip system in Blender. You can see that task here: #37478

Once that's done then collecting tooltips via a Wiki or Google Doc is probably best. I'll coordinate with @brecht and see what will work best and then update the description of this task.

@wiklander, before we get too involved in fixing tooltips we need to improve the actual tooltip system in Blender. You can see that task here: #37478 Once that's done then collecting tooltips via a Wiki or Google Doc is probably best. I'll coordinate with @brecht and see what will work best and then update the description of this task.

CodeManX commented

2013-11-21 12:42:24 +01:00

Added subscriber: @CodeManX

CodeManX commented

2013-11-21 12:42:24 +01:00

@JonathanWilliamson: absolutely, I see an interdependency here though. Currently there's a generic description, plus a detailed description for EnumProperties. But many operators lack distinct descriptions for certain settings (argument combinations). We needed a technical change to allow for distinct descriptions (callback to an operator classmethod with the arguments to test?), then go and fix existing / add missing tooltip texts.

Simple example:
(De)Select objects -> Select objects / Deselect objects

(note that this is useful for i18n as well!)

Real-blender-world example:

Description ignores the the "remove_active" parameter, and is shown for the "Delete Preset" button as well as for the Add button.

@JonathanWilliamson: absolutely, I see an interdependency here though. Currently there's a generic description, plus a detailed description for EnumProperties. But many operators lack distinct descriptions for certain settings (argument combinations). We needed a technical change to allow for distinct descriptions (callback to an operator classmethod with the arguments to test?), then go and fix existing / add missing tooltip texts. Simple example: (De)Select objects -> Select objects / Deselect objects (note that this is useful for i18n as well!) Real-blender-world example: ![PresetRemove.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F29817/PresetRemove.png) Description ignores the the "remove_active" parameter, and is shown for the "Delete Preset" button as well as for the Add button.

Jonathan Williamson commented

2013-11-21 15:37:47 +01:00

@CodeManX ah yes, that's definitely something that needs fixed.