How to Enable Tooltip for Dialog Controls

Lets get things straight. You want the user to be more dumb and want him/her to get an idea of what he wants to do with all the controls on his screen without reading the help file? Then dive right in. Else, Ciao. Have a good day.

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Step 1: Enable the tooltip command using the command EnableToolTips (TRUE). Ideal location to include this line would be in your class' init routine CYourClass::InitDialog.

Step 2: Windows sends the tooltip related controls in TTN_NEEDTEXT message. We need to handle this. Add the following code to enable your handler in the MessageMap function

BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CMyClassDlg, CDialog)
ON_NOTIFY_EX_RANGE(TTN_NEEDTEXT, 0, 0xFFFF, OnToolTipNotify)
END_MESSAGE_MAP()

Step 3: Declare the handler function in your header.

afx_msg bool OnToolTipNotify( UINT id, NMHDR* pNMHDR, 
               LRESULT* pResult );

Step 4: We are near. Just add then handler code in your cpp. Below is a sample of the same

bool CMyClassDlg::OnToolTipNotify( 
     UINT id, NMHDR* pNMHDR, LRESULT* pResult )
{
    // Get the tooltip structure.
    TOOLTIPTEXT *pTTT = (TOOLTIPTEXT *)pNMHDR;

    // Actually the idFrom holds Control's handle.
    UINT CtrlHandle = pNMHDR->idFrom;

    // Check once again that the 
           // idFrom holds handle itself.
    if (pTTT->uFlags & TTF_IDISHWND)
    {
    // Get the control's ID.
    UINT nID = ::GetDlgCtrlID( HWND( CtrlHandle ));

    // Now you have the ID. depends on control,
    // set your tooltip message.
    switch( nID )
     {
       case ID_BUTTON1:
       // Set the tooltip text.
       pTTT->lpszText = _T("First Button");
       break;

       case ID_EDIT1:
       // Set the tooltip text.
       pTTT->lpszText = _T("First Edit Box");
       break;

       default:
       // Set the tooltip text.
       pTTT->lpszText = _T("Tooltips everywhere!!!");
       break;
     }

   return TRUE;
  }

  // Not handled.
  return FALSE;
}