Ubuntu
pidgin package

Annoying Popup Information on mouse-overs

Asked by Pontiac

I find that when I hover the mouse over any user information within the Buddy list, that annoying popup that tells the users "STATUS" or group "STATUS" is more of a hindrance than any sort of useful help.

How do I permanently disable the window from showing up? Is it a plug in, or is it a general option?

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Richard Laager
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Best Richard Laager (rlaager) said : 		#1

There's no UI-exposed option for this. There's an undocumented, hidden pref for this because of a particularly annoying bug on Windows. If that bug were to be fixed, that hidden option would disappear. If you want to use it, set the tooltip_delay option to 0 in your ~/.purple/prefs.xml file. You should make a backup first and if you break it, don't blame me or expect help fixing it.

If you want this functionality exposed in the UI, you'd have to explain why there should be an option. Keep in mind that tooltips exist all over Ubuntu in numerous applications. Why are the Pidgin ones problematic but other tooltips are not? What are you trying to do that is blocked or made more difficult by the tooltip?

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Pontiac (pontiac76) said : 		#2

Thanks Richard Laager, that solved my question.

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Pontiac (pontiac76) said : 		#3

The pidgin tool tip appeared way too fast by default, and takes up WAY too much real estate on the screen. Any of the popups I've seen within ubuntu can be made to be non-existant, or are non-memberable, appropriately sized, located outside of what I want to look at, or timed by default to a period of longer than a half-a-second of no mouse activity prior to the tool tip appearing.

I use Pidgin both at work and at home. I have close to 60 contacts organized in groups. When I go to read, top to bottom, I typically move the mouse to where I want to start reading (Top to bottom) then read down, the popup appears, then I have to move off the window to continue reading. Its a distraction. The same thing happens when I go to select someone I need to talk to. I move the mouse to where I need to go, I expand the group I want, but because I can't move the mouse accurately enough to click the expand button then move the mouse to the user I need to talk to who's IN that group, I again have to move off the window, then back on. And if I miss the user I need to talk to, stop the mouse for that critical 0.5 second wait, I again, have to move off Pidgin and try again.

I understand Windows is buggy, and I know how much of a PITA it is to write software that works on different platforms. Don't get me wrong in the least. But a compiler directive at build time to decide if the UI option is available at runtime isn't that difficult to do.

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Sebastien Wains (sebastienw-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#4

The plugin "extended preferences" will allow you to change the tooltip delay in the GUI.

The package is pidgin-extprefs.

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gcb (gcb0) said : 		#5

May I suggest reopening this? I think a saner default would solve this much better then extended preferences.

Considering that 90% of the time when a user put the mouse cursor over the contact list his intention is to click on a contact or use the mouse wheel to scrol up or down. that tool tip usually hides the intended user targeted by the user if his mouse mouse pointer enters the contact list off by some pixels and completely disables the scroll functionality.

I personally use it on 2500 instead of the default 500. But i think a 1500 as a new default would make it more similar to other applications' tooltips.

Thank you.

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Richard Laager (rlaager) said : 		#6

1. This is not the right place to discuss this. This is a question which has been answered. You should bring this up on <email address hidden> or in a bug report upstream.
2. The tooltip does not hide the item completely. It's true that it cuts it off some, depending on where the mouse pointer is. I'm not sure that we can easily fix that. Either way, though, it doesn't impact you if you're going to click. Your point about the scroll wheel is valid. I'll see if anything can be done there.
3. 500 ms is the default in GTK+, but we don't use that directly. If that has been changed on your system, that would explain why things don't match.