How to add tooltip to all controls in a form programmatically - WPF, C#?

Question

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I have a WPF Form with different types of control like textboxes, textblocks, combobox, buttons etc. I need to add tooltips to each of these controls dynamically using C#, so that they can display the following information:

X and Y position
TabIndex.

I do the code as below for each control as below (code for textbox for now):

 foreach (Control ctrl in grd.Children)
        {
            if (ctrl.GetType().ToString() == "System.Controls.TextBox")
            {
                tbox = ctrl as TextBox;
                Point p = Mouse.GetPosition(tbox);
                tbox.ToolTip =p.X + " " + p.Y + " \n " + tbox.TabIndex ;
            }
        }

But this is not working. Any thoughts?

Could you be more specific on what exactly is not working? Does the tooltip not get added at all or with the wrong data? Does your code get executed at all? — Wolfgang Ziegler, Jul 24 '12 at 10:15
besides the given answers, especially Rafals, consider using a DataTemplate and Databinding, because i'm pretty sure you want to live update the tooltip. And the way you use currently is the "win forms" way, which is not suitable for wpf. At least there are much better alternatives. Google DataBinding, DataTemplate, INotifyPropertyChanged. — dowhilefor, Jul 24 '12 at 10:21

score 6 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

First of all your type checking is just plain evil.

 if (ctrl.GetType().ToString() == "System.Controls.TextBox")

Change it to

 if (ctrl is TextBox)

or even better

var textbox = ctrl as TextBox;
if(textbox != null)

Note that in wpf TextBox is in System.Windows.Controls namespace.

Your loop will only check first level in Visual Tree if you want to have other containers, templates anything that groups controls then you have to traverse the tree. See this for how to do it.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 24 '12 at 10:19

2

try with this code

var controls = grd.Children.OfType<TextBox>();

foreach(var control in controls)
{
   Point point = Mouse.GetPosition(control);
   control.ToolTip = point.X + " " + point.Y + " \n " + control.TabIndex ;
}

answered Jul 24 '12 at 10:19

Aghilas Yakoub

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 24 '12 at 10:19

Let's suppose you do MVVM.

Then you probably have a ViewModel class. In that class, you can define a dynamic string for each control, just where you define your controls.

In the XAML, you just define the tooltip, e.g.

<Button Content="Submit">
    <Button.ToolTip>
        <ToolTip>
            <StackPanel>
                <TextBlock FontWeight="Bold">Submit Request</TextBlock>
                <TextBlock>Submits the request to the server.</TextBlock>
            </StackPanel>
        </ToolTip>
    </Button.ToolTip>
</Button>

The Textblock text can be delivered in your ViewModel and Binding will get them to your View.

I suppose that your ViewModel also knowns on which Tab your controls are.

For more information on Tooltips, there is the WPFTutorials site WPF Tutorial on Tooltip Controls

For more information on MVVM, there is a quick tutorial here: MSDN on MVVM

sony asked specifically for mouse position and tab index tooltip. That answer is not helping at all. — Wolfgang Ziegler, Jul 24 '12 at 10:21
Again: you are not answering his **actual** question. He wants to include the controls position and tab index in the tooltip. That's what he's asking for. — Wolfgang Ziegler, Jul 24 '12 at 10:34

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 24 '12 at 10:23

Your type checking is wrong (namespace!). Try this:

foreach (var ctrl in grd.Children)
        {
            if (ctrl is TextBox)
            {
                tbox = ctrl as TextBox;
                Point p = Mouse.GetPosition(tbox);
                tbox.ToolTip =p.X + " " + p.Y + " \n " + tbox.TabIndex ;
            }
        }

How to add tooltip to all controls in a form programmatically - WPF, C#?

4 Answers4