SYNOPSIS

STANDARD OPTIONS

WIDGET-SPECIFIC OPTIONS

Name:		initWait
Class:		InitWait
Switch:		-initwait

In milliseconds. Specifies how long the balloon should wait before popping up in a widget.

Name:		state
Class:		State
Switch:		-state

Specifies the which help message to display when the mouse pointer enters a widget associated with this balloon. Valid options are both: display both the balloon message and the status bar message, balloon: display only the balloon message, status: display only the status bar message and none: display no messages.

Name:		statusBar
Class:		statusBar
Switch:		-statusbar

Specifies the widget to use as the status bar of this balloon. This widget must have a "-text" option. Usually a label widget is used.

SUBWIDGETS

Name:		label
Class:		Label

The label widget that shows the little arrow bitmap in the pop-up balloon window.

Name:		message
Class:		Label

The message widget that shows the descriptive message in the the pop-up balloon window.

DESCRIPTION

The tixBalloon command creates a new window (given by the pathName argument) and makes it into a Balloon widget. Additional options, described above, may be specified on the command line or in the option database to configure aspects of the Balloon widget such as its cursor and relief. The Balloon widget can be used to show popped-up messages that describe the functions of the widgets in an application. A Balloon widget can be bound to a number of widgets. When the user moves the cursor inside a widget to which a Balloon widget has been bound, a small pop-up window with a descriptive message will be shown on the screen.

WIDGET COMMANDS

The tixBalloon command creates a new Tcl command whose name is command may be used to invoke various operations on the widget. It has the following general form:

pathName option ?arg arg ...?

pathName bind widget ?option value ... ?

Binds the Balloon widget to the widget. The messages to be shown can be passed as extra arguments to this command in option value pairs. Possible options: -balloonmsg specifies the string to show on the pop-up balloon window; -statusmsg specifies the string to show on the status bar; -msg specifies a string to show on both the balloon window and the stats bar window. When used together, the -msg option has a lower precedence than the -balloonmsg and -statusmsg options. The bind command can also be used to change the messages after the initial bindings were set. Example:

	button .b
	tixBalloon .bal

	# Add balloon binding
	.bal bind .b -msg "This is a button"

	...

	# Change the balloon binding
	.bal bind .b -msg "This is a useful button"

pathName cget option

Returns the current value of the configuration option given by option. Option may have any of the values accepted by the tixBalloon command.

pathName configure ?option? ?value option value ...?

Query or modify the configuration options of the widget. If no option is specified, returns a list describing all of the available options for pathName (see Tk_ConfigureInfo for information on the format of this list). If option is specified with no value, then the command returns a list describing the one named option (this list will be identical to the corresponding sublist of the value returned if no option is specified). If one or more option-value pairs are specified, then the command modifies the given widget option(s) to have the given value(s); in this case the command returns an empty string. Option may have any of the values accepted by the tixBalloon command.

pathName unbind widget

After a widget has be bound to a Balloon widget, when the user moves the cursor into this widget, the Balloon widget is activated: if the -balloonmsg option of this widget is set, the balloon window pops up; if the -statusmsg option of this widget is set, the message will be displayed in the status bar widget.

When the user moves the cursor out of the widget, the Balloon widget is de-activated: the balloon window is withdrawn and the status-bar message removed.

KEYWORDS