I generally find tool tips quite annoying, especially when they are there and I don't need them, and when they are NOT there and I need them.

The former becomes particularly annoying when a "tool tip" covers the button that I need to click (happens on occasion when I accidentally move the pointer too far or some such thing). One of the particularly annoying applications went as far as tool-tipping text paragraphs.

I've also found some applications lacking tool tips in places where they should be (like on toolbar buttons - I suppose that's why they are called *tool* tips). This resulted in me clicking every button on the toolbar until I found what I was looking for because the documentation file was corrupted.

I suppose the best solution would be to have the tool tip pop out only when in addition to hovering over a GUI element, I also push a button (for example a middle mouse button, Shift, or Ctrl, although Shift and Ctrl might mess with multi-selection), or a combination of buttons (Ctrl+Alt I think should be nice enough). I think having the option of displaying tool tips in this way would make them more useful and less frustratingly annoying.

Well, as usual I decided to test drive a new major point KDE to see if any of the many problems have been sorted. I installed 4.5.2.

Ignoring for the time being the fact that plasma crashes every time I change any setting in system settings, I still can't see how to disable the menu popup, the reason I started this thread.

I have Taskbar Thumbnails disabled in the desktop effects section, and even disabled desktop effects altogether for good measure. Still the popup remains.

Did you try the solution I posted near the beginning of the thread? It is in the "Workspace" systemsettings module.

That got it, thanks. I had looked in "Workspace Appearance", I missed "Workspace". Past experience has taught me to automatically avoid anything looking like a cashew!

I assume tooltips can only be disabled globally, and cannot be disabled on a per-application basis? I absolutely hate the generic tooltips provided by window buttons on the taskbar and want them off, but disabling them through "Workspace appearance and behavior / Workspace" also disables clock's tooltip that shows current date, and Ktorrent's tooltip that shows current bytes in/out status, and its current speed, and I want them both on (their icons are in the tray, not the taskbar). What could I do? IMHO KDE is becoming worse and worse with each new release... Kubuntu 10.10 here.

If by Taskbar, you mean Task Manager, which displays a list of currently open windows, I suggest checking the Task Manager settings ( right click on an empty area beside one of the window items to see the menu entry ) and untick "Show Tooltips".

bcooksley wrote:If by Taskbar, you mean Task Manager, which displays a list of currently open windows, I suggest checking the Task Manager settings ( right click on an empty area beside one of the window items to see the menu entry ) and untick "Show Tooltips".

Thanks, just beuatiful, it worked great! You saved my life. Only any window icon needs to be right clicked to see "Task manager settings", not an empty area.

Many of us who use KDE and SuSE have been at it forever. I started with KDE 1.0 - I was in the first group of users and understood the development environment although I did not actively participate. My experience with Linux goes back to very early kernels, booted from sector 0 of floppies on Microchannel machines!

It stands to reason that we experienced users do not want gigantic billboard tooltips in our face constantly! So the question is not how to disable them, but why are they even around? What sort of development decision leads one to conclude that a giant billboard chasing the mouse pointer is a good idea? What disturbs me about the whole KDE environment now, is the astonishing tide of stupid gew-gaws that accomplish nothing but cycle-stealing, distraction, and irritation. In particular, I use Linux usually from a headless box, in an X-server on my Windows machine. I have Windows software that is essential to my work, and there is no other option, so don't presume to give me advice on my OS choices.

Do you understand that using KDE on an X-server is extremely painful? You have to spend hours killing all the gew-gaws and disabling stupid distracting animations and desktop effects. There should be one huge green lizard-shaped button with giant banner that says "TURN OFF EVERY POSSIBLE STUPID DISTRACTING AND CYCLE-STEALING CPU-HEATING GIMMICK". Now that would be worth putting a tooltip on.

In short, it's not just tooltips, although as the above users have indicated, they are so annoying that they make me consider the nuclear option, that is, deleting KDE and switching to GNOME, which at least can be slimmed down in rapid fashion. The entire ethos of KDE has changed for the worse. It's getting embarrassing to be involved with it, and I no longer recommend it without reservations, and compared to Windows and MacOSX, it's a complete botch-up.

You've had 14 years to get things right - you were doing great with KDE 3.x, and then this all happened. Why? OK rant over. Please put a gew-gaw killer on the desktop.

-drl

I wholeheartedly agree with the above rant. KDE 3.5 was excellent and I still keep it on most of my machines, but everyone seems to be trying to kill it off and force us all to conform to the gosh-awful nuisance that the M$-clone KDE 4 has become. KDE 4 is a disaster (for me) in almost every way. Whatever happened to "keep it simple" with clean and tight code that is not ever-increasing bloatware copying M$?

Well I just zypper dup'ed from SuSE 11.3 to 11.4 with KDE 4.6, and the new Configure Desktop application FINALLY allows tooltips to be turned off!! No more barking cashews or billboard flashing geckos!!

You can't imagine what a huge relief this is. On a remote X server that stupid tooltip would cause the application launcher to be delayed by 10 seconds or more.

Thanks developers for - finally - listening.

-drl

As I pointed out last June, the developers implemented this for 4.5. It isn't that new of a feature.

This thread was a little helpful—especially for turning off KMail tooltips which get in the way often, but it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater to turn off all of the other informational tips when I just want to turn off the clock's tips. Like another user above, I want other tooltips. The one I want is for the volume, and the Task Manager thumbnails are fine. The clock's tips have been annoying me off and on for a while because they pop up, get in the way since they are the big billboards, and don't go away until I point at the clock, again, and move away. Any idea if we can get a Show Tooltips checkbox for the Digital Clock Settings? (KDE 4.5 here)

That doesn't have anything to do with this thread.

Hmm, I can't find anywhere a setting to change/set the kickoff tooltip timeout. Is it anywhere, or it wasn't implemented?
kde 4.7.2

fixed, there are many asking the same solution thus posted in common location instead of copy paste.

http://mihirknows.blogspot.com/2011/12/solution-disable-tooltip-in-kubuntu.html