Tooltip on combobox dropdown items in C#.NET

Question

I need an event to be raised when mouse hovers over Combo Box items so that I could provide ToolTip for Items of dropDownArea of ComboBox.
how to get index of comboBoxItem pointed by cursor ?
Thanks in advance.

pooja chavan · Answer

Hi All I want to show tooltip for Comboboxedit control of devexpress can anyone help me? I am still unable to fix it even after following all above suggestions need urgent help/suggestion Appreciate all ur help

krishnan sriram · Answer

Lakshmi There are 2 ways by which you can see tooltips for the dropdown items of a combobox. 1. Create a customControl - If you desire to have your style font background for tooltips 2. Override DrawItem of combobox I have taken Item 2 and here's a simple example. You may need to play around with the X & Y xo-orinates to get things right private void cbLongTexts_DrawItem( object sender DrawItemEventArgs e) { if (e.Index == -1) { return ; } //cbLongTexts.PointToClient(new Point(Control.MousePosition.X + e.Bounds.Width Control.MousePosition.Y + e.Bounds.Height)) Point p = new Point (cbLongTexts.Location.X cbLongTexts.Location.Y + cbLongTexts.Height); //user mouse is hovering over this drop-down item update its data if ((e.State & DrawItemState .Selected) == DrawItemState .Selected) { // this tooltip simply shows the displayed text to the right of the drop-down box customize as needed toolTip1.Show(cbLongTexts.Items[e.Index].ToString() this  //new Point(e.Bounds.X + e.Bounds.Width e.Bounds.Y)); p); } e.DrawBackground(); // draw text strings e.Graphics.DrawString( cbLongTexts.Items[e.Index].ToString() e.Font Brushes .Black new Point (e.Bounds.X e.Bounds.Y)); } Here are some things that you may want to know before you use this code 1. Make sure the Combobox DrawMode is set to OwnerDrawFixed 2. Move over to the events section of the combobox (In my case it was cbLongTexts ) and look for the event DrawItem and the rest of what needs to be done within the function is in there for you to witness and execute Have fun. Let me know if you need anything more

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

Your code is perfect it will show the tooltip once you selected the item but what Lakshmi need is she needs to display the tooltip on mouse hover of the selection list as shown in the image. I have uploaded the sample screen shot of what i would like to say. Just view the image you will come to know. Above code will display the tool tip after the selection of item from the list. Once you selected the item if you move your mouse over the combo box tooltip will be shown. But it wont show the tooltip when you move the mouse over the selection items of the combo box as shown in the image.

Suthish Nair · Answer

Lakshmi you can customize the ToolTip to this extend might be another way also... Private Sub ComboBox1_MouseHover( ByVal sender As Object  ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ComboBox1.MouseHover If ComboBox1.SelectedItem  Then Dim ToolTip1 As New ToolTip Dim caption As String = Selected value is:  & ComboBox1.SelectedItem Dim lbl As New Label lbl.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.RoyalBlue.RosyBrown lbl.Text = caption ComboBox1.Controls.Add(lbl) ComboBox1.Controls.Item(0).BringToFront() ComboBox1.Controls.Item(0).Width = 200 ComboBox1.Controls.Item(0).Height = 100 ToolTip1.SetToolTip(ComboBox1 ) ToolTip1.AutoPopDelay = 5000 ToolTip1.InitialDelay = 200 ToolTip1.ReshowDelay = 100 ToolTip1.ShowAlways = True End If End Sub Private Sub Form1_MouseMove( ByVal sender As Object  ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) Handles MyBase .MouseMove ComboBox1.Controls.Clear() End Sub

Suthish Nair · Answer

I dont understood what you trying to say? At any point of logic there will a value binded to the CombobBox that will a SelectedItem SelectedText SelectedValue or simply Text. you can use following.... Dim caption As String = vbCrLf & Selected value is:  & vbCrLf & ComboBox1.Text & vbCrLf Dim caption As String = Selected value is:  & ComboBox1.SelectedItem Dim caption As String = Selected value is:  & ComboBox1.SelectedText Dim caption As String = Selected value is:  & ComboBox1.SelectedValue

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

again this code also shows the tooltip after you select the item from the combo box and not on the fly. This event will fire on mouse hover of the combo box and not on mouse hover of the selection list. I tried this already.

Suthish Nair · Answer

Mani yes i agreed with your definition about tooltip. My first reply with an example is because of you said its not supported. Now about MouseHover did you tried to test the code before posting replys. You can use MouseHover event to show the toolitips also. Private Sub ComboBox1_MouseHover( ByVal sender As Object  ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ComboBox1.MouseHover Dim ToolTip1 As New ToolTip Dim caption As String = Selected value is:  & ComboBox1.SelectedText ToolTip1.SetToolTip(ComboBox1 caption) ToolTip1.AutoPopDelay = 5000 ToolTip1.InitialDelay = 200 ToolTip1.ReshowDelay = 100 ToolTip1.ShowAlways = True End Sub But am not sure you can make a customised ToolTip with colors font etc with VS 2003.

Lakshmi Ramya · Answer

ya that's true it works only after selecting the item in the combobox rather than on mouse hover on the dropdown items. so i can conclude that it is not possible to have a tooltip on hover of dropdown items of a combobox. Thank you all for your help.

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

Your code will work fine. But whats the issue is It will show the tooltip after you selected the items from the dropdown list and not on hover of the mouse. Window that popup on hover of the mouse is called tool tip. Thats why i preferred to have a label to display the item name fully.

Suthish Nair · Answer

yes.. its supported.. Private Sub ComboBox1_SelectedIndexChanged( ByVal sender As Object  ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ComboBox1.SelectedIndexChanged Dim ToolTip1 As New ToolTip ToolTip1.SetToolTip(ComboBox1 ComboBox1.SelectedItem) ToolTip1.AutoPopDelay = 5000 ToolTip1.InitialDelay = 1000 ToolTip1.ReshowDelay = 500 ToolTip1.ShowAlways = True End Sub but if you need formating refer link

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

Tooltip is not supported in combobox of windows application. I was talking about dropdown list of web application. You can put a label next to combobox and display the items text in it after selecting the item from the combobox. Thats it you cand do.

Lakshmi Ramya · Answer

Visual studio .NET 2003 and its windows application

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

Which version of .NET you are using ? Is it a Windows Application or Web Application ?

Lakshmi Ramya · Answer

I have tried using the below one but there is no Attributes for combobox items. :( for ( int i = 0; i { //DropDownList1.Items[i].Attributes.Add( title  DropDownList1.Items[i].Text); }

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

Change the for loop as below. for ( int i = 0; i { DropDownList1.Items[i].Attributes.Add( title  DropDownList1.Items[i].Text); }

Lakshmi Ramya · Answer

Here is my code - i couldn't see any attribute for combobox items as you specified for a list box. please help. Thanks using System; using System.Drawing; using System.Collections; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Data; namespace Combobox_tooltip { /// /// Summary description for Form1. /// public class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form { private ToolTip toolTip1; private System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox comboBox1; private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components; public Form1() { // // Required for Windows Form Designer support // InitializeComponent(); // // TODO: Add any constructor code after InitializeComponent call // } /// /// Clean up any resources being used. /// protected override void Dispose( bool disposing ) { if( disposing ) { if (components != null) { components.Dispose(); } } base.Dispose( disposing ); } #region Windows Form Designer generated code /// /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify /// the contents of this method with the code editor. /// private void InitializeComponent() { this.components = new System.ComponentModel.Container(); this.comboBox1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox(); this.toolTip1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolTip(this.components); this.SuspendLayout(); // // comboBox1 // this.comboBox1.Items.AddRange(new object[] { ramya lakshmiramya abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklm abcdefghijklmraqeewf yxwvutsrqponmlkjihgf zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba}); this.comboBox1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(64 56); this.comboBox1.Name = comboBox1; this.comboBox1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(121 21); this.comboBox1.TabIndex = 0; this.comboBox1.Text = comboBox1; this.toolTip1.SetToolTip(comboBox1comboBox1.Text); this.comboBox1.MouseHover += new System.EventHandler(this.comboBox1_MouseHover); this.comboBox1.SelectedIndexChanged += new System.EventHandler(this.comboBox1_SelectedIndexChanged); // // toolTip1 // this.toolTip1.AutoPopDelay = 0; this.toolTip1.InitialDelay = 0; this.toolTip1.ReshowDelay = 0; this.toolTip1.ShowAlways = true; // // Form1 // this.AutoScaleBaseSize = new System.Drawing.Size(5 13); this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(292 266); this.Controls.Add(this.comboBox1); this.Name = Form1; this.Text = Form1; this.ResumeLayout(false); } #endregion /// /// The main entry point for the application. /// [STAThread] static void Main() { Application.Run(new Form1()); } private void comboBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender System.EventArgs e) { toolTip1.SetToolTip(comboBox1comboBox1.SelectedItem.ToString()); } private void comboBox1_MouseHover(object sender EventArgs e) { MessageBox.Show(comboBox1.SelectedText); } // // This method binds tooltip with a dropdown/ any list control // public static void BindTooltip(ListControl lc) { for (int i = 0; i { lc.Items[i].Attributes.Add(title lc.Items[i].Text); } } } }

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

yes its applicable to both.

Lakshmi Ramya · Answer

Thanks for your reply.. can we have the same for combobox??

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

Below code will help you to achieve your goal. // // This method binds tooltip with a dropdown / any list control // public static void BindTooltip(ListControl lc) { for ( int i = 0 ; i lc.Items.Count; i++) { lc.Items[i].Attributes.Add(  title  lc.Items[i].Text); } }