Irv Kalb

In many programs, if you keep the mouse over an area of the screen (for example, a button) for a short amount of time, a small text message pops up to describe what the area of the interface does. This is knows as a "tooltip." Tooltips have become a widely accepted way of making user interfaces clearer. The new user can use them to learn basic functionality. Users who have not used a piece of software for a long time can use them to refresh their memory. The experienced user will not be impacted by tooltips since one will only appear if the user hovers over an area for a significant amount of time. Even in Director, the meanings of some of the buttons might not be immediately clear. In the Director main toolbar, there is a button with two right-angled arrows. The novice Director user might think that this is some sort of traffic diagram from England showing where c... (more)