ToolTipsFactory

Object Model - Common Properties - Transparency

Gets or sets a value which defines the transparency (in %) of the whole tooltip (0=opaque; 100=invisible).

[Visual Basic]
Public Property Transparency As Integer
[C#]
public int Transparency {get; set;}

Property Value

Any Integer value from 0 to 100.

Overridable

Layout-file

Description

This property defines the transparency of the whole tooltip. The transparency is defined in percent (%), where Transparency=0 means no transparency at all (i.e. the tooltip is completely opaque) and Transparency=100 is a completely transparent tooltip (therefore invisible).

Actually, with Transparency>80 the tooltips are already hard to distinguish from the background and it is hard to imagine situations or tasks, where an almost invisible tooltip might be useful. Usually tooltips with Transparency in the range from 10% to 30% give nice looking results, with the background visibly shining through, but without making the tooltip unreadable.

The following table shows a tooltip with different levels of transparency:

 


(Transparency = 0%)

(Transparency = 10%)

(Transparency = 25%)

(Transparency = 40%)

(Transparency = 60%)

(Transparency = 80%)

 

Setting Transparency>0 for tooltip-layouts, where some other layout-elements, such as BackColor, BorderColor or FontColor etc., are set to Color.Transparent, will give poor results: The colors supposed to be Color.Transparent will fall back to a semi-transparent white or light yellow! Therefore this combinations should be avoided.

If specified at the component-level for a tooltip component (i.e. by defining the Transparency directly for the component), the assigned value will become the default Transparency for the tooltips of all controls on the same form:

'Change the transparency of the tooltips created by this tooltip component...

Me.MultiLine.GetMultiLineToolTip(Panel1).Transparency = 15

This default Transparency can be overridden for each control through the Override-property provided to all controls on the same form by the tooltip component (see "The Override-Property").

If the override-value for the Transparency has to be set or changed at runtime for the tooltip of a specific control, code like the following is needed:

'Override the default transparency for the tooltip

'of Panel1...

Me.MultiLine.GetMultiLineToolTip(Panel1).Override.Transparency = 10