[Released] ProTips - Tooltip System for UGUI

ProTips 1.3 is on the asset store now.

Changelog:

FIXED: Editor scripts have been updated to use the EditorSceneManager introduced in Unity 5.3. This change was required for editors to save user modifications properly.

Added: 4 new tooltips ready to be used or modified. Layered PSD files included.

 

hi,i want to konw how to use in Screen Space Camera,because my tooltip not showing up in the right places.thx

 

Hi will-lin,

Our web demo (included in the asset) uses Screen Space Camera mode (you can change it with the button on the left side), so you can compare the way elements are setup in the demo scene with the way they are setup in your project to help isolate what's causing the issue. You might also try turning off Overflow Protection in the Tooltip Manager script to simplify your troubleshooting.

If you can't find the issue, you can send us your project and we'll take a look at it.

 

Hi zangad,
i could not find the left button and particles button in my asset,i buy at Apr 29, 2016,is it old version?

 

Will-lin,

Yes, that's definitely an old version you're using. The Screen Space Camera change button and Particles/Time Stop buttons were added back in Jan 2016. Your purchase from Apr 2016 should definitely have these features. I just downloaded the latest version myself to confirm that the features are there and visible at design-time, so if you're not seeing them, just update to the latest version from the asset store and you should be good-to-go!

 

zangad,
i download again from assets store,i could not see about Screen Space Camera change button in ProTips Demo.unity,which step is wrong?

 

Hi everyone,

We wanted to share some of the fixes and new features coming with ProTips 1.4. We fixed a couple of bugs regarding tooltip positioning on 3D world objects in Screen Space Camera mode, plus we added a feature to let you select whether you want to use collider bounds or renderer bounds for tooltip placement on 3D world objects.

On the ToolTipManager, there is now a Position Bounds field. The default is set to Collider, but you can change it to Renderer:



When Collider is selected, it will position the tooltip on the collider bounds, and when Renderer is selected, it will position the tooltip on the renderer bounds. Here's an image that shows the difference. (Note: I specifically made the collider smaller than the cube's mesh renderer in this example to illustrate how it all works. Normally, on an object like this your collider would probably be the same size as the mesh.)



We've also added a button to the 3D World Object Demo that lets you change the screen space mode for testing, similar to the main demo.



We'll be submitting ProTips 1.4 to the asset store in a day or two. in the meantime, our web demo has been updated, so you can check out the new features if you're interested. And here's the full changelog:

 

I don't have an entry for either overflow protection and position bounds on the manager. Just downloaded it from the asset store.

 

Which version of Unity are you using? The Asset Store keeps multiple versions of an asset based on which version of Unity you're using and offers that one, so it's possible they only offered you an older version if you're not using Unity 5.3. We submitted with 5.3.4.

Also, are you looking on the Tooltip Manager script? Or the Tooltip Trigger script? It should be on the Manager. I just downloaded the asset into a fresh project and see it.

 

Yep, I think that's it. I'm on 5.2.3. Is it possible to get 1.4 for that version or do I have to upgrade?

 

I didn't find a way in the asset store to override your download selection, but I just tested whether it would work, and it throws an error due to an assembly reference (UnityEngine.SceneManagement) that was added in 5.3.

 

Okay thanks for the fast reply. I'll try to upgrade then and see whether the store will give me the latest version.

 

Okay so I switched to the newest version. However the Screen Space Camera still doesn't work correctly.

I've enabled Overflow Protection and the Tip Position is set to Top Right Corner. In Screen Space Camera mode the tooltip shows up on the left side even though there is plenty of space to the right. In Overlay mode it works correctly.

Additionally I noticed that the tip positions involving the mouse position doesn't work at all in screen space. In my test where I set the tip position to: Mouse Top Right Corner, the tooltip ended up below the whole screen.

 

I need to use a lot of sprite images in my tooltip. Textmeshpro has a good example using smilies inline with text, is this easily done with your product or would it be better to use textmeshpro with the changes you mentioned earlier in the forum.

Possibly in a future update you could make it easier to incorporate textmeshpro then the current all or nothing solution

 

Hi! We recently got pro tips for our game and it's worked great minus one weird problem.

We get the following nullref when switching from our main menu scene to loading another scene:

Code (CSharp):

1. MissingReferenceException: The object of type 'GameObject' has been destroyed but you are still trying to access it.
2. Your script should either check if it is null or you should not destroy the object.
3. ModelShark.TooltipTrigger.OnPointerEnter (UnityEngine.EventSystems.PointerEventData eventData) (at Assets/ProTips/Scripts/Behaviors/TooltipTrigger.cs:108)
4. UnityEngine.EventSystems.ExecuteEvents.Execute (IPointerEnterHandler handler, UnityEngine.EventSystems.BaseEventData eventData) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Extensions/guisystem/UnityEngine.UI/EventSystem/ExecuteEvents.cs:24)
5. UnityEngine.EventSystems.ExecuteEvents.Execute[IPointerEnterHandler] (UnityEngine.GameObject target, UnityEngine.EventSystems.BaseEventData eventData, UnityEngine.EventSystems.EventFunction`1 functor) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Extensions/guisystem/UnityEngine.UI/EventSystem/ExecuteEvents.cs:269)
6. UnityEngine.EventSystems.EventSystem:Update()

Now the tooltips work in each scene if loaded in editor and run in play mode. But it seems to break when switching from one to the other in play mode through loading the scene.

Anyway I'm hoping it's something really simple, but it's a bit of a stumper since the issue can't be replicated in the individual scenes.

It appears when the new scene is loaded tooltips appear at 0,0,0 as if they're being loaded in the center of the scene.

 

It looks like an issue with async loading, it decides to unload the new tooltip managers along with the old one when switching scenes.

 

Hi Ace,

Sorry we missed your question - we didn't get a notification about the post on this forum.

Are you still having the issue with async scene loading? If so, please let me know how you are setting your scenes up so I can reproduce the issue, or send me a simple project that illustrates the issue so I can fix it (support@modelshark.com). We also do scene switching in our demo, but I don't see an issue like what you're seeing, so I'm guessing we're doing it differently.

Thanks, and again my apologies for not seeing your question.

 

Nice asset. Quick question, I want to toggle all tool-tips on and off. Is there an easy way to globally control this?

 

Hi launchpad,

Great question. Another customer has also asked for this feature, and it is currently on our to-do list for the next release. The plan is to add it as a checkbox on the TooltipManager.

If you need an easy way to do this now, all you need to do is enable or disable the "Tooltip Container" game object at runtime, and it will globally turn off/on tooltips. I made a quick video to illustrate:

Let us know if you need assistance.

 

"If you need an easy way to do this now, all you need to do is enable or disable the "Tooltip Container" game object at runtime, and it will globally turn off/on tooltips. I made a quick video to illustrate:"

Thanks for the info.

Added: tooltipContainer.tag="TooltipContainer"; to your ToolTipManager script and used

TooltipContainer=GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("TooltipContainer");

to find the instance of the instantiated Tooltip Container to toggle on and off.

 

Hello just bought this but i have problem. Text size is too small for my android screen and i can't even read it. How do i adjust size of the text please help

1080x1920

 

Hello Zangad all i want this tooltip to be show like this application

 

Hi Goldensnitch,

You can increase the text size of a tooltip by clicking on the tooltip prefab you are using, click on the Body Text child, and increase the Font Size. Here I've increased the font size from the default (14pt) to 28pt:


Results (much larger font size):


If you want the tooltip to look like the one in your picture, you can create a 9-sliced background sprite with a thin white rounded border and black fill. The alpha on the fill would need to be high, and no alpha on the border. Here's a thread on how to create a 9-sliced background sprite in Unity. Once you have the image to your liking, you can copy one of our sample tooltips and just replace the background image with your own, and adjust the offsets as needed.

Hope that helps!

 

Zangad thank you for you quick reply and i have one more question. I have tried to set the title size to 30 but doesn't fit well. If i put font size to 20 its hard see on the mobile screen. Also the Tooltip is keep going out of screen. Please help me

 

Hi Goldensnitch,

You will need to adjust the min/max text widths of your tooltip triggers to something more appropriate for mobile. The default text widths in the demo are assuming a wider content container. Hopefully these images will help explain:





You can also set the Tip Position on the tooltip trigger to be in the middle of the trigger, and that will free up more space for text, especially if most of your tooltip triggers are towards the center of the screen.

 

Dear Zangad,

Thank you for quick reply. I have last question " Is there anyway show up tooltip to like this one when i select object and i just want this tooltip to stick with button of the screen. If you do can you guide me please. Thank you

 

Goldensnitch,

If you want the tooltip to stick to a specific spot on the screen, the demo includes an example of this. If you click this button in the demo:

...it will popup a tooltip over the character silhouette. If you click on the character silhouette in Scene view, you will notice it has a "TooltipOrigin" RectTransform right where the tooltip is anchored to:

The Click() event for the button that triggered the tooltip calls a function called PopupTooltip() on the PopupTooltipRemotely script on the Canvas root. (I put the script on the Canvas root, you can put it anywhere as long as it is on the canvas somewhere.)


So in short, I believe the PopupTooltipRemotely script will help you achieve your goal of anchoring a tooltip to a specific spot on the canvas. Have a look at the demo to see how the example I mentioned is wired up.

Hope that helps!

 

Hi Goldensnitch,

I noticed in your screenshot you have at least one null reference exception in your console. Can you provide the details on the exception(s) you are getting? The console should have more details if you expand it.

 

Zangad the thing is i can't find the text ediot section for this and my object is 3d. It has 67 objects. So i need to attach names to each object. Where do i edit the text fonts? Please check the picture below.

 

Hi Goldensnitch,

I've sent you a private message to continue collaborative support on your project.

 

@zangad ,

Any support for Playmaker with this Asset?

 

Hi Duffer123,

We've put it on our roadmap to take another look at Playmaker support, but no, at this point there is no ProTips integration with Playmaker.

 

We just submitted ProTips 1.6. We also forgot to list the 1.5 changelog, so here it is along with the 1.6 changelog.

1.5

• Added two new tooltip positions: CanvasTopMiddle and CanvasBottomMiddle.
• Added a new MobileFriendlySimple tooltip style.
• Fixed an issue where TooltipTriggerEditor was not correctly marking itself as Dirty when changes were made.

1.6

• Added a checkbox on the TooltipManager to disable/enable tooltips globally. When disabled, it will also close any open tooltips.
• Asset updated to Unity 5.5.1 and tested. (Note: ProTips 1.6 also works with 5.5.0f3)
  
• Modified the "Stays Open" feature: now when it is checked, tooltips will stay open until another tooltip trigger is hovered over. Previously, the tooltip would stay open even if another tooltip trigger was hovered over. Note: you can still select "Is Blocking" to force the tooltip to stay open and block any other tooltips from appearing.

 

@zangad , @DeadlyAccurate ,

Any news on some Playmaker integration and actions?

Also, quick question. With any dynamic text field like say %stats% example can you have a scroll function?

 

Hi Duffer123,

No, there is no Playmaker support at this point. Are there any actions in particular you are looking for, or just full Playmaker integration? We could probably add an action here and there and roll that into our releases, but total integration would be a larger effort.

Yes, you can make a tooltip with scrollable content. I've put it on our todo list to include an example of that in the demo. You would need to create your tooltip template using a scrollable section controlled by a scrollbar, and your content would be a dynamic field, just like the other tooltip templates. The only difference would be in how you design the UI for the template.

There is a caveat, though. The way ProTips currently works is tooltips stay open while a user hovers/presses the trigger element, not the tooltip itself. To get the functionality I *think* you're looking for (hover over trigger element, move mouse to tooltip which stays open, click on scrollbar and scroll up/down inside the tooltip), we would need to add a feature to ProTips to keep tooltips open if the user is either hovering/pressing the trigger or the tooltip for that trigger. I think this would be a good feature addition for ProTips, so I've added it to our todo list.

In the meantime, you would need to enable the Stays Open option on the tooltip trigger and add a close button to the tooltip, so it would stay open until the user either hovers over another tooltip or clicks the close button. Not perfect, but it might get you by.

Oh, another option would be to just auto-scroll the content in the tooltip. I've actually seen that method used in games. That way, you wouldn't need a scrollbar in your tooltip at all, and the user wouldn't need to hover or click inside the tooltip. As they hover over the tooltip trigger, the content inside the %stats% section would slowly scroll to the bottom, and then maybe back up, in a loop. That would be a lot simpler to implement, but I'm not sure if it's what you were looking for. Let me know, and I'll put an example of it in the demo.

 

@zangad,

Unfortunately, thinking about the former type of scrollling and full Playmaker integration...

 

Does protips work in VR?

 

We haven't tested VR, but ProTips just uses the Unity UGUI canvas and rect transforms, so if VR uses those, it should work fine.

 

Hi @DeadlyAccurate - I've noticed that you've already answered questions about TextMeshPro integration with ProTips, though the soluition requires replacing code in a bunch of scripts. TMP is one of the best assets ever made, and has since been acquired by Unity. Its been made a free asset, and should be part of Unity core sooner or later.

I like to avoid hacking my assets, so would you consider adding to the next asset update either of these additions?

a) new alternative scripts that are identical to old ones, but rely on TMP
OR
b) add #define directives to current scripts, so that if I add "PROTIPS_USE_TMP" in my build Platform Define symbols, it will result in TextMeshPro being used instead of the standard UGUI.

 

Hi ilmario,

That's a great idea. After discussing it, we've added your suggestion to our feature backlog and will try to get it included on our next ProTips release.

We've been wanting to switch to TextMeshPro since Unity acquired it, but because it's not part of Unity core, it meant we'd have to include the TMP package with ProTips, otherwise our scripts would break because of missing references. And creating separate versions of the code (option A) would require us to maintain/enhance two versions of many scripts, which we would like to avoid.

But using pre-compiler directives should allow us to reference TMP classes without including them, since we'd leave the symbol undefined by default. So out-of-the-box ProTips would be configured to work with Unity's UGUI, and we would provide instructions in our user manual on how to switch to TMP. That's probably the best we can do until TMP is integrated into the core engine.

Thanks again for the great suggestion.

 

Sounds great, I'm looking forward to it !

 

Hi all, there is a way to put Dynamic Button into Tooltip (like the Close Button) but with scripts attached with some dynamic Logic. Eg. open different pdf file ?

Thanks in advance and Best regards.

 

Hi harcaro76,

Yes, you can do this by adding a Button component to the dynamic object and a listener for the Click() event. See the image below where I've modified the AddTooltipDynamically.cs script so that the second dynamic button in the main demo scene opens a PDF in the web browser when you click it.

AddTooltipDynamically.cs
(New code is the red brackets)


And here's the code for convenience.

Code (CSharp):

1. /// <summary>
2. /// This is an example of creating a button at runtime from a prefab that does NOT already have a tooltip,
3. /// programmatically adding a tooltip to it that does not already exist in the scene, and modifying it to
4. /// display whatever dynamic message we want.
5. /// </summary>
6. private void AddNewTooltip()
7. {
8.     // Load the button from Resources.
9.     GameObject buttonPrefab = Resources.Load<GameObject>("DynamicObjWithoutTooltip");
10.     if (buttonPrefab != null)
11.     {
12.         // Assuming the prefab exists, instantiate the button and set its parent.
13.         GameObject button = Instantiate(buttonPrefab);
14.         button.transform.SetParent(transform, false);
15.  
16.         // Add the TooltipTrigger component to the button.
17.         TooltipTrigger tooltipTrigger = button.gameObject.AddComponent<TooltipTrigger>();
18.         TooltipStyle tooltipStyle = Resources.Load<TooltipStyle>("MetroSimple");
19.         tooltipTrigger.tooltipStyle = tooltipStyle;
20.  
21.         // Set the tooltip text.
22.         tooltipTrigger.SetText("BodyText", String.Format("This object was created at <b><color=#F3B200>runtime</color></b> from a prefab that <b><color=#F3B200>did not</color></b> already have a tooltip on it. The tooltip was added programmatically and the message and other parameters modified through code. This \"metro\" tooltip style was also added dynamically to the scene.\n\nObject created and tooltip text assigned at {0}.", DateTime.Now));
23.  
24.         // Set some extra style properties on the tooltip
25.         tooltipTrigger.maxTextWidth = 250;
26.         tooltipTrigger.backgroundTint = Color.white;
27.         tooltipTrigger.tipPosition = TipPosition.BottomRightCorner;
28.      
29.         // Add the Button component to make the object clickable.
30.         UnityEngine.UI.Button btnComponent = button.AddComponent<UnityEngine.UI.Button>();
31.         btnComponent.onClick.AddListener(() => OpenPDF());
32.     }
33. }
34.  
35. private void OpenPDF()
36. {
37.     Application.OpenURL("http://www.modelshark.com/Content/ProTips%20User%20Guide.pdf");
38. }

 

Many many thanks zangad , it's a perfect solution !

 

Running into an issue:

The "Tooltip Container" object doesn't appear to be created on the Root Canvas Object, at least not how I think it should. I've been tracing and trying to figure out what is going on and am lost as to why it is doing this now.

I have a Canvas Object in the root level of my project (created to help test this issue) but for some reason the Tooltip Container is being added to another canvas deeper in the hierarchy. See images for before and while running game. I have 2 cameras in the scene. Main Camera which is the GO added to the Tooltip Manager so that it uses that as it's GUI Canvas Reference and another Minimap Camera. But for some reason the Tooltip GO keeps getting created on the Minimap Canvas (which is disabled when not needed) so that my tooltips do not show up because the GO is inactive.

Any ideas why this would be picking this canvas as the ROOT? or is there someway to set which Canvas should be the root so that this is created properly. Thanks in advance.

- Skippy

 

Hi Skippy,

There's a section of code in TooltipManager.cs that attempts to dynamically find the correct Canvas for your tooltip (the closest parent), and moves the Tooltip Container game object appropriately. It only uses the root canvas if a parent canvas can't be found.



So the Tooltip Container just floats around, from canvas to canvas. The reason for doing this is so you can have multiple canvases and each one can be setup differently (screenspace overlay, worldspace, tilted with perspective, etc), and the tooltips will get carried over (inside their container) to pop up on whatever canvas parent triggered them, without needing to juggle multiple tooltip containers or worry about which canvas is on top of another one in the hierarchy.

If you don't like this behavior and always want the tooltip container to be locked under the root canvas, you can comment out lines 226 and 229 above in the TooltipManager.cs file.

Please let us know if that doesn't fix your issue.

 

@zangad ,

Abandoned reliance on Playmaker etc and I use Bolt or code now and looking at this Asset again.

One question I had was can you display objects / meshes in 3d within a tooltip ui?

See this asset for what I'm on about:- https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/92476

In fact, could I integrate the 2 assets?

 

Hi Duffer123,

Thanks for the question, that looks like an interesting integration. Looking at the UIObject3D asset, they mention it will render a 3D object on any canvas as if it was an image, so I'm thinking it might work.

However, we haven't tested ProTips with that asset, so we've reached out to Digital Legacy and requested a voucher for UIObject3D so we can confirm whether the two work together, and if there are any gotchas along the way.

 

Great. Fingers crossed.

 

@zangad , any news from the ui3dobject people?

How long is your asset on sale?