Tooltip flickering, latest RM 3.1.0

[220v110]

Video:
http://youtu.be/7wRgcinFDBo

Update is set to 1000.

Code: Select all

[MeterExtLine]
Meter=Image
MeasureName=mPlayer
MeasureName2=mArtist
MeasureName3=mAlbum
MeasureName4=mDuration
MeasureName5=mPosition
MeasureName6=mRating
MeasureName7=mVolume
MeasureName8=mLyrics

SolidColor=0,0,0
x=#Left#
y=0
W=#TitleLength#
H=2

ToolTipTitle=#NowPlaying#
ToolTipText=#CRLF##Song#: %1#CRLF##Artist#: %2#CRLF##Album#: %3#CRLF##CRLF##Position#: %5#CRLF##TotalTime#: %4#CRLF##CRLF##Rating#: %6#CRLF##CRLF##Volume#: %7#CRLF##CRLF# %8
DynamicVariables=1

[VasTex]

Unfortunately from what I can tell in your video that is normal behavior for a ToolTip within Rainmeter.

The ToolTip must redraw itself in order to obtain the newest values from the measures in the skin. It will update and redraw itself at whatever rate the skin is set to update at (For you it's 1000ms or every second). You can slow this down by adding the line UpdateDivider=X to the meter containing the ToolTip. This will make that meter update X times slower than the set Update speed for the skin.

So, long story short, it 'flickers' because it must redraw itself completely whenever the skin updates in order to grab the newest information from the measures.

In my opinion the best way to fix this would be to only update that meter when the song changes using the line OnChangeAction=[!UpdateMeter ToolTipMeter][!Redraw] on the measure gathering the song name. I would also add the line UpdateDivider=-1 to the meter displaying the ToolTip. This would ensure that the ToolTip, and it's information, is only updated once per song thus, more or less, eliminating the flickering you're seeing.

However, I noticed that your ToolTip has one little bit of information in it that would render my solution pointless and that's the #Position# variable which I assume is the songs progress (ie; 1:39 or 4:22). That type of information would have to be updated every second for it to be all that useful. You may be able to slow it down, but then your song progress would be displayed in intervals of whatever you set the UpdateDivider to. For example, right now it's updating every second. This means that the information being displayed progresses like 0:01, 0:02, 0:03, etc. However to reduce the flickering you would need to add something like UpdateDivider=10 which would only update the ToolTip every 10 seconds and thus the progress time every 10 seconds. In this situation your progress would display like 0:00, 0:10, 0:20, etc. This may not be ideal, but it would be your best bet without losing the #Position# information entirely.

Basically, you can either work in the changes I gave you and remove the #Position# variable entirely or you can just deal with the flickering. Unfortunately there's no way for the ToolTip not to flicker if it has to update it's values every second.

**EDIT
Clearly I'm not as familiar with ToolTip behavior as I thought. Regardless the original point and the following point made by Moshi still stand. The best way to remove the flickering is to simply stop the skin as a whole from updating. Please refer to his post below.

[moshi]

sorry VasTex, but from my experience, your post is false.

there are two factors that cause the flickering, UpdateDivider on meters/measures is none of them.

first there is Update in the [Rainmeter] section of a skin (and this is the only update rate that matters). you will only get tooltips that don't flicker and behave like "real" Windows tooltips with Update=-1. of course that is not practicable for many skins.

the second factor is the size (width x height) of the tooltip.

(with a small tooltip and a reasonable Update rate you might not notice the flickering.)

[VasTex]

You're right Moshi,

I had never really taken the time to experiment with ToolTips of various sizes and varying skin update rates. Thanks for clearing that up and I apologize for any misinformation I may have given. It appears that ToolTips do indeed still flicker regardless of the meter/measures update rate and that it really is only visible on larger ToolTips.

[220v110]

I disabled lyrics to minimize tooltip's size. No more flickering, thanks!

[jn_meter]

I came to the forum to ask whether I could stop my tooltips flickering. It seems from this thread that the answer is, pretty much, 'no'. So might I make a feature request (/bug report) to the effect that it would be good to have flicker-free tooltips?

[SilverAzide]

I came to the forum to ask whether I could stop my tooltips flickering. It seems from this thread that the answer is, pretty much, 'no'. So might I make a feature request (/bug report) to the effect that it would be good to have flicker-free tooltips?

Tooltips are rendered by Windows itself, so there is exactly zero that the Rainmeter devs can do about it. Your only option is to reduce the size of the tooltip by limiting the amount of text being shown. User Yincognito has a custom tooltip skin that you can use to emulate and extend the standard Windows tooltip, and which won't flicker because it is a skin and not a true tooltip. (Don't ignore the note on the first line of the post.)

[jn_meter]

Well, at least that custom skin exists! If I can muster the energy, I'll look into that. Thanks.