It is possible and often desirable to allow the user to globally disable display of all ToolTips in an application.� It requires swizzling a method of a private AppKit class, but this is implemented as a “safe hack” which won’t break your app if Apple changes it someday.� It currently works on all Mac OS X versions thru 10.5 Leopard:

1.� Place an item in the app’s Help menu named “View Tool Tips”, and set its FirstResponder action to toggleToolTips:

2.� In your app/delegate (or default responder), add these code snippets:

• (IBAction)toggleToolTips:(id)sender;

#import “SKWToolTipManager.h”

• (void)toggleToolTips:(id)sender { � � [NSApp setToolTipsEnabled:![NSApp toolTipsEnabled]]; }

• (BOOL)validateMenuItem:(id )item { � � SEL action = [item action]; � � � if (action == @selector(toggleToolTips:)) { � � � � [item setState:([NSApp toolTipsEnabled] ? NSOnState : NSOffState)]; � � � � return [NSApp canDisableToolTips]; � � }

� � // etc… }

3.� Create and add these two files to your project:

//� SKWToolTipManager.h // //� Created by Shaun Wexler on 6/21/04. //� Copyright (c) 2004 SKW Development. All rights reserved.

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>

@interface NSApplication (SKWToolTipManager)

• (void)setToolTipsEnabled:(BOOL)enabled;
• (BOOL)toolTipsEnabled;
• (BOOL)canDisableToolTips;

@end

//� SKWToolTipManager.m // //� Created by Shaun Wexler on 6/21/04. //� Copyright (c) 2004 SKW Development. All rights reserved.

#import “SKWToolTipManager.h” #import <objc/objc-runtime.h>

@implementation NSApplication (SKWToolTipManager)

static IMP displayToolTip = NULL; static BOOL toolTipsDisabled = NO; static BOOL canDisableToolTips = NO;

static IMP SKWRetargetInstanceMethod(Class originalClass, SEL originalSelector, Class targetClass, SEL targetSelector) { � � Method methodA = class_getInstanceMethod(originalClass, originalSelector); � � Method methodB = class_getInstanceMethod(targetClass, targetSelector);

#if OBJC2 � � if (methodA && methodB && strcmp(method_getTypeEncoding(methodA), method_getTypeEncoding(methodB)) == 0) { � � � � IMP impA = method_getImplementation(methodA); � � � � method_setImplementation(methodA, method_getImplementation(methodB)); � � � � return impA; � � } #else // OBJC � � if (methodA && methodB && strcmp(methodA->method_types, methodB->method_types) == 0) { � � � � IMP impA = methodA->method_imp; � � � � methodA->method_imp = methodB->method_imp; � � � � return impA; � � } #endif � � return NULL; }

• (void)load { � � Class privateClass; � � if (displayToolTip == NULL &&�(privateClass = NSClassFromString(@”NSToolTipManager”))) { � � � ��displayToolTip = SKWRetargetInstanceMethod(privateClass, @selector(displayToolTip:), self, @selector(displayToolTipIfGloballyEnabled:)); � � } � � canDisableToolTips = displayToolTip != NULL; � � toolTipsDisabled = canDisableToolTips && [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] boolForKey:@”SKWToolTipsDisabled”]; }

• (void)displayToolTipIfGloballyEnabled:(id)toolTip { � � if (!toolTipsDisabled && displayToolTip) { � � � � (*displayToolTip)(self, _cmd, toolTip); � � } }

• (void)setToolTipsEnabled:(BOOL)enabled { � � toolTipsDisabled = !enabled && canDisableToolTips; � � [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setBool:toolTipsDisabled forKey:@”SKWToolTipsDisabled”]; }

• (BOOL)toolTipsEnabled { � � return !toolTipsDisabled; }

• (BOOL)canDisableToolTips { � � return canDisableToolTips; }

@end

1. Enjoy!� -~ SKW

ShaunWexler

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