Tinderbox v10 Icon

Hover Expressions

Hover Expressions are action code expressions, like Display Expressions, but which are displayed in a tooltip-like floating pane to the right of a map icon when the icon is moused over. The same hover display method is also used in Outline, Chart and Timeline views, with the hover panel displayed below the hovered-on item.

This expression allows extra information to be viewed without having to open the note. A trivial example might be to show the word count for a note's $Text. This feature is not intended to preview very large amounts of $Text but rather to do things like expose extra contextual information, much in the way Displayed Attributes and Display Expressions are used.

The expression is stored in attribute $HoverExpression and is a string of action code. It might be an attribute reference:

$WordCount 

or a simple string:

"Do not forget to review this!" 

or an expression:

"Word count: " + $WordCount 

$Price * $NumUnits 

Line breaks are allowed in strings using a the '\n' construct:

"Word count: " + $WordCount + "\n\n" +$Text 

The expression's hover panel draws text in $HoverFont, with the font size controlled by $MapTextSize. The panel is always a translucent dark panel with white text. The panel is drawn 350 pixels wide with height never exceeding half the Map view's window height. The hover expression box uses rounded corners and is suppressed if the expression only returns white space (i.e. no visible text); also, the box is offset further right so as not to obscure $Name data.

The hover panel can also include an image.

If a note has both a hover image and a hover expression, the hover expression is now displayed even if the hover image doesn’t exist (i.e. the image source cannot be resolved or the image file is missing).