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Quick Info

IntelliPrompt quick info displays helpful popup hints about what is under the mouse or next to the caret. Tip content can include any WPF control and it's easy to generate richly-formatted content using an HTML-like syntax.

Creating and Opening a Session

Creating and opening a quick info session is very easy. There are only a few simple steps to follow.

Creating a Session

The first step is to create a QuickInfoSession:

QuickInfoSession session = new QuickInfoSession();

Setting the Content to Display

Next, the content that will be displayed must be specified. Since a ContentProvider is used behind the scenes, this could be any object. However, it is recommended that you use a UIElement or the output from one of the Content Providers.

This code uses the output from a PlainTextContentProvider as the content to display since it provides a word wrapping TextBlock containing a string:

session.Content = new PlainTextContentProvider("Text here").GetContent();

Open the Session

The final step is to open the session:

session.Open(editor.ActiveView, new TextRange(editor.Caret.Offset));

The IQuickInfoSession interface defines an Open method overload that can display the popup against a particular target and location.

For most cases, once the session is opened, the built-in functionality handles all the rest for you, such as when to dismiss the popup.

Using Rich Formatting for Content

As mentioned above, the built-in content providers are a great way to easily populate quick info content. The HtmlContentProvider in particular is nice since it uses a mini-HTML markup to style the text content.

It is highly recommended to make use of the HtmlContentProvider and all of its features that are described in detail in the Content Providers topic.

When links are present in quick info tip content, the IQuickInfoSession.RequestNavigate event will be raised if a link is clicked, requesting that you take some action.

Maximum Width

The IQuickInfoSession.MaxWidth property can be set to specify a maximum width for the popup.

Control Key Down Opacity

The quick info popup animates to be semi-transparent when the Ctrl key is held down, thereby allowing the end user to see the text behind it. The IQuickInfoSession.ControlKeyDownOpacity property specifies the opacity when the popup is semi-transparent.

Set this property to 1.0 to prevent the list from being semi-transparent.

Automatic Quick Info for a Language (Initiated by Mouse Hovers, etc.)

Syntax languages are fully capable of listening for mouse hovers and opening a quick info session in response to hovers over various tokens, or even any other part of the editor.

The IntelliPrompt Quick Info Provider topic describes a special language service that can be implemented to respond to mouse hovers and show a quick info popup.

Programmatically Requesting Quick Info

Sometimes it is desirable to programmatically request that quick info be displayed if the editor caret is in a location at which the language is capable of displaying quick info.

The IEditorView.IntelliPrompt.RequestQuickInfoSession method can be called to request quick info display, if the current language allows it.

Built-In Quick Info Providers

There are built in Quick Info providers for collapsed node text (used with outlining) and squiggle tags.

When using the code outlining features, sometimes the end user will collapse outlining nodes. By default, nothing happens when the mouse is hovered over a collapsed outlining node adornment (normally a box with "..." in it). The built-in IQuickInfoProvider implementation called CollapsedRegionQuickInfoProvider watches for mouse hovers over collapsed regions and will automatically show a quick info tip with the contained content on mouse hovers.

When using the parsing framework and the ParseErrorTagger (or other custom tagger that uses SquiggleTag tags), there will be squiggle adornments in the document window. By default, nothing happens when the mouse is hovered over these adornments. However, there is a built-in IQuickInfoProvider implementation called SquiggleTagQuickInfoProvider that watches for mouse hovers over squiggle adorned regions and will automatically show a quick info tip with the parse error description on mouse hovers.

For additional information on these built-in Quick Info providers, visit the IntelliPrompt Quick Info Provider topic.