Forcing a WPF tooltip to stay on the screen

Question

If you want to set this for just one tooltip, set the duration on the object having the Tooltip, like this:

<Label ToolTipService.ShowDuration="12000" Name="lblShowTooltip" Content="Shows tooltip">
    <Label.ToolTip>
        <ToolTip>
            <TextBlock>Hello world!</TextBlock>
        </ToolTip>
    </Label.ToolTip>
</Label>

I'd say that this design was chosen because it allows same tooltip with different timeouts on different controls.

If you want this globally for your whole app, see the accepted answer.

Just put this code in initialization section.

ToolTipService.ShowDurationProperty.OverrideMetadata(
    typeof(DependencyObject), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(Int32.MaxValue));

This was also driving me crazy tonight. I created a ToolTip subclass to handle the issue. For me, on .NET 4.0, the ToolTip.StaysOpen property is not "really" stays open.

In the class below, use the new property ToolTipEx.IsReallyOpen, instead of property ToolTip.IsOpen. You will get the control you want. Via the Debug.Print() call, you can watch in the debugger Output window just how many times this.IsOpen = false is called! So much for StaysOpen, or should I say "StaysOpen"? Enjoy.

public class ToolTipEx : ToolTip
{
    static ToolTipEx()
    {
        IsReallyOpenProperty =
            DependencyProperty.Register(
                "IsReallyOpen",
                typeof(bool),
                typeof(ToolTipEx),
                new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(
                    defaultValue: false,
                    flags: FrameworkPropertyMetadataOptions.None,
                    propertyChangedCallback: StaticOnIsReallyOpenedChanged));
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsReallyOpenProperty;

    protected static void StaticOnIsReallyOpenedChanged(
        DependencyObject o, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        ToolTipEx self = (ToolTipEx)o;
        self.OnIsReallyOpenedChanged((bool)e.OldValue, (bool)e.NewValue);
    }

    protected void OnIsReallyOpenedChanged(bool oldValue, bool newValue)
    {
        this.IsOpen = newValue;
    }

    public bool IsReallyOpen
    {
        get
        {
            bool b = (bool)this.GetValue(IsReallyOpenProperty);
            return b;
        }
        set { this.SetValue(IsReallyOpenProperty, value); }
    }

    protected override void OnClosed(RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.Print(String.Format(
            "OnClosed: IsReallyOpen: {0}, StaysOpen: {1}", this.IsReallyOpen, this.StaysOpen));
        if (this.IsReallyOpen && this.StaysOpen)
        {
            e.Handled = true;
            // We cannot set this.IsOpen directly here.  Instead, send an event asynchronously.
            // DispatcherPriority.Send is the highest priority possible.
            Dispatcher.CurrentDispatcher.BeginInvoke(
                (Action)(() => this.IsOpen = true),
                DispatcherPriority.Send);
        }
        else
        {
            base.OnClosed(e);
        }
    }
}

Small rant: Why didn't Microsoft make DependencyProperty properties (getters/setters) virtual so we can accept/reject/adjust changes in subclasses? Or make a virtual OnXYZPropertyChanged for each and every DependencyProperty? Ugh.

---Edit---

My solution above looks weird in the XAML editor -- the tooltip is always showing, blocking some text in Visual Studio!

Here is a better way to solve this problem:

Some XAML:

<!-- Need to add this at top of your XAML file:
     xmlns:System="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib"
-->
<ToolTip StaysOpen="True" Placement="Bottom" HorizontalOffset="10"
        ToolTipService.InitialShowDelay="0" ToolTipService.BetweenShowDelay="0"
        ToolTipService.ShowDuration="{x:Static Member=System:Int32.MaxValue}"
>This is my tooltip text.</ToolTip>

Some code:

// Alternatively, you can attach an event listener to FrameworkElement.Loaded
public override void OnApplyTemplate()
{
    base.OnApplyTemplate();

    // Be gentle here: If someone creates a (future) subclass or changes your control template,
    // you might not have tooltip anymore.
    ToolTip toolTip = this.ToolTip as ToolTip;
    if (null != toolTip)
    {
        // If I don't set this explicitly, placement is strange.
        toolTip.PlacementTarget = this;
        toolTip.Closed += new RoutedEventHandler(OnToolTipClosed);
    }
}

protected void OnToolTipClosed(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    // You may want to add additional focus-related tests here.
    if (this.IsKeyboardFocusWithin)
    {
        // We cannot set this.IsOpen directly here.  Instead, send an event asynchronously.
        // DispatcherPriority.Send is the highest priority possible.
        Dispatcher.CurrentDispatcher.BeginInvoke(
            (Action)delegate
                {
                    // Again: Be gentle when using this.ToolTip.
                    ToolTip toolTip = this.ToolTip as ToolTip;
                    if (null != toolTip)
                    {
                        toolTip.IsOpen = true;
                    }
                },
            DispatcherPriority.Send);
    }
}

Conclusion: Something is different about classes ToolTip and ContextMenu. Both have "service" classes, like ToolTipService and ContextMenuService, that manage certain properties, and both use Popup as a "secret" parent control during display. Finally, I noticed ALL the XAML ToolTip examples on the Web do not use class ToolTip directly. Instead, they embed a StackPanel with TextBlocks. Things that make you say: "hmmm..."

You probably want to use Popup instead of Tooltip, since Tooltip assumes that you're using it in the pre-defined UI-standards way.

I'm not sure why StaysOpen doesn't work, but ShowDuration works as documented in MSDN -- it's the amount of time the Tooltip is displayed WHEN it's displayed. Set it to a small amount (e.g. 500 msec) to see the difference.

The trick in your case is maintaining the "last hovered control" state, but once you have that it should be fairly trivial to change the placement target and the content dynamically (either manually, or via binding) if you're using one Popup, or hiding the last visible Popup if you're using multiple.

There are some gotchas with Popups as far as Window resizing and moving (Popups don't move w/the containers), so you may want to also have that in mind while you're tweaking the behavior. See this link for more details.

HTH.

If you want to specify that only certain elements in your Window have effectively indefinite ToolTip duration you can define a Style in your Window.Resources for those elements. Here is a Style for Button that has such a ToolTip :

<Window
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:sys="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib"
    ...>
    ...
    <Window.Resources>
        <Style x:Key="ButtonToolTipIndefinate" TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
            <Setter Property="ToolTipService.ShowDuration"
                    Value="{x:Static Member=sys:Int32.MaxValue}"/>
        </Style>
        ...
    </Window.Resources>
    ...
    <Button Style="{DynamicResource ButtonToolTipIndefinate}"
            ToolTip="This should stay open"/>
    <Button ToolTip="This Should disappear after the default time.">
    ...

One can also add Style.Resources to the Style to change the appearance of the ToolTip it shows, for example:

<Style x:Key="ButtonToolTipTransparentIndefinate" TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
    <Style.Resources>
        <Style x:Key="{x:Type ToolTip}" TargetType="{x:Type ToolTip}">
            <Setter Property="Background" Value="Transparent"/>
            <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="Transparent"/>
            <Setter Property="HasDropShadow" Value="False"/>
        </Style>
    </Style.Resources>
    <Setter Property="ToolTipService.ShowDuration"
            Value="{x:Static Member=sys:Int32.MaxValue}"/>
</Style>

Note: When I did this I also used BasedOn in the Style so everything else defined for the version of my custom control with a normal ToolTip would be applied.

I was wrestling with the WPF Tooltip only the other day. It doesn't seem to be possible to stop it from appearing and disappearing by itself, so in the end I resorted to handling the Opened event. For example, I wanted to stop it from opening unless it had some content, so I handled the Opened event and then did this:

tooltip.IsOpen = (tooltip.Content != null);

It's a hack, but it worked.

Presumably you could similarly handle the Closed event and tell it to open again, thus keeping it visible.