How can I change the text of an existing ToolTip control, in a PictureBox in my WinForm application?

Question

I have a winform application which has a dynamic number (based on a database value) of PictureBoxes. Each P-Box has a Tooltip control.

How can I change the ToolTip Text without having any memory leaks? Right now, I've got the following code, but it's leaking memory => the previous ToolTip controls are not getting GC'd.

BTW, this is a background thread that is trying to update the main UI thread....

if (pictureBox == null || !pictureBox.IsHandleCreated) {
    continue;
}

Action setTooltipAndImage = () => {
    var toolTip = new ToolTip();
    GameServer tempGameFile = gameServer;
    toolTip.SetToolTip(pictureBox, string.Format(...));
    pictureBox.Image = Resources.RedButton;
};

if (pictureBox.InvokeRequired) {                        
    pictureBox.Invoke(setTooltipAndImage);
} else {
    setTooltipAndImage();
}

As I said - this works but it's leaking.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

Don't create a new ToolTip each time. Add a ToolTip to the form using the visual designer, like you would for any other control or component. Call toolTip.SetToolTip(...) on the form's tool tip each time. The ToolTip will be disposed when the Form is disposed.

Answer 2

Yes, you do not need to create a new ToolTip each time, a single ToolTipwill do. There is no issue if you do not know how many ToolTips you want, because if there is only one ToolTip say toolTip1, then you can use the following every time you want to change the ToolTip caption and control on some event. You only need one ToolTip instance per form.

toolTip1.SetToolTip(Current_pictureBox, "<tool tip string>");