Floating Tool Tips?

[wolfer]

Is there any way to see floating tool tips as you hover over a control? Looking at the bottom left of the screen is really awkward and slows working and learning down greatly. As a new user a lot of the tiny little controls are far from intuitive and learning them is going to take a while.

Thx

[wolfer]

The problem is the amount you have to move your attention and eyes takes you away from the very button or area you're interested in. If you want more information, there are all sorts of other ways ways to do that. And adding tool tips does not take anything away the value/use of the help window.

On a largish monitor, like most of us have, corner to corner is > 2'. And if you wear progressive lens glasses you have to actually move your head which is super annoying.

No offense, tool tips might not be for everyone, but for UI's with lots of little tiny buttons that are ambiguous, it's pretty much a settled necessity and appreciated by many which is why most sophisticated applications use them.

I've been a software developer a long time. I'm willing to bet the Ableton programmers don't remember every button in eclipse/visual studio/xcode...or whatever they program in, and rely plenty on some training wheels.

And not for nothing, Live has a somewhat steep learning curve. Tips reinforce learning. And you don't see them unless you hover, so once you're adept with a tool you rarely even see them or can turn them off. There is frankly no downside for an experienced user.

Anyway this is just a wishlist so there's my wish.

[Digital Larry]

Add my vote for tool tips.

[jonljacobi]

+1 The eye and/or neck movement required by the help box, as useful as it is, is extreme. And there's no reason tool tips can't be verbose.

[Digital Larry]

Add my vote for tool tips. It's not a small vote. I had a really hard time learning Live and this doesn't make it any easier. Oh, I see I already voted. There you go. Oh and also thanks to whoever in this thread mentioned "?" it's better than nothing.

[closetgeek]

It's pretty ridiculous to have to Google the locations of buttons on a UI because your not sure where to find them. I'm coming from over 15 years with FL studio. If I plug in my APC and turn off my monitor folks wouldn't know which DAW I'm using. The differences is workflow, not overall features, and Ableton's workflow is significantly different from other DAWs. Adding tooltips would literally take around 10 man hour, and making your software easier to figure out is definitely in your best interest.

[closetgeek]

BTW, I've only got a Ableton Lite license. The odds that I upgrade and begin the process of acquiring additional plugins and content specifically for Ableton Live henge very strongly on issues like this.

[Tarekith]

I highly doubt you will ever see this added, it's not even something that has any precedence in the UI currently. The good news is that Live is fairly easy to learn compared to other DAWs, so you won't need tips anyway after a little bit of practice.

[closetgeek]

I highly doubt you will ever see this added, it's not even something that has any precedence in the UI currently. The good news is that Live is fairly easy to learn compared to other DAWs, so you won't need tips anyway after a little bit of practice.

I've used every major DAW out there, and to say it's easy compared to other DAWs is entirely false. That's no doubt part of the problem. Folks new that aren't familiar with the other options are putting money towards courses "to help them learn" which is part of the greater ecosystem for tools like Ableton Live. Practice you say - that is exactly what we're doing when in these situations where we cant find the "punch-in" button for example. Practicing, learning the software's unique approach to a set of problems and familiarizing ourselves with how the software operates.

[closetgeek]

Additionally, it's highly unlikely that we won't need tips after practice. I use software 10+ hrs a day and still need tips at time. They're everywhere and we rely on them more than we realize. Even phpBB's post editor has tool tips. It's interesting that when they *choose* software it has toolips, however the software they develop themselves is a different story.

[rwilk527]

I highly doubt you will ever see this added, it's not even something that has any precedence in the UI currently. The good news is that Live is fairly easy to learn compared to other DAWs, so you won't need tips anyway after a little bit of practice.

Another software dev here and I have to say this is pretty frustrating and honestly just bad UX given that pretty much every application/website worth a damn has them. I understand that the tips are available, but they're in an unusual place usually far away from what I'm try to get the hint for. No need to get overly creative on a simple feature.

This also doesn't seem like a huge ask given the obvious skills of the devs. Please consider it.