30 Replies Latest reply: Feb 7, 2010 10:05 PM by njwood60 RSS

    CS4 Erratic tool tips

    Robert Enns Community Member
      Sometimes I can hover and get tooltips and sometimes they simply won't appear.
      My video card is not GPU capable but I wouldn't think this would make their appearance unpredictable.
      Is it just me?

      Rob
        • 1. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
          Mylenium CommunityMVP
          The tooltip behavior may hinge on what tool you have active. This is nothing really new and has been similar in the past. Some tips will strangely enough only show up with the move tool, but never with the tool they are actually meant for. Likewise, it seems to matter which path you travelled to reach a given hotspot. Sometimes only the first tooltip will be shown, but not successive ones. It's inconvenient, but since, as a good PS user, you will read the help files, it shoudl not stop you from working with the program. ;-)

          Mylenium
          • 2. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
            Community Member
            This is nothing new? It is a bug. Needs to be fixed.

            Doesn't stop me from working, but it is an unacceptable defect. I upgraded from CS2, and enough has changed that having SNAPPY, non disappearing tool tips is a necessity. Not looking for the "easter egg" approach to activating tool tips.

            Kevin
            • 3. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
              Robert Enns Community Member
              I have two things that look like bugs but who knows who's to blame.

              1. Tooltips are completely unpredictable and invariably when I want to see one I can't.

              2. The arrange mechanism (2 up,2 side-by-side, consolidate etc.) simply doesn't work half of the time. I just rebooted and opened PS CS4, loaded two pictures and it wouldn't arrange them. Closed PS, reopened it and it did.

              Rob
              • 4. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                dave milbut Community Member
                seems to me the tooltips in cs4 take a few seconds to load the 1st time, 3 or 4 (and i think this is os settable, i think i saw a setting for that in tweakui, it's been a while) then after the 1st tool tip is up, you can move around over various tools and the tip should pop up almost immediately.

                xp pro 32, sp3.
                • 5. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                  dave milbut Community Member
                  whoops! spoke too soon. came here read the post above mine. went to cs4. observed what happened. came back here and posted my last post. then when i just went back into photoshop i'm not seeing any tool tips for the panels (including the tools). i AM seeing tool tips for the things above the menu bar, like hte rotate tool, arange docs and screen mode.

                  tried moving panels back from 2nd monitor in the the main app window on the 1st monitor and still no tool tips.

                  very odd. looks like a bug to me. no matter what i do i can't seem to get them back on the panels or tool bar (or the dockable options bar).
                  • 6. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                    dave milbut Community Member
                    boy, that IS annoying! :)
                    • 7. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                      John Joslin Community Member
                      Just to be terribly boring again, Tool Tips are fine here on everything. Even my home-made Configurator Panel!
                      • 8. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                        Community Member
                        Tool Tips work here, but do take 2-4 seconds.
                        Q
                        • 9. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                          John Joslin Community Member
                          You can fill 2 to 4 seconds with nice thoughts. It makes the Photoshop Experience that much richer. ;)
                          • 10. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                            Community Member
                            I am seeing big problems with tooltips also and it's not contingent upon any OS setting. It seems to me that certain panels show tooltips without any issue (such as the main tools panel on the left) but other places (like the color swatches panel) aren't showing tooltips at all. In CS3, I could hover the mouse over a color swatch and it would popup the name of the swatch. In CS4, this no longer works for me.

                            I've seen the lack of tooltips in a few other areas as well...seems like there are some real problems in CS4 with this.
                            • 11. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                              dec9 Community Member
                              For the most part it takes 2 to 4 seconds when I hover over a tool for the first time for the tip to pop up. Then after that I can hover over more and the tips pop up right away. Then the tool tips just sorta stop as if they are pissed off at me screwing around with them and don't want to play any more. Artificial intelligence at its best!!

                              It is not like I have to have it in order to live. But if it is offered as a feature then it should work correctly.
                              • 12. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                dave milbut Community Member
                                >For the most part it takes 2 to 4 seconds when I hover over a tool for the first time for the tip to pop up. Then after that I can hover over more and the tips pop up right away. Then the tool tips just sorta stop

                                that's it.
                                • 13. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                  Robert Enns Community Member
                                  Glad I'm not the only one. Misery (an exaggeration) loves company.
                                  • 14. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                    Hudechrome-sd9sPI Community Member
                                    On my cripples installation, it appears that I am in aggrement with others, although the 2-3 second delay is pretty common throughout different programs. Sometimes they don't even appear at all until you move the cursor off then back on.

                                    One peculiarity is that the brush circle changes to a half circle at 700 pix and beyond.

                                    On the plus side, the Auto Tone is almost awesome! I usually get things hinging on distaste when I use auto anything in PS, but this algorithm does a superb job. Even if I have to ultimately disagree with it, what I would say is it presents me with an alternative tonality that works, sort of like detuning the low E string on a guitar to D. Make you sit up and take notice. And, unlike detuning, I can fade the Auto tone. :-)
                                    • 15. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                      Wolf Eilers Community Member
                                      >One peculiarity is that the brush circle changes to a half circle at 700 pix and beyond.

                                      Obey the mantra: update the video card driver.
                                      • 16. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                        Community Member
                                        I hate using valuable time searching for these kind of answers. The tool tips should just work, and I need them to do my work. Isn't there a fix yet?
                                        • 17. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                          John Joslin Community Member
                                          > I hate using valuable time searching

                                          Would you like me to pop over and make you a coffee too?
                                          • 18. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                            dave milbut Community Member
                                            >Would you like me to pop over and make you a coffee too?

                                            :)

                                            but he's right. esp. with all the new stuff going on in cs4, tool tips are essential, and they're broken.
                                            • 19. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                              Community Member
                                              I don't drink coffee, but I'd love a cup of tea now!
                                              I am kind of tired of timesaving new features when things like this eats up my time.
                                              Anyway I think I found some kind of answer. In my case I had to close camtasia 6 and my tool tip came back :)
                                              This bug exists in Illustrator and PS but not in i. e. Flash. Strange but definitely a bug.
                                              Try turning off other applications to see if your tool tips return.
                                              • 20. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                dave milbut Community Member
                                                > I had to close camtasia 6

                                                don't have that. i'll try running only cs4. i believe the only things i had open while i tested this and found the error affecting me as well were cs4 and firefox 3.0.4
                                                • 21. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                  John Joslin Community Member
                                                  Other than a one beat delay on mouse-over I never had it, so I can't really help.

                                                  (It is checked on in preferences of course!) ;)
                                                  • 22. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                    Community Member
                                                    OK I'm back with some additional information. Happy new year everyone, bye the way :)
                                                    Just to error check a bit further I tested this on a regular PC with XP (Not a dualboot Mac with Vista) and this worked fine.
                                                    So this means Vista is also an issue in my case. I suspect all of this perhaps has to do with a conflict in application "focus" (Illustrator/Photoshop vs Camtasia 6).

                                                    @ Josh: Yes, of course;)
                                                    • 23. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                      Bart Cross Community Member
                                                      mine works with the first tool tip taking about two seconds to appear, then the subsequent one appear instantaneously. If I remove the mouse from the tool bar and then go back, it starts all over again the same way.

                                                      It seems from this behaviour that the tooltips are only 'loaded' when needed and then 'unloaded'. Don't think it is a bug per se, but is annoying.
                                                      • 24. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                        Win Xp 4core 4mb
                                                        I've upgraded from CS3. My issues concern firstly the brush size circle disappearing gradually as the size of circle increases.
                                                        Also the following buttons disappear on hover over - screen mode, view extras, Arrange docs inc the group of buttons under this, Screen mode, Hand tool, Zoom Tool, rotate tool. The tool tips are there and I have to guess where the actual button is.
                                                        Should I re-install over the top, can you do that? Or should I wait for an update?
                                                        • 25. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                          crulshuz Community Member

                                                          Any movement on this (last post was January)? I'm teaching a beginning PS class, and tool tips would be very helpful. Same behavior as described. Sometime here, sometimes not...

                                                          • 26. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                            zoon_unit Community Member

                                                            I have this same problem.  XP: 4gb ram, nvidia board.  Sometimes all the tooltips work, sometimes only the menu tooltips work.  When not working, the tools and panels tooltips just never appear at all. (I can hover until the cows come home)

                                                             

                                                            Sometimes quitting Photoshop and restarting will "fix" the tooltips.  (and yes, I always have the show tooltips option checked in preferences/interface)

                                                             

                                                            This is extremely frustrating as I am still learning Photoshop CS4 and need the tooltips as reminders.  How can such a fundamental issue remain unfixed after a year???

                                                            • 27. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                              dec9 Community Member

                                                              Who knows anymore. Frustrating due to the fact I never had the problem yet others do. My tips might take 2 seconds to show up. Then after that a split second. If I move to another tool bar then it takes 2 seconds and after that a split second. My OS is Vista ultimate 64 bit with 8 gigs of RAM with a 4870 ATI card. Different set up with different OS.

                                                              • 28. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                                zoon_unit Community Member

                                                                I did discover one strange behavior.  I lose tooltips if photoshop is open for a long period of time.  To fix, I quit photoshop and restart.  Tooltips return.  I haven't been able to determine how long before tooltips disappear, but I'm beginning to suspect that it might have something to do with Window's screensaver. (since it comes on when photoshop has sat idle for a length of time.)

                                                                • 29. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                                  chris_gundersen Community Member

                                                                  mine don't work on my xp machine but they do on my vista. Doesn't seem like they work EVER, even if I hover for 10 seconds and beyond. REALLY annoying!

                                                                  • 30. Re: CS4 Erratic tool tips
                                                                    njwood60

                                                                    I have the same problem. I have also found that if I quit and restart photoshop , then the tooltips come back. I don't have a screensaver but I do have power saving on so the screen goes blank - maybe that's the problem