Comment 5 for bug 804021

It was commented on the duplicate Bug #814441 that "A short delay before displayed is time-honored tooltip behaviour, otherwise we'd have them popping up all over the place."

I think there are two main problems with the current oneiric implementation. It is my belief that if both of these cannot be addressed we should revert to the previous instant tooltip behaviour. Given the comment above, I'm going to make some comparisons to tooltips in Firefox when mousing over both bookmarks (in the bookmark toolbar) and tabs.

#1. Delay makes launcher feel unresponsive/slow/buggy.

This is because there is no immediate feedback to the user when mousing over a launcher item. In Firefox there is immediate visual feedback in the form of a slight colour change / tinting. After about a second then the tooltip displays.

If the delay is to be kept then I think it is imperative that feedback is provided to the user by some other visual change when they mouse over a launcher item.

#2. Current behaviour is inconsistent (with itself)

The delay is (I believe) intended to only happen when a launcher item is first moved over. Subsequent moves to other launcher items make the tooltips show up instantly.

The proviso for instant tooltips is that the mouse stays on the launcher. This sounds fine, but in reality when moving the mouse up and down the launcher, the mouse regularly slips off the launcher (perhaps by only a couple of pixels). This means the delay happens again. I am also finding that moving the mouse down the right hand side of the launcher (keeping the mouse on the launcher) creates a delay on every launcher item (this is probably a separate bug). This is all confusing - sometimes we get the delay and at other times we don't.

If the delay is to stay, then I see two options:
A: Have a delay on all launcher items, even when moving from within the launcher. This is the behaviour found in Firefox.
B: Have an initial delay, but after that then as long as another tooltip has been visible in the past X seconds, then tooltips are shown without delay. (This is similar to how if the launcher has been moused over in the past X seconds, it is not autohidden.)