wxPython: Adding Tooltips to ObjectListView

Recently I was trying to figure out how to add tooltips to each item in an ObjectListView widget in wxPython on Windows. The wxPython wiki has an example that uses PyWin32, but I didn’t want to go that route. So I asked on the wxPython Google Group and got an interesting answer. They had actually used one of my old articles to build their solution for me. I have cleaned it up a little bit and decided it was worth sharing with my readers:

import wx
from ObjectListView import ObjectListView, ColumnDefn
 
########################################################################
class Book(object):
    """
    Model of the Book object
 
    Contains the following attributes:
    'ISBN', 'Author', 'Manufacturer', 'Title'
    """
    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def __init__(self, title, author, isbn, mfg):
        self.isbn = isbn
        self.author = author
        self.mfg = mfg
        self.title = title
 
 
########################################################################
class MainPanel(wx.Panel):
    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def __init__(self, parent):
        wx.Panel.__init__(self, parent=parent, id=wx.ID_ANY)
        self.products = [Book("wxPython in Action", "Robin Dunn",
                              "1932394621", "Manning"),
                         Book("Hello World", "Warren and Carter Sande",
                              "1933988495", "Manning")
                         ]
 
        self.dataOlv = ObjectListView(self, wx.ID_ANY, style=wx.LC_REPORT|wx.SUNKEN_BORDER)
        self.setBooks()
 
        # Allow the cell values to be edited when double-clicked
        self.dataOlv.cellEditMode = ObjectListView.CELLEDIT_SINGLECLICK
 
        # create an update button
        updateBtn = wx.Button(self, wx.ID_ANY, "Update OLV")
        updateBtn.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.updateControl)
 
        # Create some sizers
        mainSizer = wx.BoxSizer(wx.VERTICAL)        
 
        mainSizer.Add(self.dataOlv, 1, wx.ALL|wx.EXPAND, 5)
        mainSizer.Add(updateBtn, 0, wx.ALL|wx.CENTER, 5)
        self.SetSizer(mainSizer)
 
        self.dataOlv.Bind(wx.EVT_LIST_ITEM_SELECTED, self.onSetToolTip)
 
    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def updateControl(self, event):
        """
        Update the control
        """
        print "updating..."
        #product_dict = [{"title":"Core Python Programming", "author":"Wesley Chun",
                         #"isbn":"0132269937", "mfg":"Prentice Hall"},
                        #{"title":"Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner",
                         #"author":"Michael Dawson", "isbn":"1598631128",
                         #"mfg":"Course Technology"},
                        #{"title":"Learning Python", "author":"Mark Lutz",
                         #"isbn":"0596513984", "mfg":"O'Reilly"}
                        #]
 
        product_list = [Book("Core Python Programming", "Wesley Chun",
                             "0132269937", "Prentice Hall"),
                        Book("Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner",
                             "Michael Dawson", "1598631128", "Course Technology"),
                        Book("Learning Python", "Mark Lutz", "0596513984",
                             "O'Reilly")
                        ]
 
        data = self.products + product_list
        self.dataOlv.SetObjects(data)
 
    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def setBooks(self, data=None):
        """
        Sets the book data for the OLV object
        """
        self.dataOlv.SetColumns([
            ColumnDefn("Title", "left", 220, "title"),
            ColumnDefn("Author", "left", 200, "author"),
            ColumnDefn("ISBN", "right", 100, "isbn"),
            ColumnDefn("Mfg", "left", 180, "mfg")
        ])
 
        self.dataOlv.SetObjects(self.products)
 
    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def onSetToolTip(self, event):
        """
        Set the tool tip on the selected row
        """
        item = self.dataOlv.GetSelectedObject()
        tooltip = "%s is a good writer!" % item.author
        event.GetEventObject().SetToolTipString(tooltip)
        event.Skip()
 
########################################################################
class MainFrame(wx.Frame):
    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def __init__(self):
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, parent=None, id=wx.ID_ANY, 
                          title="ObjectListView Demo", size=(800,600))
        panel = MainPanel(self)
 
########################################################################
class GenApp(wx.App):
 
    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def __init__(self, redirect=False, filename=None):
        wx.App.__init__(self, redirect, filename)
 
    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def OnInit(self):
        # create frame here
        frame = MainFrame()
        frame.Show()
        return True
 
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
def main():
    """
    Run the demo
    """
    app = GenApp()
    app.MainLoop()
 
if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

All I needed to do was add a binding to wx.EVT_LIST_ITEM_SELECTED. Then in my event handler I needed to grab the event object and set its tooltip string. What I would really like to do is find a way to copy this grid recipe so that I can just mouse over items and have the tooltip change, but it doesn’t look like ObjectListView / ListCtrl has the methods I would need to translate mouse coordinates to a column / row. Regardless, the solution given does work as advertised. Thanks a lot, Erxin!

Update: One of my astute readers noticed an error in my code where when I hit the update button, it added a dictionary to the ObjectListView widget. While you can add a dictionary, this broke the onSetToolTip method as some of the items that were added were no longer Book instances. So I have updated the code to add the extra items as Book instances and commented out the dictionary example.