Better default values for tooltip padding and `tooltip-hide-delay'?

[Christian Schlauer]

Hello!

So far, I used Emacs 21.3 on Windows which doesn't have tooltips, so
tooltips are quite new for me. I would like to make two suggestions:

1. Since I started to use CVS Emacs, I always found the `padding' of
   the tooltips too large. Now I started to look if this is
   customizable and found `tooltip-frame-parameters', and indeed the
   padding can be changed -- it defaults to `(internal-border-width .
   5)'.

   I suggest a change of `internal-border-width' to either 1 or 2
   instead of 5. The reason is that the tooltips are too large and
   hide too much text in the buffer (for example in occur-mode
   buffers, where I like to highlight the current match by putting the
   mouse on that line so that that line is highlighted). A tooltip
   should be a `hint', but the large padding makes them more like a
   `banner'. (I don't want to turn them off either as I think they are
   quite useful -- they are just a little too big in my opinion.)

   Compared to the GNOME 2.10 tooltips, the default of 5 in Emacs
   seems to be similar, but I think (internal-border-width . 2) is
   aesthetically more pleasing, and (internal-border-width . 1) is
   also okay, but real minimalistic, so I suggest 2.
   
2. I also believed (until yesterday) that the only way to make a
   tooltip disappear is to move the mouse away from the `green area'.
   This impression was caused by the value of `tooltip-hide-delay',
   which defaults to 10 seconds. IMO, this is far too long. I
   experimented a little and I think that setting it to 3 or 4 seconds
   is much better and still long enough for reading the tooltip. 10
   seconds until the tooltip goes away feels like an eternity.

It would be great if some of you could try (setq tooltip-hide-delay 3)
and (setq tooltip-hide-delay 4) as well as customize the
`internal-border-width' of `tooltip-frame-parameters' to 2. What do
you think?

Regards,
-- 
Christian Schlauer