Utopia Tip File (file format)

Utopia Tip File

Screenshot of a .TIP being utilized to test a button in the Utopia Tip Editor.
Name	Utopia Tip File
Extension	.TIP
Initial release	March 10th, 1995 (30 years ago)
Operating system	Microsoft Windows

A Utopia Tip File (TIP) is a file format used by Microsoft Actor generated by the Utopia Tip Editor to provide preset "tips", which are essentially word balloons that contain a header, text, and optional user interface elements.

It debuted with the release of Microsoft Bob as a way to provide various advice to the user on using the software, such as pointing where to click when certain actions are called or notifying the user about a UI element, and continued to be utilized as a file format even after the discontinuation of Microsoft Bob 2.0, appearing in both Microsoft Greetings Workshop 1.0 and 2.0.

Usage

Microsoft Bob

In Microsoft Bob, .TIP files are present internally inside the program as compiled resources to display various tip strings whenever certain events occur (such as a click on a user interface element). For example, a tip window would spawn inside of the Microsoft Bob Mail application if the user fails to click any of the options in the word balloon before proceeding. These tip files were compiled in version 1.0 of the Utopia Tip Editor, the program responsible for generating tips for Microsoft Actor programs.

2.0 version

Microsoft Greetings Workshop, a Microsoft Actor 2.0 program, has embedded Utopia Tip Files.

Microsoft Greetings Workshop 1.0 and 2.0 both utilize Utopia Tips, suggesting that a 2.0 version of the file format (and thus the Utopia Tip Editor) may exist, but no public copies have surfaced. Just like the original Microsoft Bob, tips continue to serve the same purpose as they did previously, and were visually updated to be themed with the program that they are utilized in (such as a blue border instead of a black border in the Greeting Workshop programs).

Structure

.TIP files, when compiled by the Utopia Tip Editor, are generated alongside an optional Visual Basic .BAS file (as indicated by // YES BAS FILE or // NO BAS FILE), and contain the following header:

// TIPPAGE.TIP
// Created by Utopia Tip Editor version 1.0
// YES BAS FILE
// DO NOT MODIFY BY HAND

Below this header is the "#define" block, which defines the tip names used as well as numerical IDs for easier calling in applications, usually in a structure like this: #define tipName 3000.

After the #define block is an "#ifdef _RCINVOKED" section containing the tip page and individual tip entries in a resource-like format. The first entry is typically a page-level TIPS record (commonly ID 1) that stores global metadata for the tip page, followed by one TIPS record per tip ID.

Each tip record generally follows this structure:

// tip1
// this is a tip comment
tip1 TIPS LOADONCALL
BEGIN
    0x0, 0x0,    // Tracking = Simple, Modality = Auto takedown, Style = Plain
    "Agentpedia\0",
    "This is a preview of a .TIP compiled in Utopia Tip",
    " Editor 1.0.\0",
END

The LOADONCALL keyword used indicates that the tip data is intended to be loaded on demand rather than fully preloaded, with the two leading hexadecimal values (shown as flags1 and flags2) appearing to be configuration fields used by the runtime itself to determine how the tip behaves and how it is presented (for example: tracking/attachment behavior, modal/modeless behavior, styling, etc).

Tip text is stored as one or more NUL-terminated strings (each ending with \0), with long strings having the capability to be split across multiple quoted segments and concatenated by the compiler into a single string. Some strings may contain control-phrase tokens in the form {cp...}, which reference predefined phrases or events. For example, in Microsoft Bob, {cp preXS_GetAttnMajor} would call the guide's "GetAttnMajor" animation.

Trivia

• .TIP files were utilized by both Microsoft Actor 1.0 and 2.0.
• Microsoft Greetings Workshop 2.0 is the last known program to support the .TIP file format.
• .TIP files can be read and displayed by the Frontier Actor Tip Service in Frontier Actor, a re-implementation of Microsoft Actor.
• Microsoft Agent does not have its own equivalent of .TIP files.