This part of your code makes no sense to me, but I'm not a big user of balloons. You are trying to create a toplevel widget off of a balloon.

# create a ballon for this message area etc
$balloon = $tab_mw->Balloon(-statusbar => $msgarea);
# create a TopLevel widget
$toplevel_wg = $tab_mw->Toplevel();
[download]

This is the way to do it.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Tk;
use Tk::Balloon;

my $mw = tkinit;
my $msg = 'press to change';
my $b = $mw->Button( -text => 'Power calculation',
        -command => sub{$msg = $msg . ' again'},
        -padx => 10,
     )->pack( -side => 'top',
       -anchor => 'center',
       -pady => 3,
     );

my $bln = $mw->Balloon( -background => 'LightYellow' )
                ->attach( $b, -msg =>\$msg );
MainLoop;
[download]

Try to make a simple example like that with your TabFrame. Or look at this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Tk;
use Tk::NoteBook;
use Tk::Balloon;

package Tk::NoteBook;

sub BalloonInfo{
     my ($nb,$balloon,$X,$Y,@opt) = @_;
     my $wx = $X - $nb->rootx;
     my $wy = $Y - $nb->rooty;
     my $tab = $nb->identify($wx,$wy);
     unless ($tab){
         $balloon->Deactivate;
         return undef;
     }
     foreach my $opt (@opt)
         {
         my $info = $balloon->GetOption($opt,$nb);
         if ($opt =~ /^-(statusmsg|balloonmsg)$/
             && (ref $info eq 'HASH')){
             return $info->{$tab} if $info->{$tab} ;
         }
         return '';
     }
}

package main;

my $mw = tkinit;
my $statuslabel = $mw->Label()->pack(-side=>'bottom');
my $b = $mw->Balloon(-statusbar=>$statuslabel);
my $nb = $mw->NoteBook()->pack;
for my $tab (qw/tab1 tab2 tab3/){
     my $frame = $nb->add($tab,-label=>$tab);
     $frame->Label(-text => $tab)->pack;
     $frame->Label(-text => 'a Label in '.$tab)->pack;
}
$b->attach($nb,
            -balloonposition  => 'mouse',
             -balloonmsg       =>{tab1=>'Help for tab1',
                                  tab2=>'Help for tab2',
                                  tab3=>'Help for tab3',
                       },
             -statusmsg       =>{tab1=>'Status for tab1',
                                 tab2=>'Status for tab2',
                                 tab3=>'Status for tab3'},
        );
MainLoop;
[download]

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