Plain JavaScript tooltip

Question

I am trying to make a tooltip in plain JavaScript which is shown on hover. Like the one in Stack Overflow on hover over the profile name a div is shown.

I tried using onmouseover , onmouseout and added setTimeout to give the user a few seconds to move mouse over the tooltip content. But it was not working as I thought.

I really like pure JavaScript more than using any libraries. Can some one help me out?

This is what I did in pure JavaScript.

HTML

<div class = "name" onmouseover="show()" onmouseout="hide()">
    NAME
        <div class = "tooltip">
            PROFILE DETAILS
        </div>
    </div>

    <div class = "name" onmouseover="show()" onmouseout="hide()">
    NAME 2
        <div class = "tooltip" >
            PROFILE DETAILS 2
        </div>
    </div>

    <div class = "name" onmouseover="show()" onmouseout="hide()">
    NAME 3
        <div class = "tooltip" >
            PROFILE DETAILS 3
        </div>
    </div>

CSS

.name{
        float:left;
        margin:100px;
        border:1px solid black;
    }
    .tooltip{
        position:absolute;
        margin:5px;
        width:200px;
        height:100px;
        border:1px solid black;
        display:none;
    }

JavaScript

var name = document.getElementsByclassName("name");
    var tp = document.getElementsByclassName("tooltip");

    function show(){
        tp.style.display="block";
    }
    function hide(){
        tp.style.display="";
    }

in pure js i need to use transitions to make the content stay for few seconds which doesnt help in cross brower — Kishore, Aug 21 '13 at 13:51

score 46 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 27 '21 at 00:56

Solution with no JavaScript

This uses CSS pseudo hover to set the display of the hidden element. The display none needs to be in the style and not on the element so it can be overwritten in the hover.

.couponcode:hover .coupontooltip {
  /* NEW */
  display: block;
}

.coupontooltip {
  display: none;
  /* NEW */
  background: #C8C8C8;
  margin-left: 28px;
  padding: 10px;
  position: absolute;
  z-index: 1000;
  width: 200px;
  height: 100px;
}

.couponcode {
  margin: 100px;
}

<div class="couponcode">First Link
  <span class="coupontooltip">Content 1</span>
  <!-- UPDATED -->
</div>

<div class="couponcode">Second Link
  <span class="coupontooltip"> Content 2</span>
  <!-- UPDATED -->
</div>

External Link

Follow-Up:

If you need to support really old browsers, you would need to add a class to the outside element when the mouse enters the div. And remove that class when mouse leaves.

EDIT

Your code did not work because what is tp? Is a collection of elements and you are treating it as one. What you would need to do is pass in the reference to the element

HTML:

<div class = "name" onmouseover="show(this)" onmouseout="hide(this)">  <!-- added "this" 2 times -->

**JavaScript:

//var name = document.getElementsByclassName("name");  /* not needed */
//    var tp = document.getElementsByclassName("tooltip"); /* not needed */


function show (elem) {  /* added argument */
    elem.style.display="block"; /* changed variable to argument */
}
function hide (elem) { /* added argument */
    elem.style.display="";  /* changed variable to argument */
}

will this help if i wanted to get contents from database using ajax inside tooltip — Kishore, Aug 21 '13 at 14:14
This is an elegant solution and deserves way more votes IMO. The fiddle is wonderful +1 — khaverim, May 15 '14 at 21:39
@MemetOlsen, I like this tooltip. Is there a way to move the tooltip to the right edge of the control? I know it is using margin-left, but is there a way to have it, say start at the rightmost edge of an inputbox? — Rick, Oct 07 '14 at 19:45
`:hover>.coupontooltip` would let you put tooltips inside of anything. — Brandon Henry, Nov 23 '14 at 03:48

Teocci · Answer 2 · 2023-08-28T05:04:32.730

The question said:

Plain JavaScript tooltip

But I think in modern times we can use vanilla JS and CSS. Specially, when we want o provide a good looking style it is a must.

This example is a simple implementation of pure JS and CSS.

Let's create a tooltip using CSS and add modify the behavior using JS. For this example, we will define a tip attribute to storage the text that will be shown on the tooltip.

visibility: hidden; and opacity: 0; will maintain the .tooltip hidden and will appear when [tip]:hover. Also, we can reposition the point of emission from the tooltip will be shown using style.transform.

const elements = [...document.querySelectorAll('[tip]')]

for (const el of elements) {
  const tip = document.createElement('div')
  tip.classList.add('tooltip')
  tip.textContent = el.getAttribute('tip')
  const x = el.hasAttribute('tip-left') ? 'calc(-100% - 5px)' : '16px'
  const y = el.hasAttribute('tip-top') ? '-100%' : '0'
  tip.style.transform = `translate(${x}, ${y})`
  el.appendChild(tip)
  el.onpointermove = e => {
    if (e.target !== e.currentTarget) return

    const rect = tip.getBoundingClientRect()
    const rectWidth = rect.width + 16
    const vWidth = window.innerWidth - rectWidth
    const rectX = el.hasAttribute('tip-left') ? e.clientX - rectWidth : e.clientX + rectWidth
    const minX = el.hasAttribute('tip-left') ? 0 : rectX
    const maxX = el.hasAttribute('tip-left') ? vWidth : window.innerWidth
    const x = rectX < minX ? rectWidth : rectX > maxX ? vWidth : e.clientX
    tip.style.left = `${x}px`
    tip.style.top = `${e.clientY}px`
  }
}

[tip] .tooltip {
  position: fixed;
  font-size: 16px;
  line-height: 20px;
  padding: 5px;
  background: #444;
  border: 1px solid #222;
  visibility: hidden;
  opacity: 0;
  box-shadow: -2px 2px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
  transition: opacity 0.3s, visibility 0s;
  color: white;
  min-width: 120px;
}

[tip]:hover .tooltip {
  visibility: visible;
  opacity: 1;
}

button {
  display: block;
  cursor: pointer;
  padding: 8px 15px;
  border: 1px solid gray;
  border-radius: 4px;
  margin: 50px 5px;
  width: 200px;
  font-size: 18px;
  background: white;
}

button:hover {
  border-color: dodgerblue;
}

<button tip="Click me here!">I have a tooltip</button>
<button tip="Click me aswell!" tip-top tip-left>Top-left tooltip</button>

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 14 '15 at 15:07

7

For non-customized tooltip, you can just add the message you want to display in tooltip in the title attribute of the main div. Just like this:

<div class = "name" onmouseover="show()" onmouseout="hide()" title="PROFILE DETAILS">

Then there is no need to add the onmouseover and onmouseout event handlers.

edited Oct 14 '15 at 15:07

Jon Surrell

9,444
8
48
54

answered Oct 14 '15 at 14:22

user5445555

71
1
2

score 6 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 24 '21 at 10:45

Fix for the original code

I was looking for something like this, and I came across this page. It helped me, but I had to fix your code, for it to work. I think that this is what you tried. You have to reference your objects by their "ID". Here is what I've done, and it works:

function show(elem) {
  elem.style.display = "block";
}

function hide(elem) {
  elem.style.display = "";
}

.name {
  float: left;
  margin: 100px;
  border: 1px solid black;
}

.tooltip {
  position: absolute;
  margin: 5px;
  width: 200px;
  height: 50px;
  border: 1px solid black;
  display: none;
}

<div class="name" onmouseover="show(tooltip1)" onmouseout="hide(tooltip1)">
  NAME
  <div class="tooltip" id="tooltip1">
    PROFILE DETAILS
  </div>
</div>

<div class="name" onmouseover="show(tooltip2)" onmouseout="hide(tooltip2)">
  NAME 2
  <div class="tooltip" id="tooltip2">
    PROFILE DETAILS 2
  </div>
</div>

<div class="name" onmouseover="show(tooltip3)" onmouseout="hide(tooltip3)">
  NAME 3
  <div class="tooltip" id="tooltip3">
    PROFILE DETAILS 3
  </div>
</div>

External link

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

Even for $(document).ready, it’s hard to accomplish in pure JS—see here: $(document).ready equivalent without jQuery

So I’m using a simple version:

window.addEventListener("load", function () {
    var couponcodes = document.getElementsByClassName("couponcode");
    for (var i = 0; i < couponcodes.length; i++) {
        couponcodes[i].addEventListener("mouseover", function () {
            var coupontooltip = this.getElementsByClassName("coupontooltip")[0];
            coupontooltip.removeAttribute("style");
        });
        couponcodes[i].addEventListener("mouseout", function () {
            var coupontooltip = this.getElementsByClassName("coupontooltip")[0];
            coupontooltip.style.display = "none";
        });
    }
});

http://jsfiddle.net/mynetx/5qbP3/

programmingisphun · Answer 6 · 2022-01-16T02:08:46.423

Ran into some lag with popper+tippy, started searching alternatives and found @Teocci's great answer above!

I needed the following tweaks, so this is a modified code for:

adding tips to body, rather than el due to css/innerHTML conflicts
use js mouseevents to toggle, prevents nested triggers
arrows for usecase of always bottom
ability to clear all previous tips for dynamic calling with DOM changes

CSS

.tooltip {
    position: fixed;
    z-index: 99;
    font-size: 12px;
    line-height: 12px;
    padding: 5px;
    background: #222;
    color: #fff;
    border: 1px solid #aaa;
    border-radius: 5px;
    font-family: sans-serif;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    /*box-shadow: -1px 2px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);*/
    transition: opacity 0.3s, visibility 0s;
    visibility: hidden;
    opacity: 0;
}

.tooltip-arrow{
    position: absolute;
    top: -4px;
    width: 7px;
    height: 7px;
    background: inherit;
    transform: rotate(45deg);
    border-top: 1px solid #aaa;
    border-left: 1px solid #aaa;
}

/* just for demo */
.box{
    margin: 25px;
    padding: 25px;
}

HTML

<div class="box" style="background:orange;" data-tip="hello i'm the parent">
    <div class="box" style="background:green;" data-tip="hi i'm the child"></div>
</div>

JS

function initTips(){
    // purge previous for dynamic render
    Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('.tooltip')).forEach(el => {
        el.remove()
    })

    // built upon: https://stackoverflow.com/a/69340293/10885535
    Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('[data-tip]')).forEach(el => {
        // tip
        let tip = document.createElement('div')
        tip.classList.add('tooltip')
        tip.innerText = el.getAttribute('data-tip')
        document.body.appendChild(tip)

        // arrow
        let arrow = document.createElement('div')
        arrow.classList.add('tooltip-arrow')
        tip.appendChild(arrow)

        // position tip + arrow once added
        setTimeout(() => {
            let elmPos = el.getBoundingClientRect()
            let tipPos = tip.getBoundingClientRect()
            tip.style.left = (elmPos.left + (elmPos.width - tipPos.width)/2) + 'px'
            tip.style.top = (elmPos.bottom + 5)+'px'
            arrow.style.left = (tipPos.width/2 - 5) + 'px'
        }, 0)

        // toggle with mouse
        el.onmouseover = e => {
            tip.style.opacity = 1
            tip.style.visibility = 'visible'
            e.stopPropagation() // stop parent
        };
         el.onmouseout = e => {
            tip.style.opacity = 0
            tip.style.visibility = 'hidden'
        };
    });
}

// kickoff
initTips()

// test calling again ie after dynamic content
setTimeout(initTips, 1000)

Plain JavaScript tooltip

6 Answers6

Solution with no JavaScript

EDIT

Fix for the original code

Linked