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Tooltips

Documentation and examples for adding custom tooltips with CSS and JavaScript using CSS3 for animations and data-bs-attributes for local title storage.

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Overview#

Things to know when using the tooltip plugin:

  • Tooltips rely on the third party library Popper for positioning. Use bootstrap.bundle.min.js, which contains Popper (see JavaScript).
  • Tooltips are opt-in for performance reasons, so you must initialize them yourself.
  • Tooltips with zero-length titles are never displayed.
  • Specify container: 'body' to avoid rendering problems in more complex components (like input groups, button groups, etc).
  • Triggering tooltips on hidden elements will not work.
  • Tooltips for .disabled or disabled elements must be triggered on a wrapper element.
  • When triggered from hyperlinks that span multiple lines, tooltips will be centered. Use white-space: nowrap; on your <a>s to avoid this behavior.
  • Tooltips must be hidden before their corresponding elements have been removed from the DOM.
  • Tooltips can be triggered thanks to an element inside a shadow DOM.

Got all that? Great, let's see how they work with some examples.

Examples#

Enable tooltips#

As mentioned above, you must initialize tooltips before they can be used. One way to initialize all tooltips on a page would be to select them by their data-bs-toggle attribute, like so:

const tooltipTriggerList = document.querySelectorAll('[data-bs-toggle="tooltip"]')
const tooltipList = [...tooltipTriggerList].map(tooltipTriggerEl => new bootstrap.Tooltip(tooltipTriggerEl))

Hover over the links below to see tooltips:

Placeholder text to demonstrate some inline links with tooltips. This is now just filler, no killer. Content placed here just to mimic the presence of real text. And all that just to give you an idea of how tooltips would look when used in real-world situations. So hopefully you've now seen how these tooltips on links can work in practice, once you use them on your own site or project.

<p class="text-body-secondary">Placeholder text to demonstrate some <a href="#" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-title="Default tooltip">inline links</a> with tooltips. This is now just filler, no killer. Content placed here just to mimic the presence of <a href="#" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-title="Another tooltip">real text</a>. And all that just to give you an idea of how tooltips would look when used in real-world situations. So hopefully you've now seen how <a href="#" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-title="Another one here too">these tooltips on links</a> can work in practice, once you use them on <a href="#" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-title="The last tip!">your own</a> site or project.</p>

Feel free to use either title or data-bs-title in your HTML. When title is used, Popper will replace it automatically with data-bs-title when the element is rendered.

This is the markup the plugin generates, drawn in place for each of the four placements:

In felt, a tooltip is a small patch, like a badge: dark felt on a light page and light felt on a dark one, not sewn on.

Custom tooltips#

felt-css has no --bs-tooltip-* variables. To restyle single tooltips, add a class with data-bs-custom-class="custom-tooltip" and target .custom-tooltip .tooltip-inner in your own CSS.

Directions#

Hover over the buttons below to see the four tooltips directions: top, right, bottom, and left.

<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-placement="top" data-bs-title="Tooltip on top">
  Tooltip on top
</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-placement="right" data-bs-title="Tooltip on right">
  Tooltip on right
</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-title="Tooltip on bottom">
  Tooltip on bottom
</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-placement="left" data-bs-title="Tooltip on left">
  Tooltip on left
</button>

And with custom HTML added:

<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-html="true" data-bs-title="<em>Tooltip</em> <u>with</u> <b>HTML</b>">
  Tooltip with HTML
</button>

With an SVG:

Usage#

The tooltip plugin generates content and markup on demand, and by default places tooltips after their trigger element. Trigger the tooltip via JavaScript:

const exampleEl = document.getElementById('example')
const tooltip = new bootstrap.Tooltip(exampleEl, options)

Markup#

The required markup for a tooltip is only a data attribute and title on the HTML element you wish to have a tooltip. The generated markup of a tooltip is rather simple, though it does require a position (by default, set to top by the plugin).

Keep tooltips accessible to keyboard and assistive technology users by only adding them to HTML elements that are traditionally keyboard-focusable and interactive (such as links or form controls). While other HTML elements can be made focusable by adding tabindex="0", this can create annoying and confusing tab stops on non-interactive elements for keyboard users, and most assistive technologies currently do not announce tooltips in this situation. Additionally, do not rely solely on hover as the trigger for your tooltips as this will make them impossible to trigger for keyboard users.

<!-- HTML to write -->
<a href="#" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-title="Some tooltip text!">Hover over me</a>

<!-- Generated markup by the plugin -->
<div class="tooltip bs-tooltip-auto" role="tooltip">
  <div class="tooltip-arrow"></div>
  <div class="tooltip-inner">
    Some tooltip text!
  </div>
</div>

Disabled elements#

Elements with the disabled attribute aren't interactive, meaning users cannot focus, hover, or click them to trigger a tooltip (or popover). As a workaround, you'll want to trigger the tooltip from a wrapper <div> or <span>, ideally made keyboard-focusable using tabindex="0".

<span class="d-inline-block" tabindex="0" data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-title="Disabled tooltip">
  <button class="btn btn-primary" type="button" disabled>Disabled button</button>
</span>

JavaScript behavior#

felt-css is CSS only; positioning, showing and hiding come from Bootstrap's tooltip plugin. Options (placement, trigger, container, html, offset, customClass, …), methods (show, hide, toggle, enable, disable, setContent, update, dispose) and events (show.bs.tooltip, shown.bs.tooltip, hide.bs.tooltip, hidden.bs.tooltip, inserted.bs.tooltip) work exactly as described in Bootstrap's tooltip documentation.

const tooltip = bootstrap.Tooltip.getOrCreateInstance('#example')
tooltip.setContent({ '.tooltip-inner': 'another title' })