Tooltips

Overview

Use the v-b-tooltip directive on any element or component where you would like a tooltip to appear.

<div class="text-center my-3">
  <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover title="Tooltip content">Hover Me</b-button>
</div>

<!-- b-tooltip.vue -->

Things to know when using the tooltip directive:

• Tooltips rely on the 3rd party library Popper.js for positioning.
• Tooltips require BootstrapVue's custom SCSS/CSS in order to function correctly, and for variants.
• If a title is not provided (or is an empty string), the tooltip will not show.
• Specify container: 'body' (the default) 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 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, <b-link>s and <router-link>s to avoid this behavior.
• Tooltips must be hidden before their corresponding elements have been removed from the DOM.

Positioning

Twelve options are available for positioning: top, topleft, topright, right, righttop, rightbottom, bottom, bottomleft, bottomright, left, lefttop, and leftbottom aligned. The default position is top. Positioning is relative to the trigger element.

Live example

<div>
  <b-container fluid>
    <b-row class="text-center">
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.top="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Top</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.right="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Right</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.left="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Left</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.bottom="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Bottom</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.topright="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Top right</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.topleft="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Top left</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.bottomright="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Bottom right</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.bottomleft="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Bottom left</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.lefttop="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Left top</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.leftbottom="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Left bottom</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.righttop="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Right top</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.rightbottom="'Tooltip!'" variant="primary">Right bottom</b-button>
      </b-col>
    </b-row>
  </b-container>
</div>

<!-- b-tooltip-positioning.vue -->

Triggers

Tooltips can be triggered (opened/closed) via any combination of click, hover and focus. The default trigger is hover focus. Or a trigger of manual can be specified, where the popover can only be opened or closed programmatically.

If a tooltip has more than one trigger, then all triggers must be cleared before the tooltip will close. I.e. if a tooltip has the trigger focus click, and it was opened by focus, and the user then clicks the trigger element, they must click it again and move focus to close the tooltip.

<div>
  <b-container>
    <b-row class="text-center">
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip="'Tooltip!'" variant="outline-success">Hover + Focus</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover="'Tooltip!'" variant="outline-success">Hover</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.click="'Tooltip!'" variant="outline-success">Click</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.focus="'Tooltip!'" variant="outline-success">Focus</b-button>
      </b-col>
    </b-row>
  </b-container>
</div>

<!-- b-tooltip-triggers.vue -->

Making tooltips work for keyboard and assistive technology users

You should only add tooltips to HTML elements that are traditionally keyboard-focusable and interactive (such as links, buttons, or form controls). Although arbitrary HTML elements (such as <span>s) can be made focusable by adding the tabindex="0" attribute, this will add potentially annoying and confusing tab stops on non-interactive elements for keyboard users. In addition, most assistive technologies currently do not announce the tooltip in this situation.

Additionally, do not rely solely on hover as the trigger for your tooltip, as this will make your tooltips impossible to trigger for keyboard-only users.

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", and override the pointer-events on the disabled element.

<div>
  <span class="d-inline-block" tabindex="0" v-b-tooltip.top title="Disabled tooltip">
    <b-button variant="primary" style="pointer-events: none;" disabled>Disabled button</b-button>
  </span>
</div>

<!-- disabled-trigger-element.vue -->

Caveats with focus trigger on <button> elements

For proper cross-browser and cross-platform behavior when using only the focus trigger, you must use an element that renders the <a> tag, not the <button> tag, and you also must include a tabindex="0" attribute.

The following will generate an <a> that looks like a button:

<b-button
  href="#"
  tabindex="0"
  v-b-tooltip.focus
  title="Tooltip title"
>
  Link button with tooltip directive
</b-button>

Dismiss on next click

Use both click and blur if you would like a tooltip that opens only on click of the element, but will close when anything else in the document is clicked or receives focus.

Note that your element must be in the document tab sequence for this to work. If your element is not tabbable, add the tabindex="0" attribute to the element.

Title content

There are several options for providing the title of a tooltip.

By default, tooltip will use the title attribute of the element as the tooltip content. The title can also be passed as an object to v-b-tooltip in the form of

const options = {
  title: 'This is the title'
}

If your title content has basic HTML markup, then you will also need to set the html property to true, or use the directive modifier html

// Object format with HTML
const options = {
  title: 'This is the <strong>title</strong>',
  html: true
}

Title can also be a function reference, which is called each time the tooltip is opened. To make the title returned by a function reactive while open, set the title to a new function reference whenever the content changes.

<template>
  <b-container>
    <b-row class="text-center">
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover :title="'Tip from title attribute ' + date" variant="success">Title</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover="'String Tip'" variant="success">String</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.html="tipData" variant="success">Data</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col md="3" class="py-3">
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.html="tipMethod" variant="success">Method</b-button>
      </b-col>
    </b-row>
  </b-container>
</template>

<script>
  export default {
    data() {
      return {
        tipData: { title: 'Tooltip <em>Message</em>' },
        date: new Date(),
        timer: null
      }
    },
    mounted() {
      this.timer = setInterval(() => {
        this.date = new Date()
      }, 1000)
    },
    beforeDestroy() {
      clearInterval(this.timer)
    },
    methods: {
      tipMethod() {
        // Note this is called each time the tooltip is first opened.
        return '<strong>' + new Date() + '</strong>'
      }
    }
  }
</script>

<!-- b-tooltip-content.vue -->

Variants and custom class

BootstrapVue's tooltips support contextual color variants via our custom CSS, either by using directive modifiers or config options:

<template>
  <b-container fluid>
    <b-row class="text-center">
      <b-col>
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover.v-danger title="Danger variant">Danger Modifier</b-button>
      </b-col>
      <b-col>
        <b-button v-b-tooltip.hover="{ variant: 'info' }" title="Info variant">Info Config</b-button>
      </b-col>
    </b-row>
  </b-container>
</template>
<!-- b-tooltip-variants.vue -->

Bootstrap default theme variants are: danger, warning, success, primary, secondary, info, light, and dark. You can change or add additional variants via Bootstrap SCSS variables

A custom class can be applied to the tooltip outer wrapper <div> by using the customClass option property:

<b-button v-b-tooltip.hover="{ customClass: 'my-tooltip-class' }" title="Tooltip">Button</b-button>

Directive syntax and usage

<b-button v-b-tooltip:[container].[mod1].[mod2].[...].[modN]="<value>">Button</b-button>

Where [container] can be (optional):

• An element ID (minus the #) to place the tooltip markup in
• If not provided, tooltips are appended to the body. If the trigger element is inside a modal, the tooltip will be appended to the modal's container

Where [modX] can be (all optional):

• Positioning: top, bottom, left, right, auto, topleft, topright, bottomleft, bottomright, lefttop, leftbottom, righttop, or rightbottom (last one found wins, defaults to top).
• Event trigger: click, hover, focus, blur (if none specified, defaults to focus and hover. blur is a close handler only, and if specified by itself, will be converted to focus). Use manual if you only want to control the visibility manually.
• nofade to turn off animation.
• html to enable rendering raw HTML. By default HTML is escaped and converted to text.
• A delay value in the format of d### (where ### is in ms, defaults to 50), applied to both hide and show.
• A show delay value in the format of ds### (where ### is in ms, defaults to 50), applied to show trigger only.
• A hide delay value in the format of dh### (where ### is in ms, defaults to 50), applied to hide trigger only.
• An offset value in pixels in the format of o### (where ### is the number of pixels, defaults to 0. Negative values allowed).
• A boundary setting of window or viewport. The element to constrain the visual placement of the tooltip. If not specified, the boundary defaults to the trigger element's scroll parent (in most cases this will suffice).
• A contextual variant in the form of v-XXX (where XXX is the color variant name).
• noninteractive to make the tooltip not user-interactive.

Where <value> can be (optional):

• A string containing the title of the tooltip
• A function reference to generate the title of the tooltip (receives one arg which is a reference to the DOM element triggering the tooltip)
• An object containing more complex configuration of tooltip. See below for accepted object properties:

Options configuration object properties:

Usage

Simplest usage:

v-b-tooltip="'This is a Tooltip!'"

or use the element's title attribute for the tooltip content:

v-b-tooltip title="This is a title Tooltip"

Placement examples:

v-b-tooltip.bottom
v-b-tooltip.right

Variant examples:

v-b-tooltip.v-primary => `primary` variant
v-b-tooltip.v-danger => `danger` variant

Trigger examples:

v-b-tooltip.hover => Hover only
v-b-tooltip.click => Click only
v-b-tooltip.hover.focus => Both hover and focus

Combo:

v-b-tooltip.hover.bottom => Show on hover and place at bottom
v-b-tooltip.bottom.hover => Same as above
v-b-tooltip.bottom.hover.v-danger => Same as above, but with variant

Object:

v-b-tooltip="{ title: 'Title', placement: 'bottom', variant: 'danger' }"

Hiding and showing tooltips via $root events

You can close (hide) all open tooltips by emitting the bv::hide::tooltip event on $root:

this.$root.$emit('bv::hide::tooltip')

To close a specific tooltip, pass the trigger element's id, or the id of the tooltip (if one was provided in the config object) as the first argument:

this.$root.$emit('bv::show::tooltip', 'my-trigger-button-id')

To open a specific tooltip, pass the trigger element's id, or the id of the tooltip (if one was provided in the config object) as the first argument when emitting the bv::show::tooltip $root event:

this.$root.$emit('bv::show::tooltip', 'my-trigger-button-id')

To open all popovers simultaneously, omit the id argument when emitting the bv::show::tooltip event.

These events work for both the component and directive versions of tooltip.

Note the trigger element must exist in the DOM and be in a visible state in order for the tooltip to show.

Disabling and enabling tooltips via $root events

You can disable all open tooltips by emitting the bv::disable::tooltip event on $root:

this.$root.$emit('bv::disable::tooltip')

To disable a specific tooltip, pass the trigger element's id, or the id of the tooltip (if one was provided in the config object) as the first argument:

this.$root.$emit('bv::disable::tooltip', 'my-trigger-button-id')

To enable a specific tooltip, pass the trigger element's id, or the id of the tooltip (if one was provided in the config object) as the first argument when emitting the bv::enable::tooltip $root event:

this.$root.$emit('bv::enable::tooltip', 'my-trigger-button-id')

To enable all popovers simultaneously, omit the id argument when emitting the bv::enable::tooltip event.

These events work for both the component and directive versions of tooltip.

Note the trigger element must exist in the DOM in order for the tooltip to be enabled or disabled.

See also

• v-b-popover directive
• <b-tooltip> component
• <b-popover> component