A tooltip appears on hovering over a UI element and shows an action name or provides useful information about an action or a setting.
When to useThere are three types of tooltips:
All icons and unlabeled controls should have an Action or an Action help tooltip.
Use Action help and Help tooltips according to the Context help rules.
How to use ShortcutAlways show a shortcut if an action or a setting has one.
Do not show a single shortcut in a tooltip:
Provide a link to a source that can further explain the action or the setting. A link can navigate to a place in the IDE or to an external help article:
Do not show just an action name and a link to a help article. Provide help text so that the user does not need to switch to a web browser:
The text width in an action tooltip is not limited. The text width in a help tooltip is limited by 250px.
Show no more than 10 lines of help text. If the text does not fit, leave only the essential information and add a link to a help article.
If the help text is longer than 5 lines, separate the text into paragraphs with the <p> tag. The <p> tag adds vertical space between paragraphs to visually separate them. Do not use the <br/> tag as it does not add space.
val LONG_TEXT = """A new overloading method will be created with the new parameter added to this method definition.<p> The method with the old signature will be kept and the call to the new method will be added to it. The necessary value or expression will be passed to the new method call.""" HelpTooltip().setDescription(LONG_TEXT).installOn(component)
String LONG_TEXT = "A new overloading method will be created with " + "the new parameter added to this method definition.<p>" + "The method with the old signature will be kept and the call " + "to the new method will be added to it. The necessary value " + "or expression will be passed to the new method call."; new HelpTooltip().setDescription(LONG_TEXT).installOn(component);
Text style formattingAvoid using style formatting in the help text. Usually, the text is short and no bold or italics are needed.
Writing guidelinesMake the help text short and descriptive.
In a help tooltip, do not repeat an action or a setting name in the text:
Always use the help tooltip with the question mark icon. Without the icon, it is unclear which component has help information.
Always place the question mark icon to the right of the corresponding UI component.
Examples with different controls:
Checkbox Tree item Labeled input ButtonException: do not use the help tooltip with buttons at a dialogâs bottom. Put the information into the help article that is opened with the question mark button in the bottom left corner.
Built-in behaviorAll tooltips appear on hover (not on click), including the help tooltip with the question mark icon.
All tooltips are hidden when the mouse cursor leaves the area that triggers the tooltip.
If the mouse cursor stays in the tooltip trigger area, tooltips are also hidden after a timeout specified in the table below.
Tooltip
Appears after
Hides after
If the cursor is in the tooltip trigger area
Action
300 milliseconds
ide.tooltip.initialReshowDelay registry key
10 seconds
ide.helptooltip.regular.dismissDelay
Action help
30 seconds
ide.helptooltip.full.dismissDelay
Help
Never hides
If a tooltip has a link, it is possible to move the mouse cursor over the tooltip. The tooltip does not close automatically when the cursor is over it.
Tooltips are positioned automatically depending on the mouse cursor location.
31 July 2025
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4