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Popovers are small content containers that provide a contextual overlay. They can be used as in-context feature explanations, dropdowns, or tooltips.

Class Applies to Description
.s-popover N/A Base parent container for popovers
.s-popover__tooltip .s-popover Removes minimum size constraints to support shorter tooltip text
.is-visible .s-popover This class toggles the popover visibility
.s-popover--close Child of .s-popover Used to dismiss a popover
.s-popover--arrow Child of .s-popover When combined with JavaScript data attributes, this arrow element will be positioned automatically

Stacks provides a Stimulus controller that allows you to interactively display a popover from a source element. Positioning and arrow direction are managed for you by Popper.js, a powerful popover positioning library we’ve added as a dependency. These popovers are automatically hidden when user click outside the popover or tap the Esc key.

Attribute Applied to Description
id="{POPOVER_ID}" .s-popover A unique id that the popover’s toggling element can target. Matches the value of [aria-controls] on the toggling element.
data-controller="s-popover" Controller element Wires up the element to the popover controller. This may be a toggling element or a wrapper element.
data-s-popover-reference-selector="[css selector]" Controller element Optional Designates the element to use as the popover reference. If left unset, the value defaults to the controller element.
aria-controls="{POPOVER_ID}" Reference element Associates the element to the desired popover element.
data-action="s-popover#toggle" Toggling element Wires up the element to toggle the visibility of a generic popover.
data-s-popover-toggle-class="[class list]" Controller element Adds an optional space-delineated list of classes to be toggled on the originating element when the popover is shown or hidden.
data-s-popover-placement="[placement]" Controller element Dictates where to place the popover in relation to the reference element. By default, the placement value is bottom. Accepted placements are auto, top, right, bottom, left. Each placement can take an additional -start and -end variation.
data-s-popover-auto-show="[true|false]" Controller element Optional If true, the popover will appear immediately when the Stacks controller is first connected. This should be used in place of .is-visible for displaying popovers on load as it will prevent the popover from appearing before it has been correctly positioned.
data-s-popover-hide-on-outside-click="[always|never|if-in-viewport|after-dismissal]" Controller element Optional
  • If always, the popover will appear disappear when outside clicks occur.
  • If if-in-viewport, the popover will appear disappear when outside clicks occur and the popover is currently in the browser's visible viewport.
  • If never, the popover will not disappear on outside clicks and will only be dismissed through other means, e.g. data-target="s-popover#hide".
  • If after-dismissal, the popover will not disappear on outside clicks unless it has been dismissed some other way at least once.

If left unset, defaults to always.

Event Element Description
s-popover:show Controller element Default preventable Fires immediately before showing and positioning the popover. This fires before the popover is first displayed to the user, and can be used to create or initialize the popover element. Calling .preventDefault() cancels the display of the popover.
s-popover:shown Controller element Fires immediately after showing the popover.
s-popover:hide Controller element Default preventable Fires immediately before hiding the popover. Calling .preventDefault() prevents the removal of the popover.
s-popover:hidden Controller element Fires immediately after hiding the popover.
event.detail Applicable events Description
dispatcher s-popover:* Contains the Element that initiated the event. For instance, the button clicked to show, the element clicked outside the popover that caused it to hide, etc.
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To enable interactive popovers, you will need to add the above attributes to the popover’s originating button. Custom positioning can be specified using the data-s-popover-placement. In the following example, we’ve chosen bottom-start. No positioning classes need to be added to your markup, only the data attributes.

To promote being able to tab to an open popover, it’s best to place the popover immediately after the toggling button in the markup as siblings.

<button class="s-btn s-btn__dropdown" role="button"
aria-controls="popover-example"
aria-expanded="false"
data-controller="s-popover"
data-action="s-popover#toggle"
data-s-popover-placement="bottom-start"
data-s-popover-toggle-class="is-selected">


</button>
<div class="s-popover"
id="popover-example"
role="menu">

<div class="s-popover--arrow"></div>

</div>

In the case of new feature callouts, it may be appropriate to include an explicit dismiss button. You can add one using the styling provided by .s-popover--close.

In order for to close the popover with an explicit close button, you’ll need to add the controller to a parent as illustrated in the following example code:

<div class="…"
data-controller="s-popover"
data-s-popover-reference-selector="#reference-element">


<button id="reference-element" class="s-btn s-btn__filled s-btn__dropdown"
aria-controls="popover-example"
aria-expanded="true"
data-action="s-popover#toggle">


</button>

<div id="popover-example" class="s-popover is-visible" role="menu">
<div class="s-popover--arrow"></div>
<button class="s-popover--close s-btn s-btn__muted" aria-label="Close"
data-action="s-popover#toggle">

@Svg.ClearSm
</button>

</div>
</div>

Dismissible persistent popover presented with a close button

There may be cases where you need to show or hide a popover via JavaScript. For example, if you need to show a popover at a specific time or if you need to hide a popover from an event outside of the controller, Stacks provides convenience methods to achieve this.

Stacks.application.register("section", class extends Stacks.StacksController {
static targets = ["help"];

showHelp(event) {
Stacks.showPopover(this.helpTarget);
event.stopPropagation();
}
hideHelp(event) {
Stacks.hidePopover(this.helpTarget);
}
});

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JavaScript configuration (popovers)

Section titled JavaScript configuration (popovers)

Situations may also arise where popovers need to be attached to an element after the document is rendered. For example, a button could have a contextual menu that is too expensive to serve up on every page load.

Popovers can be attached to an element after the fact using Stacks.attachPopover.

This method takes three parameters, the element to attach the popover to, the popover either as an element or an HTML string, and optional options for displaying the popover.

Stacks.application.register("actions", class extends Stacks.StacksController {

var loaded = false;

async load() {
if (this.loaded) { return; }
Stacks.attachPopover(this.element,
await fetch(`/posts/{postId}/actions`),
{ autoShow: true, toggleOnClick: true });
this.loaded = true;
}
});

When a popover is intended only for display as an on-hover tooltip and contains no interactive text, the s-tooltip controller can be used in place of s-popover. This is a separate controller that can be used alongside s-popover on a single target element.

Attribute Applied to Description
id="{POPOVER_ID}" .s-popover A unique id that the popover’s toggling element can target. Matches the value of [aria-describedby] on the toggling element.
data-controller="s-tooltip" Controller element Wires up the element to the tooltip controller.
data-s-tooltip-reference-selector="[css selector]" Controller element Optional Designates the element to use as the tooltip reference. If left unset, the value defaults to the controller element.
aria-describedby="{POPOVER_ID}" Reference element Associates the element to the desired popover element.
title="{TITLE}" Controller element If aria-describedby is not present or valid, and the title attribute exists, the title will be removed from the element and be used to create a popover immediately after the element. All content will be escaped and inserted as text.
data-s-tooltip-html-title="{TITLE}" Controller element Acts the exact same as the title attribute, but inserts the raw text directly as html. If both this and the title attribute exist on the element, this attribute will be used.
data-s-tooltip-placement="[placement]" Controller element Dictates where to place the popover in relation to the reference element. By default, the placement value is bottom. Accepted placements are auto, top, right, bottom, left. Each placement can take an additional -start and -end variation.
Event Element Description
s-tooltip:show Controller element Default preventable Fires immediately before showing and positioning the tooltip. This fires before the tooltip is first displayed to the user, and can be used to create or initialize the tooltip element. Calling .preventDefault() cancels the display of the popover.
s-tooltip:shown Controller element Fires immediately after showing the tooltip.
s-tooltip:hide Controller element Default preventable Fires immediately before hiding the tooltip. Calling .preventDefault() prevents the removal of the tooltip.
s-tooltip:hidden Controller element Fires immediately after hiding the tooltip.
event.detail Applicable events Description
dispatcher s-tooltip:* Contains the Element that initiated the event. For instance, the element hovered over to show, etc.

If the user doesn’t need to interact with the contents of the popover, it may be appropriate to only show it on hover. This will make popovers feel like a tooltip. To do so, we provide an alternative controller, s-tooltip, that shows the tooltip only on hover.

In the simple case where no markup is needed in the tooltip, the popover element can be omitted and automatically generated using the title attribute.

<button class="s-btn" role="button"
title="…"
data-controller="s-tooltip"
data-s-tooltip-placement="bottom-start">


</button>

JavaScript configuration (tooltips)

Section titled JavaScript configuration (tooltips)

In cases where the tooltip needs to display simple text or HTML, the popover can be configured using JavaScript. Plain text tooltips will render characters like <, >, and & as is. HTML tooltips will render the HTML as expected.

Stacks.setTooltipText(el,
"Plain text tooltip",
{
placement: "top-start"
});

Stacks.setTooltipHtml(el,
"Tooltip <i>with</i> HTML",
{
placement: "top-end"
});

When a rich tooltip is required, a popover element can be configured in much the same way as an s-popover controller, with the most notable difference being the use of aria-describedby instead of aria-controls.

<button class="s-btn" role="button"
aria-describedby="tooltip-example"
aria-expanded="false"
data-controller="s-tooltip"
data-s-tooltip-placement="top-start">


</button>
<div class="s-popover s-popover__tooltip"
id="tooltip-example"
role="tooltip"
aria-hidden="true">

<div class="s-popover--arrow"></div>

</div>

Tooltips and interactive popovers

Section titled Tooltips and interactive popovers

Hover tooltips can be used alongside interactive popovers. Tooltips will no appear when the interactive popover is visible.

<button class="s-btn s-btn__dropdown" role="button"
aria-controls="popover-example"
aria-expanded="false"
data-controller="s-popover s-tooltip"
data-action="s-popover#toggle"
data-s-popover-placement="bottom-start"
data-s-popover-toggle-class="is-selected"
title="…"
data-s-tooltip-placement="top-start">


</button>
<div class="s-popover"
id="popover-example"
role="menu">

<div class="s-popover--arrow"></div>

</div>
Our Stimulus popover controller handles the positioning of popovers for you. Popovers can be positioned manually for various legacy reasons, but we recommend using the s-popover controller’s placement property instead.
Class Applies to Description
.s-popover--arrow__tc Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears top center
.s-popover--arrow__tl Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears top left
.s-popover--arrow__tr Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears top right
.s-popover--arrow__bc Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears bottom center
.s-popover--arrow__bl Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears bottom left
.s-popover--arrow__br Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears bottom right
.s-popover--arrow__rc Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears right center
.s-popover--arrow__rt Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears right top
.s-popover--arrow__rb Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears right bottom
.s-popover--arrow__lc Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears left center
.s-popover--arrow__lt Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears left top
.s-popover--arrow__lb Child of .s-popover Popover arrow appears left bottom

Popovers can also be positioned manually if you aren’t using the built-in JavaScript interactivity. Practically, this might look like adding something like t8 l8 to .s-popover.

Manual positioning for arrows is also provided. Arrow direction (top, right, bottom, left) will appear first, followed by the secondary (center, top, right, bottom, left). For example, a popover with an arrow child of .s-popover--arrow__tc will appear on the top of the .s-popover and centered horizontally. Though there are sensible defaults applied to the width of popovers, you may need to adjust manually.

By default, popovers are hidden and positioned absolutely. Adding the class .is-visible will show the popover.

If you want to set the background color to something other than the default, simply add your desired bg-* class to the s-popover element and a matching fc-* class to the s-popover--arrow element.

<div class="s-popover">
<div class="s-popover--arrow s-popover--arrow__tc"></div>

</div>

.s-popover--arrow__tc

Popover arrow appears top center

.s-popover--arrow__tl

Popover arrow appears top left

.s-popover--arrow__tr

Popover arrow appears top right

.s-popover--arrow__bc

Popover arrow appears bottom center

.s-popover--arrow__bl

Popover arrow appears bottom left

.s-popover--arrow__br

Popover arrow appears bottom right

.s-popover--arrow__rc

Popover arrow appears right center

.s-popover--arrow__rt

Popover arrow appears right top

.s-popover--arrow__rb

Popover arrow appears right bottom

.s-popover--arrow__lc

Popover arrow appears left center

.s-popover--arrow__lt

Popover arrow appears left top

.s-popover--arrow__lb

Popover arrow appears left bottom

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