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Web users love informative clues. Whatever questions and misunderstandings might occur – delivering precise answers immediately is the primary task a responsive user interface should be able to cope with. To do that, developers have to consider subtle and well-thought tooltips – used correctly, they can greatly improve user experience and help users to get things done. In Web such “responsive” hints can be provided by tooltips. E.g., unclear input fields in web forms are perfect examples of a situation you might be willing to use a tooltip for.

Most of solutions are JavaScript- and AJAX-based, however we’ve also managed to find some lightweight CSS-based solutions. To install and use the script, it’s often enough to include the JavaScript library in the source code and provide the hint as plain text within the “title”-attribute. Sometimes you can also insert URLs, images, tables and further elements – basically, it can be almost everything you’d ever wanted it to be.

We’d like to thank Jurgen Koller for compiling an extensive list of tooltip scripts we’ve stumbled upon during our search. It gives many useful pointers, but we’ve managed to find some more. You might be willing to use Koller’s post as a quick reference for your search.

Let’s take a look at 43 handy tooltips scripts for intuitive and well-designed visual clues. It’s nice to have them all in one place, once you need them. It’s nice to be able to find them, once you don’t have time to search for them.

Tooltips: AJAX & JavaScript Solutions

• Nice Titles Revised
  An improved Nice Titles Tooltip Script with Accesskeys support.
  
• A lightweight prototype based JavaScript tooltip
  
• Nice Titles
  A classic. The script uses a background image.
  
• AJAX-enabled Help-BalloonsHelp windows in baloon-design. AJAXified version is also available.
  
• jTip – A jQuery Tool Tip
  Extensive AJAX-based tooltips with numerous functions and presentation possibilities.
  
• jQuery plugin: Tooltip
  Enhances the jQuery Library.
  
• qTip
  Works for all elements, not only for links in most browsers – IE 5.5+, Firefox, Safari and Opera.
  
• Form field hints with CSS Tooltips
  t’s a basic example of how helpful a little JavaScript and CSS can be in a form. Instead of the input hints always showing and potentionally cluttering a very simple form, only the hint for the currently focused input will show. This article will show a way to do this.
  
• JS Tooltip
  Displays customizable tool tip message for each link element on a web page. A tool tip that can be added to the anchor element unobtrusively by adding a class value to it. This was done by having the tool tip message pull from the specific title attribute of the anchor element that the tool tip was added too.
  
• BoxOver
  Flexible DHTML-Tooltipp in numerous formats. Appears (almost) immedately and fades in during loading.
  
  
• SuperNotes
  Converts footnotes to tooltips. Appears immediately and can be assigned with a fixed position in the browser window.
  
  
• Tipster
  Multifunctional tool tips with JavaScript.
  
• 5 Tooltips by DHTMLGoodies
  First version is suppose to improve the usability of online forms:
  
  
• The second technique uses AJAX.
  
  
• Walter Zorns JavaScript, DHTML Tooltipps
  These tooltips can be used for different purposes; the code is well-documented and can easily be improved and modified.
  
  
• clueTip
  This is a demo page for the new clueTip — a jQuery-based, AJAX-powered tooltip. The clueTip plug-in was inspired by Cody Lindley’s jTip script.
  
• Mootools Tooltip
  Mootools Javascript example of using tooltips.
  
• Sweet Titles
  JavaScript Fading Tooltips.
  
• Hover Tip
  Tooltip with menu-like capabilities. The tooltip layer will remain visible while the viewer hovers over it. This allows you to place clickable links inside tooltip content.
  
• Multiline Tooltip with HTML, CSS and JavaScript
  This document explains how to make nice multiline tooltip for HTML documents, using simple and standard CSS, HTML and JavaScript.
  
• overLIB
  This JavaScript-library can be used in a variety of ways; many positioning and appearance features are available.
  
• Scriptaculous Effect.Tooltip
  The tooltip script from the script.aculo.us library.
  
• Tooltip.js
  Tooltipps with AJAX. The library uses the Prototype JavaScript Framework. The demo doesn’t work any longer.
  

CSS-Based Solutions

• CSS Tooltips
  A simple demonstration of using custom CSS tooltips as a drop-in replacement for the browser-based title attribute.
  
• CSS Technique for Tooltips
  CSS can create “faux tooltips” much the same as the JavaScript ones, but without all the (possibly) undesirable scripting. There are a few in’s and out’s involved, but surprisingly, the methods are rather easy to accomplish.
  
• Unobtrusive and Slightly Accessible CSS Tool Tips on Semi Transparent CSS Menus
  The scripts creates half-transparent tooltips with shadows.
  
• CSS Menu Descriptions
  This is a CSS technique that could be useful if you want to give users accessible added content such as tool-tips, notifications, or alerts, without adding unnecessary clutter to your page. And since it doesn’t rely of JavaScript, it should be useful to everyone, even disabled users.
  
• Balloon Tooltip Demonstration
  Balloon tooltip demonstration.
  
• CSS Tooltipps, lixlpixel Javascript Tooltips
  Similar scripts from the same source:
  
  
• CSS Rollovers for Tooltips
  
• CSS Bubble Tooltips
  This example will show you how well this tooltip stretches for long descriptions.
  
• Pure CSS Tooltips I
• Simple, accessible “more” links – v2
  CSS-based solution for displaying tooltips.
  
• CSS Tooltips
  Another solution, based only on CSS.
  
• Information Balloon PopUps
  Stu Nicholls delivers another CSS-based solutions.
  
  

Further Solutions

• Snap.com
  Snap gives you a visual preview of each result before you click on it. And that improves your odds of picking the right search, without clicking back-and-forth several times.
  
• DHTML Tooltips
  Popup a help tip or information layer onmouseover using this object-based DHTML tooltip code. The basic version, presented on this page, can contain plain text or rich html, images, or images and text. The tooltip can be displayed over a background image. It can move with mouse movement. And it is easy to customize and modify.
  
• Animated Tooltip Javascript
• DOM Tooltip
  DOM Tooltip Script-Library
• Yahoo! UI Library: Tooltip
  The Yahoo! UI Library Toolbox provides among other functions also tooltips.

Tooltips: Wordpress-Plugins

• WP – Bubble Tooltips (Plugin)
  A Wordpress-Plugin can change the appearance of links. Based on Bubble Tooltipps developed by Web-Graphics.
  
• FancyTooltips
  Further Wordpress-Plugin with similar functionality.
  
• Fancy Tooltips
  

Selected Scripts: Quick Overview