Popup Tooltips

Popup tooltips

Authoring configurable UI-font popup tooltip backgrounds, variations, spacing and testing.

Documentation for VoxelCore v1.0.0. Home · Installation · Compatibility

Popup backgrounds are authored as normal UI glyph content. VoxelCore does not bundle or inject tooltip PNGs.

Author your textures and UI definitions

Copy the example from mvp-content/voxeltest/content/ui-tooltip.yml and the three matching PNGs in mvp-content/voxeltest/assets/voxeltest/textures/ui/tooltip/ into your own content pack, changing the namespace as needed. These are ordinary ui: definitions loaded by the existing VoxelCore font/glyph pipeline. You can replace the textures with your own artwork.

For a content pack whose pack.yml says namespace: voxel:

ui:
  tooltip_left:
    path: ui/tooltip/left.png
    scale_ratio: 19
    y_position: 7
  tooltip_center:
    path: ui/tooltip/center.png
    scale_ratio: 19
    y_position: 7
  tooltip_right:
    path: ui/tooltip/right.png
    scale_ratio: 19
    y_position: 7

In VoxelCore's config.yml, define as many named variants as you need:

ui:
  tooltips:
    default:
      left: 'voxel:tooltip_left'
      center: 'voxel:tooltip_center'
      right: 'voxel:tooltip_right'
      tile_overlap: 1
      horizontal_padding: 4
      letter_spacing: -1
      word_spacing: -1
      x_offset: 30
    warning:
      left: 'voxel:warning_left'
      center: 'voxel:warning_center'
      right: 'voxel:warning_right'
      # Values not listed here inherit from default.
      horizontal_padding: 6
      letter_spacing: -1
      word_spacing: -1
      x_offset: 30
    quest:
      left: 'voxel:quest_left'
      center: 'voxel:quest_center'
      right: 'voxel:quest_right'

The names default, warning, and quest are examples. Add any lowercase, alphanumeric, underscore or hyphen IDs. Other than default, variants can omit a value to inherit it from the default configuration. Existing ui.tooltip values from the single-tooltip implementation are migrated into ui.tooltips.default on the v6 configuration upgrade without overwriting existing variant values.

Use the full namespace:id for each configured glyph. A missing ID produces a clear error when the tooltip is tested, rather than inserting unseen hardcoded assets. Rebuild and publish your resource pack after changing glyph images, then reload VoxelCore to update the glyph registry.

How spacing is calculated

Bitmap glyphs advance by their scaled pixel width plus one Minecraft spacing pixel. A 2x38 texture authored with scale_ratio: 19 paints a 1px-wide section, but advances 2px. VoxelCore now inserts :offset_-1: between each tile (tile_overlap: 1), so adjacent tiles touch without the black stripes previously visible.

Horizontal text spacing can be adjusted independently for each tooltip variant. letter_spacing: -1 removes one font pixel between adjacent printable ASCII glyphs within a word. word_spacing: -1 removes one pixel from each ordinary space, while keeping words distinct. Legacy colour codes are ignored for spacing; custom Unicode icons retain their existing width. Neither spacing setting has an artificial minimum or maximum: use values such as -6, -20, or positive numbers as your artwork requires. Excessively negative settings may intentionally overlap letters and words. Both settings are included in the tooltip width calculation, so backgrounds follow the compacted text. Omit either value in a variant to inherit it from default.

The original horizontal position mode is unchanged: x_offset: 30 shifts the centred popup horizontally. The experimental anchor feature was removed because a fixed offset already gives the desired position. Old anchor entries can be deleted; they are ignored.

Line ascent values remain the original 4, -1, and -6. The spacing changes in this patch are horizontal and do not affect vertical row placement. To use the updated tooltip text rendering, install the new JAR. Existing UI glyph fonts and background textures remain unchanged.

The effective full background width is computed from each configured glyph's actual advance. The widest of the three text lines determines how many center tiles are needed, plus horizontal_padding on each side. Text is moved back with a negative offset over the background. x_offset shifts the finished popup horizontally.

Testing variants

Use /vc admin ui tooltip <variant> <seconds> <line1> | <line2> | <line3>:

/vc admin ui tooltip default 5 This is a test | Second Test | Third
/vc admin ui tooltip warning 5 &cDanger ahead! | Please be careful | &eKeep out
/vc admin ui tooltip quest 5 New Quest | Discover the portal | &aFollow the path

The command tab-completes configured tooltip variant names. Running it without enough arguments lists the available names. The previous command syntax /vc admin ui tooltip 5 This is a test | Second Test | Third remains supported, as do existing Java calls to show(player, line1, line2, line3, ticks), both rendering the default variant.

New Java call sites can choose a style via show(player, "warning", line1, line2, line3, ticks). A missing variant or glyph is reported as a descriptive error instead of showing a broken popup.

tile_overlap should normally be 1. Increase it only if your artwork visibly overlaps and you need a different joining style. Custom UI textures can have different widths, as long as their scaled dimensions match how you intend them to join.

The three text-row ASCII providers remain generated because they are font character mappings, not image assets. The background textures are entirely content-defined.