Tooltips

Note: Development of Tooltips has been discontinued as they will be added in Android O. PRs will still be accepted, however, and a new release will be made after any significant changes.

A small tooltips library for Android based on Material Design.

For testing and experimentation purposes, a sample apk can be downloaded here.

Setup

The Gradle dependency is available through jcenter, which is used by default in Android Studio. To add the module to your project, copy this line into the dependencies section of your build.gradle file.

compile 'james.tooltips:tooltips:0.0.4'

Usage

Basic Tooltip

To create a basic tooltip, simply add the java snippet below into your project.

new Tooltip(this) //pass either an activity or the root view of a dialog, fragment, or recyclerview item
  .setText("Hi!") //the text to be displayed in the tooltip
  .attachTo(view); //the view you want the tooltip to be shown under

When the view is pressed, the tooltip will show. When the finger is released, the tooltip will hide again. Keep in mind that this method sets the OnTouchListener of the view, so it should not be changed after the tooltip is attached.

Manual Showing/Dismissing

If you want more functionality, sometimes it is better to show and dismiss the tooltip manually. An example of this is below.

Tooltip tooltip = new Tooltip(this)
  .setText("Hi!");
  
tooltip.showFor(view); //show the tooltip under the specified view

When you want the tooltip to be dismissed, simply call tooltip.dismiss();.

Show For Coordinates

If there isn't any specific view you want to show the tooltip under, or if you want the tooltip to be shown at a specific part of a view, it is easier to pass x and y coordinates of where you want the tooltip to be shown instead of a view. An example of this is below.

Tooltip tooltip = new Tooltip(this)
  .setText("Hi!");
  
tooltip.showFor(x, y); //show the tooltip under the specified coordinates

Again, simply call tooltip.dismiss(); when you want it to be dismissed.

Customization

It is also possible to add an icon, change the position, padding, background shape, background color, icon color, and text color of the tooltip.

Icon

To add an icon, pass a drawable to the tooltip using the Tooltip.setIcon(Drawable) method. To hide the icon after one has been set, simply call Tooltip.setIcon(null).

Position

There are five available positions that the tooltip can be shown in: Tooltip.Position.ABOVE, Tooltip.Position.BELOW, Tooltip.Position.LEFT, Tooltip.Position.RIGHT, and Tooltip.Position.CENTER. These can be changed using the Tooltip.setPosition(Position) method like below.

new Tooltip(this)
  .setText("Hi!")
  .setPosition(Tooltip.Position.ABOVE)
  .attachTo(view);

Padding

By default, the tooltip will add 16dp padding between it and the view (or position) it is attached to, unless the position is set to Tooltip.Position.CENTER. The padding can be changed using the Tooltip.setPadding(int) method like below. Keep in mind the padding is measured in pixels. To convert between pixels and dp, use the ViewUtils.pxToDp(int) and ViewUtils.dpToPx(int) methods.

new Tooltip(this)
  .setText("Hi!")
  .setPadding(ViewUtils.dpToPx(6))
  .attachTo(view);

Background Shape

A custom drawable can be set as the tooltip background using the Tooltip.setBackground(Drawable) method like below.

new Tooltip(this)
  .setText("Hi!")
  .setBackground(drawable)
  .attachTo(view);

Background Color

The background color can be set using the Tooltip.setBackgroundColor(int) method. Keep in mind that since this method tints the background drawable, it must be called after Tooltip.setBackground(Drawable) if you are using a custom drawable.

new Tooltip(this)
  .setText("Hi!")
  .setBackgroundColor(Color.BLUE)
  .attachTo(view);

Icon Color

The icon color can be changed using the Tooltip.setIconTint(int, PorterDuff.Mode) method like below.

new Tooltip(this)
  .setText("Hi!")
  .setIcon(drawable)
  .setIconTint(Color.BLUE, PorterDuff.Mode.SRC_IN)
  .attachTo(view);

Text Color

The text color can be modified using the Tooltip.setTextColor(int) method like below.

new Tooltip(this)
  .setText("Hi!")
  .setBackgroundColor(Color.WHITE)
  .setTextColor(Color.BLACK)
  .attachTo(view);