jQuery Tooltips with Arrows

A quick example to show how you can use the ::before and ::after pseudo elements to create arrows to be used with jQuery UI's tooltip widget.

by Shobhit Sharma

HTML

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.9.0/themes/base/jquery-ui.css">
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.9.0/jquery-ui.js"></script>
<div id="options">
    <label for="top">Top</label><input type="radio" name="option" value="top" id="top" />    
    <label for="bottom">Bottom</label><input type="radio" name="option" value="bottom" id="bottom" />
    <label for="left">Left</label><input type="radio" value="left" name="option" id="left" />
    <label for="right">Right</label><input type="radio" value="right" name="option" id="right" checked />
</div>

<div>
    <input type="text" title="I am a tooltip!" />
</div>

CSS

body { padding: 20px; }

input[type="text"] { margin: 100px 0 0 200px; }

.ui-tooltip {
    background: #666;
    color: white;
    border: none;
    padding: 0;
    opacity: 1;
}
.ui-tooltip-content {
    position: relative;
    padding: 1em;
}
.ui-tooltip-content::after {
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    border-style: solid;
    display: block;
    width: 0;
}
.right .ui-tooltip-content::after {
    top: 18px;
    left: -10px;
    border-color: transparent #666;
    border-width: 10px 10px 10px 0;
}
.left .ui-tooltip-content::after {
    top: 18px;
    right: -10px;
    border-color: transparent #666;
    border-width: 10px 0 10px 10px;
}
.top .ui-tooltip-content::after {
    bottom: -10px;
    left: 72px;
    border-color: #666 transparent;
    border-width: 10px 10px 0;    
}
.bottom .ui-tooltip-content::after {
    top: -10px;
    left: 72px;
    border-color: #666 transparent;
    border-width: 0 10px 10px;
}

JavaScript

$('input[type="radio"]').on('change', function() {
    var className = $(this).val();
    var position;
    switch (className) {
        case 'top':
            position = { my: 'center bottom', at: 'center top-10' };
            break;
        case 'bottom':
            position = { my: 'center top', at: 'center bottom+10' };
            break;
        case 'left':
            position = { my: 'right center', at: 'left-10 center' };
            break;
        case 'right':
            position = { my: 'left center', at: 'right+10 center' };
            break;
    }
    position.collision = 'none';
    
    $('input[type="text"]').tooltip('option', 'position', position);
    $('input[type="text"]').tooltip('option', 'tooltipClass', className);
});

$('#options').buttonset();
$('input[type="text"]').tooltip();
$('input[value="right"]').trigger('change');