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Bootstrap 5 Popovers

Popovers

Documentation and examples for adding Bootstrap popovers, like those found in iOS, to any element on your site.

Other frameworks

CoreUI components are available as native Angular, React, and Vue components. To learn more please visit the following pages.

On this page

Overview

Things to know when using the popover plugin:

  • Popovers rely on the 3rd party library Popper for positioning. You must include popper.min.js before coreui.js or use coreui.bundle.min.js / coreui.bundle.js which contains Popper in order for popovers to work!
  • Popovers require the tooltip plugin as a dependency.
  • Popovers are opt-in for performance reasons, so you must initialize them yourself.
  • Zero-length title and content values will never show a popover.
  • Specify container: 'body' to avoid rendering problems in more complex components (like our input groups, button groups, etc).
  • Triggering popovers on hidden elements will not work.
  • Popovers for .disabled or disabled elements must be triggered on a wrapper element.
  • When triggered from anchors that wrap across multiple lines, popovers will be centered between the anchors’ overall width. Use .text-nowrap on your <a>s to avoid this behavior.
  • Popovers must be hidden before their corresponding elements have been removed from the DOM.
  • Popovers can be triggered thanks to an element inside a shadow DOM.
By default, this component uses the built-in content sanitizer, which strips out any HTML elements that are not explicitly allowed. See the sanitizer section in our JavaScript documentation for more details.
The animation effect of this component is dependent on the prefers-reduced-motion media query. See the reduced motion section of our accessibility documentation.

Keep reading to see how popovers work with some examples.

Examples

Enable popovers everywhere

One way to initialize all popovers on a page would be to select them by their data-coreui-toggle attribute:

const popoverTriggerList = document.querySelectorAll('[data-coreui-toggle="popover"]')
const popoverList = [...popoverTriggerList].map(popoverTriggerEl => new coreui.Popover(popoverTriggerEl))

Live demo

We use JavaScript similar to the snippet above to render the following live popover. Titles are set via data-coreui-title and body content is set via data-coreui-content.

Feel free to use either title or data-coreui-title in your HTML. When title is used, Popper will replace it automatically with data-coreui-title when the element is rendered.
html 
<button type="button" class="btn btn-lg btn-danger" data-coreui-toggle="popover" title="Popover title" data-coreui-content="And here's some amazing content. It's very engaging. Right?">Click to toggle popover</button>

Four directions

Four options are available: top, right, bottom, and left aligned. Directions are mirrored when using CoreUI in RTL.

html 
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-coreui-container="body" data-coreui-toggle="popover" data-coreui-placement="top" data-coreui-content="Top popover">
  Popover on top
</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-coreui-container="body" data-coreui-toggle="popover" data-coreui-placement="right" data-coreui-content="Right popover">
  Popover on right
</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-coreui-container="body" data-coreui-toggle="popover" data-coreui-placement="bottom" data-coreui-content="Bottom popover">
  Popover on bottom
</button>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary" data-coreui-container="body" data-coreui-toggle="popover" data-coreui-placement="left" data-coreui-content="Left popover">
  Popover on left
</button>

Using the container option

When you have some styles on a parent element that interfere with a popover, you’ll want to specify a custom container so that the popover’s HTML appears within that element instead.

const popover = new coreui.Popover(document.querySelector('.example-popover'), {
  container: 'body'
})

Custom popovers

Added in v4.2.6

You can customize the appearance of popovers using CSS variables. We set a custom class with data-coreui-custom-class="custom-popover" to scope our custom appearance and use it to override some of the local CSS variables.

docs/assets/scss/_component-examples.scss
.custom-popover {
  --cui-popover-max-width: 200px;
  --cui-popover-border-color: var(--cui-primary);
  --cui-popover-header-bg: var(--cui-primary);
  --cui-popover-header-color: var(--cui-white);
  --cui-popover-body-padding-x: 1rem;
  --cui-popover-body-padding-y: .5rem;
}
html 
<button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary"
        data-coreui-toggle="popover" data-coreui-placement="right"
        data-coreui-custom-class="custom-popover"
        data-coreui-title="Custom popover"
        data-coreui-content="This popover is themed via CSS variables.">
  Custom popover
</button>

Dismiss on next click

Use the focus trigger to dismiss popovers on the user’s next click of a different element than the toggle element.

Specific markup required for dismiss-on-next-click

For proper cross-browser and cross-platform behavior, you must use the <a> tag, not the <button> tag, and you also must include a tabindex attribute.

Dismissible popover
html 
<a tabindex="0" class="btn btn-lg btn-danger" role="button" data-coreui-toggle="popover" data-coreui-trigger="focus" title="Dismissible popover" data-coreui-content="And here's some amazing content. It's very engaging. Right?">Dismissible popover</a>
const popover = new coreui.Popover(document.querySelector('.popover-dismiss'), {
  trigger: 'focus'
})

Disabled elements

Elements with the disabled attribute aren’t interactive, meaning users cannot hover or click them to trigger a popover (or tooltip). As a workaround, you’ll want to trigger the popover from a wrapper <div> or <span>, ideally made keyboard-focusable using tabindex="0".

For disabled popover triggers, you may also prefer data-coreui-trigger="hover focus" so that the popover appears as immediate visual feedback to your users as they may not expect to click on a disabled element.

html 
<span class="d-inline-block" tabindex="0" data-coreui-toggle="popover" data-coreui-trigger="hover focus" data-coreui-content="Disabled popover">
  <button class="btn btn-primary" type="button" disabled>Disabled button</button>
</span>

Usage

Heads up! In our documentation, all examples show standard CoreUI implementation. If you are using a Bootstrap-compatible version of CoreUI, remember to use the following changes:

  • In the constructor, please use bootstrap instead of coreui. For example, new bootstrap.Alert(...) instead of new coreui.Alert(...)
  • In events, please use bs instead of coreui, for example close.bs.alert instead of close.coreui.alert
  • In data attributes, please use bs instead of coreui. For example, data-bs-toggle="..." instead of data-coreui-toggle="..."

Enable popovers via JavaScript:

const exampleEl = document.getElementById('example')
const popover = new coreui.Popover(exampleEl, options)

Making popovers work for keyboard and assistive technology users

To allow keyboard users to activate your popovers, you should only add them to HTML elements that are traditionally keyboard-focusable and interactive (such as links or form controls). Although arbitrary HTML elements (such as <span>s) can be made focusable by adding the tabindex="0" attribute, this will add potentially annoying and confusing tab stops on non-interactive elements for keyboard users, and most assistive technologies currently do not announce the popover’s content in this situation. Additionally, do not rely solely on hover as the trigger for your popovers, as this will make them impossible to trigger for keyboard users.

While you can insert rich, structured HTML in popovers with the html option, we strongly recommend that you avoid adding an excessive amount of content. The way popovers currently work is that, once displayed, their content is tied to the trigger element with the aria-describedby attribute. As a result, the entirety of the popover’s content will be announced to assistive technology users as one long, uninterrupted stream.

Additionally, while it is possible to also include interactive controls (such as form elements or links) in your popover (by adding these elements to the allowList of allowed attributes and tags), be aware that currently the popover does not manage keyboard focus order. When a keyboard user opens a popover, focus remains on the triggering element, and as the popover usually does not immediately follow the trigger in the document’s structure, there is no guarantee that moving forward/pressing TAB will move a keyboard user into the popover itself. In short, simply adding interactive controls to a popover is likely to make these controls unreachable/unusable for keyboard users and users of assistive technologies, or at the very least make for an illogical overall focus order. In these cases, consider using a modal dialog instead.

Options

Options can be passed via data attributes or JavaScript. For data attributes, append the option name to data-coreui-, as in data-coreui-animation="". Make sure to change the case type of the option name from camelCase to kebab-case when passing via data attributes. For example: instead of using data-coreui-customClass="beautifier", use data-coreui-custom-class="beautifier".

Note that for security reasons the sanitize, sanitizeFn, and allowList options cannot be supplied using data attributes.
Name Type Default Description
allowList object Default value Object which contains allowed attributes and tags.
animation boolean true Apply a CSS fade transition to the popover
boundary string, element 'clippingParents' Overflow constraint boundary of the popover (applies only to Popper’s preventOverflow modifier). By default, it’s 'clippingParents' and can accept an HTMLElement reference (via JavaScript only). For more information refer to Popper’s detectOverflow docs.
container string, element, false false Appends the popover to a specific element. Example: container: 'body'. This option is particularly useful in that it allows you to position the popover in the flow of the document near the triggering element - which will prevent the popover from floating away from the triggering element during a window resize.
content string, element, function '' Default content value if data-coreui-content attribute isn’t present. If a function is given, it will be called with its this reference set to the element that the popover is attached to.
customClass string, function '' Add classes to the popover when it is shown. Note that these classes will be added in addition to any classes specified in the template. To add multiple classes, separate them with spaces: 'class-1 class-2'. You can also pass a function that should return a single string containing additional class names.
delay number, object 0 Delay showing and hiding the popover (ms)—doesn’t apply to manual trigger type. If a number is supplied, delay is applied to both hide/show. Object structure is: delay: { "show": 500, "hide": 100 }.
fallbackPlacements string, array ['top', 'right', 'bottom', 'left'] Define fallback placements by providing a list of placements in array (in order of preference). For more information refer to Popper’s behavior docs.
html boolean false Allow HTML in the popover. If true, HTML tags in the popover’s title will be rendered in the popover. If false, innerText property will be used to insert content into the DOM. Use text if you’re worried about XSS attacks.
offset number, string, function [0, 8] Offset of the popover relative to its target. You can pass a string in data attributes with comma separated values like: data-coreui-offset="10,20". When a function is used to determine the offset, it is called with an object containing the popper placement, the reference, and popper rects as its first argument. The triggering element DOM node is passed as the second argument. The function must return an array with two numbers: skidding, distance. For more information refer to Popper’s offset docs.
placement string, function 'right' How to position the popover: auto, top, bottom, left, right. When auto is specified, it will dynamically reorient the popover. When a function is used to determine the placement, it is called with the popover DOM node as its first argument and the triggering element DOM node as its second. The this context is set to the popover instance.
popperConfig null, object, function null To change CoreUI for Bootstrap’s default Popper config, see Popper’s configuration. When a function is used to create the Popper configuration, it’s called with an object that contains the CoreUI for Bootstrap’s default Popper configuration. It helps you use and merge the default with your own configuration. The function must return a configuration object for Popper.
sanitize boolean true Enable or disable the sanitization. If activated 'template', 'content' and 'title' options will be sanitized.
sanitizeFn null, function null Here you can supply your own sanitize function. This can be useful if you prefer to use a dedicated library to perform sanitization.
selector string, false false If a selector is provided, popover objects will be delegated to the specified targets. In practice, this is used to also apply popovers to dynamically added DOM elements (jQuery.on support). See this issue and an informative example. Note: title attribute must not be used as a selector.
template string '<div class="popover" role="popover"><div class="popover-arrow"></div><div class="popover-body"></div></div>' Base HTML to use when creating the popover. The popover’s title will be injected into the .popover-body. .popover-arrow will become the popover’s arrow. The outermost wrapper element should have the .popover class and role="popover".
title string, element, function '' Default title value if title attribute isn’t present. If a function is given, it will be called with its this reference set to the element that the popover is attached to.
trigger string 'click' How popover is triggered: click, hover, focus, manual. You may pass multiple triggers; separate them with a space. 'manual' indicates that the popover will be triggered programmatically via the .popover('show'), .popover('hide') and .popover('toggle') methods; this value cannot be combined with any other trigger. 'hover' on its own will result in popovers that cannot be triggered via the keyboard, and should only be used if alternative methods for conveying the same information for keyboard users is present.

Data attributes for individual popovers

Options for individual popovers can alternatively be specified through the use of data attributes, as explained above.

Using function with popperConfig 

const popover = new coreui.Popover(element, {
  popperConfig(defaultBsPopperConfig) {
    // const newPopperConfig = {...}
    // use defaultBsPopperConfig if needed...
    // return newPopperConfig
  }
})

Methods

Asynchronous methods and transitions

All API methods are asynchronous and start a transition. They return to the caller as soon as the transition is started but before it ends. In addition, a method call on a transitioning component will be ignored.

See our JavaScript documentation for more information.

Method Description
disable Removes the ability for an element’s popover to be shown. The popover will only be able to be shown if it is re-enabled.
dispose Hides and destroys an element’s popover (Removes stored data on the DOM element). Popovers that use delegation (which are created using the selector option) cannot be individually destroyed on descendant trigger elements.
enable Gives an element’s popover the ability to be shown. Popovers are enabled by default.
getInstance Static method which allows you to get the popover instance associated with a DOM element.
getOrCreateInstance Static method which allows you to get the popover instance associated with a DOM element, or create a new one in case it wasn’t initialized
hide Hides an element’s popover. Returns to the caller before the popover has actually been hidden (i.e. before the hidden.coreui.popover event occurs). This is considered a “manual” triggering of the popover.
setContent Gives a way to change the popover’s content after its initialization.
show Reveals an element’s popover. Returns to the caller before the popover has actually been shown (i.e. before the shown.coreui.popover event occurs). This is considered a “manual” triggering of the popover. Popovers whose title and content are both zero-length are never displayed.
toggle Toggles an element’s popover. Returns to the caller before the popover has actually been shown or hidden (i.e. before the shown.coreui.popover or hidden.coreui.popover event occurs). This is considered a “manual” triggering of the popover.
toggleEnabled Toggles the ability for an element’s popover to be shown or hidden.
update Updates the position of an element’s popover. 
// getOrCreateInstance example
const popover = coreui.Popover.getOrCreateInstance('#example') // Returns a Bootstrap popover instance

// setContent example
myPopover.setContent({
  '.popover-header': 'another title',
  '.popover-body': 'another content'
})
The setContent method accepts an object argument, where each property-key is a valid string selector within the popover template, and each related property-value can be string | element | function | null

Events

Event Description
show.coreui.popover This event fires immediately when the show instance method is called.
shown.coreui.popover This event is fired when the popover has been made visible to the user (will wait for CSS transitions to complete).
hide.coreui.popover This event is fired immediately when the hide instance method has been called.
hidden.coreui.popover This event is fired when the popover has finished being hidden from the user (will wait for CSS transitions to complete).
inserted.coreui.popover This event is fired after the show.coreui.popover event when the popover template has been added to the DOM. 
const myPopoverTrigger = document.getElementById('myPopover')
myPopoverTrigger.addEventListener('hidden.coreui.popover', () => {
  // do something...
})

Customizing

CSS variables

Popovers use local CSS variables on .popover for enhanced real-time customization. Values for the CSS variables are set via Sass, so Sass customization is still supported, too.

scss/_popover.scss
--#{$prefix}popover-zindex: #{$zindex-popover};
--#{$prefix}popover-max-width: #{$popover-max-width};
@include rfs($popover-font-size, --#{$prefix}popover-font-size);
--#{$prefix}popover-bg: #{$popover-bg};
--#{$prefix}popover-border-width: #{$popover-border-width};
--#{$prefix}popover-border-color: #{$popover-border-color};
--#{$prefix}popover-border-radius: #{$popover-border-radius};
--#{$prefix}popover-inner-border-radius: #{$popover-inner-border-radius};
--#{$prefix}popover-box-shadow: #{$popover-box-shadow};
--#{$prefix}popover-header-padding-x: #{$popover-header-padding-x};
--#{$prefix}popover-header-padding-y: #{$popover-header-padding-y};
@include rfs($popover-header-font-size, --#{$prefix}popover-header-font-size);
--#{$prefix}popover-header-color: #{$popover-header-color};
--#{$prefix}popover-header-bg: #{$popover-header-bg};
--#{$prefix}popover-body-padding-x: #{$popover-body-padding-x};
--#{$prefix}popover-body-padding-y: #{$popover-body-padding-y};
--#{$prefix}popover-body-color: #{$popover-body-color};
--#{$prefix}popover-arrow-width: #{$popover-arrow-width};
--#{$prefix}popover-arrow-height: #{$popover-arrow-height};
--#{$prefix}popover-arrow-border: var(--#{$prefix}popover-border-color);

SASS variables

scss/_variables.scss
$popover-font-size:                 $font-size-sm;
$popover-bg:                        var(--#{$prefix}body-bg);
$popover-max-width:                 276px;
$popover-border-width:              var(--#{$prefix}border-width);
$popover-border-color:              var(--#{$prefix}border-color-translucent);
$popover-border-radius:             var(--#{$prefix}border-radius-lg);
$popover-inner-border-radius:       calc(#{$popover-border-radius} - #{$popover-border-width}); // stylelint-disable-line function-disallowed-list
$popover-box-shadow:                var(--#{$prefix}box-shadow);

$popover-header-font-size:          $font-size-base;
$popover-header-bg:                 var(--#{$prefix}secondary-bg);
$popover-header-color:              $headings-color;
$popover-header-padding-y:          .5rem;
$popover-header-padding-x:          $spacer;

$popover-body-color:                var(--#{$prefix}body-color);
$popover-body-padding-y:            $spacer;
$popover-body-padding-x:            $spacer;

$popover-arrow-width:               1rem;
$popover-arrow-height:              .5rem;