Forem: Jesica

Hacky Way to Customize Shadcn’s Tooltip Arrows

Jesica — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Shadcn is a go-to library for copy-paste UI components in React projects. One commonly used component is the Tooltip, which is built on top of @radix-ui/react-tooltip .

The default tooltip looks like this:

Adding Tooltip Arrows

While the provided component works well out of the box, I found myself wanting to add more customization—like adding an arrow to the tooltip. For inspiration, I turned to the Tooltip component from tremor.so, which is also based on @radix-ui/react-tooltip.

Fortunately, adding an arrow is straightforward since @radix-ui/react-tooltip includes an Arrow component. You simply need to include it inside the Content component.

import * as TooltipPrimitives from '@radix-ui/react-tooltip'

export default () => (
  <TooltipPrimitives.Provider>
    <TooltipPrimitives.Root>
      <TooltipPrimitives.Trigger />
      <TooltipPrimitives.Portal>
        <TooltipPrimitives.Content>
          <TooltipPrimitives.Arrow /> // Add the Arrow component here
        </TooltipPrimitives.Content>
      </TooltipPrimitives.Portal>
    </TooltipPrimitives.Root>
  </TooltipPrimitives.Provider>
)

However, what if you want to add a border around the entire tooltip, including the arrow?

Adding a Tooltip Border

To achieve this, you’ll need to style the Arrow component. Let’s explore some approaches:

Naive Approach

Adding a border directly to the Arrow using Tailwind classes seems like a good starting point:

<TooltipPrimitives.Arrow
  className='border border-[var(--tooltip-border-color)] fill-[var(--tooltip-color)]'
  width={12}
  height={7}
  aria-hidden='true'
/>

However, this approach doesn’t work as expected. The border property applies to the rectangular boundary of the element, not the arrow shape itself.

Using the `stroke` Property

Since the Arrow is an SVG element, you can use the stroke property to define a border:

<TooltipPrimitives.Arrow
  className='border-none fill-[var(--tooltip-color)]'
  stroke='var(--tooltip-border-color)'
  stroke-width='2'
  width={12}
  height={7}
  aria-hidden='true'
/>

This works better, but the arrow’s top border is still visible. To fix this, let’s explore another method.

Exploring the Drop Shadow Option

Another method is using a drop-shadow to simulate the border:

<TooltipPrimitives.Arrow
  className='-my-px border-none fill-[var(--tooltip-color)] drop-shadow-[0_1px_0_red]'
  width={12}
  height={7}
  aria-hidden='true'
/>

This creates a visually seamless tooltip with an arrow and border, but it might not always be the most precise solution depending on your use case.

It’s worth mentioning that this solution is inspired by the Tooltip component from Origin UI, which provides various customizable tooltip variants that can save development time.

How about styling it even more, like using my own custom SVG?

Custom SVG Arrow

I often visit Vercel’s website, and their dropdown navigation bar caught my eye, particularly the arrow.

Curious about how it was designed, I opened the dev tools, inspected the elements, and found the SVG arrow. I then copied it and pasted it into Figma for a closer look.

I thought it could be an interesting design choice for a tooltip arrow.

Positioning

Positioning the SVG arrow depends on the tooltip’s placement—top, bottom, left, or right. The Content component exposes a data-side attribute, which you can use to adjust positioning dynamically:

[data-side='top'] svg {
  bottom: -9px;
  left: 50%;
  transform: translateX(-50%);
}

[data-side='bottom'] svg {
  top: -9px;
  left: 50%;
  transform: translateX(-50%) rotate(180deg);
}

[data-side='left'] svg {
  right: -20.25px;
  top: 50%;
  transform: translateY(-50%) rotate(-90deg);
}

[data-side='right'] svg {
  left: -20.25px;
  top: 50%;
  transform: translateY(-50%) rotate(90deg);
}

Next, we could replace the built-in tooltip Arrow component with our custom design. It should work perfectly, right?

Well, not quite yet. Take a look at this: the arrow is stuck in the center of the tooltip instead of being positioned near the trigger.

This undesired behavior happens because we only defined a static position for each side. Instead, we need to use a dynamic position to solve this issue.

Dynamic Position

Let’s start by using the built-in Arrow component again. If you inspect the Arrow component in the dev tools while simulating the tooltip position change, you’ll notice that the SVG element is wrapped in a span with a left CSS property.

This value dynamically changes based on the tooltip's position. We can capture this left CSS value and apply it to our custom arrow component.

To track this left value, we need to observe it using a MutationObserver.

// tooltip-arrow-primitive.tsx

import { Arrow } from '@radix-ui/react-tooltip'
import React from 'react'

const TooltipArrowPrimitive = () => {
  const arrowRef = React.useRef<SVGSVGElement>(null)

  React.useEffect(() => {
    const spanArrow = arrowRef.current?.parentElement

    const observer = new MutationObserver(() => {
      if (!spanArrow) return

      const style = window.getComputedStyle(spanArrow)

      // Get our custom tooltip component by its id
      const tooltipArrow = document.getElementById('tooltip-arrow')

      // Assign the left value as the style attribute
      tooltipArrow?.setAttribute('style', `left: ${style.left};`)
    })

    if (spanArrow) {
      observer.observe(spanArrow, {
        attributes: true, // Observe changes to attributes
        attributeFilter: ['style'] // Only look for changes to the style attribute
      })
    }

    return () => {
      observer.disconnect()
    }
  }, [])

  return <Arrow ref={arrowRef} id='primitive-arrow' className='opacity-0' />
}

export default TooltipArrowPrimitive

Then, we can call it inside the Content component.

import CustomTooltipArrow from './tooltip-arrow'
import TooltipArrowPrimitive from './tooltip-arrow-primitive'

export default () => (
  // Adjust each component props as needed
  <TooltipPrimitives.Provider>
    <TooltipPrimitives.Root>
      <TooltipPrimitives.Trigger />
      <TooltipPrimitives.Portal>
        <TooltipPrimitives.Content ref={forwardedRef} {...props}>
          {children}
          {showArrow && (
            <>
              <TooltipArrowPrimitive />
              <CustomTooltipArrow />
            </>
          )}
        </TooltipPrimitives.Content>
      </TooltipPrimitives.Portal>
    </TooltipPrimitives.Root>
  </TooltipPrimitives.Provider>
)

Final Result

It’s working as expected now 🥳🎉

P.S. You might want to adjust the top position if you prefer displaying the tooltip on the left or right side.

Conclusion

While this approach works, I’m sure there are UI libraries that allow for easier and more flexible tooltip styling. However, it feels rewarding to have found a workaround for this. If you're interested in exploring other options, you might want to check out this discussion.

Setting Dynamic Default Values with Zod Schema

Jesica — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Zod provides a powerful way to define schemas for validating and transforming data. You can easily define default values for properties.

but what if you need a default value based on another property in the schema?

Let’s explore how to handle that using Zod.

Simple Default Value

First, let’s see how we can define a simple default value for a property using Zod:

const schema = z.object({
  name: z.string().default('John Doe')
})

In this example, the name property will have a default value of 'John Doe' if not supplied during parsing.

What If the Default Depends on Another Property?

Now, let’s consider a more complex case where the default value of one property depends on another. For instance, imagine we have a blog schema where the displayedTitle is the same as the title, but with a line break included for formatting purposes.

Here’s the basic schema:

const blogSchema = z.object({
  title: z.string(),
  displayedTitle: z.string()
})

Next, let’s define a blogData object:

const blogData = {
  title: 'Bookmarked: Your Go-To Tool for Curating Tweets in Notion',
  displayedTitle: 'Bookmarked: Your Go-To Tool for\nCurating Tweets in Notion'
}

blogSchema.parse(blogData) // parsed successfully and returns blogData

In the example above, both title and displayedTitle are provided. But what if we don’t want to define both title and displayedTitle manually, especially when they share the same value?

Conditional Defaults with `transform`

We can make the displayedTitle optional and derive it from title when necessary. This way, you only need to provide one value, and the other one is computed automatically.

Here’s how to update the schema:

const blogSchema = z
  .object({
    title: z.string(),
    displayedTitle: z.string().optional() // makes displayedTitle optional
  })
  .transform((data) => ({
    ...data,
    displayedTitle: data.displayedTitle || data.title // fallback to title if displayedTitle is undefined
  }))

Now, if displayedTitle is not provided, it will fall back to using the title property.

For example:

const blogData = {
  title: 'This is the title without linebreak'
}

const parsedData = blogSchema.parse(blogData) // parsed successfully
console.log(parsedData)
// {
// title: "This is the title without linebreak",
// displayedTitle: "This is the title without linebreak"
// }

As you can see, displayedTitle is derived from title automatically when it's missing.

Simplifying the Schema with Inferred Values

We can further simplify this by only defining the displayedTitle, and having title inferred automatically by transforming the value. For instance, you might want to replace line breaks (\n) in displayedTitle with spaces in title:

const blogSchema = z
  .object({
    displayedTitle: z.string()
  })
  .transform((data) => ({
    ...data,
    title: data.displayedTitle.replace('\\n', ' ') // removes the linebreaks from title
  }))

const blogData = {
  displayedTitle: 'This is the title\nwith linebreak'
}

const parsedData = blogSchema.parse(blogData) // parsed successfully
console.log(parsedData)
// {
// title: "This is the title with linebreak",
// displayedTitle: "This is the title\nwith linebreak"
// }

Here, we’ve reduced the schema to only require displayedTitle, and the title is inferred automatically by removing the \n characters.

Conclusion

Zod allows you to create flexible schemas that validate data and derive properties based on other values. Its transform method offers an elegant solution for handling default values and derived properties efficiently.

Forem: Jesica

Hacky Way to Customize Shadcn’s Tooltip Arrows

Introduction

Adding Tooltip Arrows

Adding a Tooltip Border

Naive Approach

Using the stroke Property

Exploring the Drop Shadow Option

Custom SVG Arrow

Positioning

Dynamic Position

Final Result

Conclusion

Setting Dynamic Default Values with Zod Schema

Introduction

Simple Default Value

What If the Default Depends on Another Property?

Conditional Defaults with transform

Simplifying the Schema with Inferred Values

Conclusion

Using the `stroke` Property

Conditional Defaults with `transform`