Skip to main content
Meta Stack Exchange

Return to Revisions

2 of 2
Why haiku is here / I tried to make it more clear. / A competition
VLAZ
VLAZ
  • 16.2k
  • 3
  • 37
  • 91

The new contributor tooltip makes it too hard to add comments

A haiku

Tooltip is zealous
in promoting temperance.
It is frustrating.

The new contributor tooltip advises us to take care when commenting but in some cases it's too proactive in preventing comments. If there are no comments and you want to add the first one, here is where the button is located:

Screenshot of the user information box which has a "New contributor" indicator. The "Add Comment" button right under it.

Now, if I were to try and click the button with my mouse and my mouse happens to brush against the "New contributor indicator" the toolip pops immediately underneath. The tooltip is not dismissed until I move my mouse cursor away from it. Therein lies the problem - the tooltip now obscures the majority of the "Add Comment" button:

Screenshot of the user information with the "New contributor" tooltip showing and obscuring the majority of the the the "Add Comment" button. Only the final "ent" can be seen from the button. Approximate location of the button behind the tooltip is drawn on the image.

(freehand circle added to show where the "Add comment" button is located)

I am now unable to click on the add comment button with the mouse.

Since there is no delay to showing the tooltip, that means that in a lot of cases when you're moving your mouse from roughly above the user contributor box to click the button, you trigger the tooltip and move your mouse on top of the tooltip.

Screenshot of the user information box which has a "New contributor" indicator and the "Add Comment" button right under it. The area of the image where your mouse will pass if moving from top towoards the button is circled in red and arrows show possible paths for a mouse pointer. The area is labelled "DANGER ZONE!" in red.

This is the approximate illustration area where you might trigger the tooltip and be unable to press the button afterwards. Since your aim is the "Add Comment" button, that makes it very likely to happen if the mouse is roughly coming from above.

It is problematic just how much the tooltip is covering. The button is 105 pixels wide. The length from the left edge of the button to where the tooltip ends is close to 30px (I might be off by 1 or 2 pixels). This means that over 70% of the button is obscured.

Finally, yes I could just move my mouse to the side so the tooltip disappears but here is another frustration - if I move it up again, I'll trigger the tooltip again. Tooltip dismissal isn't something I'm used to thinking too hard about, I just move the mouse in random-ish direction. It sometimes ends up being to the right and sort of up (say, around 3 o'clock direction) and then down and I end up in the same situation.

Relevant other suggestions:

Please add a delay to the hover tooltips (MSE)
Add a delay on new style tooltips (MSO)

VLAZ
  • 16.2k
  • 3
  • 37
  • 91