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Diagram Tooltips
Premium

Updated on Aug 14, 2026

The KendoReact Diagram lets you display tooltips when hovering over shapes and connections. Tooltips provide additional information about diagram elements and enhance the user experience.

The following example demonstrates shape and connection tooltips with custom React templates, showing employee details and relationship information on hover.

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Basic Configuration

The tooltip content is specified using the tooltipText property on shapes and the tooltipText property on connections. This property holds the text that displays when the user hovers over the element.

To control when tooltips appear, use the tooltip.visible property. You can enable tooltips globally for all elements or individually for specific shapes and connections.

tsx
const shapes: ShapeOptions[] = [
    {
        id: '1',
        content: { text: 'CEO' },
        tooltipText: 'Chief Executive Officer',
        tooltip: { visible: true }
    }
];

const connections: ConnectionOptions[] = [
    {
        from: '1',
        to: '2',
        tooltipText: 'Reports to CEO',
        tooltip: { visible: true }
    }
];

The following example demonstrates basic tooltip configuration with simple text tooltips for shapes and connections.

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Controlling Tooltip Visibility

Tooltips can be enabled globally for all shapes and connections, or individually per item.

Global Enablement

To enable tooltips for all shapes in the Diagram, set the tooltip.visible property to true in the shapeDefaults configuration. Similarly, enable tooltips for all connections using the connectionDefaults configuration.

tsx
const shapeDefaults: ShapeDefaults = {
    tooltip: {
        visible: true
    }
};

const connectionDefaults: ConnectionDefaults = {
    tooltip: {
        visible: true
    }
};

When tooltips are enabled globally, the Diagram displays tooltips for items that have a tooltipText property defined.

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Per-Item Enablement

You can also enable or disable tooltips for individual shapes or connections by setting the tooltip.visible property on the item. This overrides the global default configuration.

tsx
const shapes: ShapeOptions[] = [
    {
        id: '1',
        content: { text: 'Manager' },
        tooltip: { visible: true },
        tooltipText: 'Department Manager - Oversees daily operations'
    },
    {
        id: '2',
        content: { text: 'Developer' },
        tooltip: { visible: false }, // Tooltip disabled for this shape
        tooltipText: 'This tooltip will not be displayed'
    }
];

The following example demonstrates per-element tooltip enablement where some shapes and connections have tooltips disabled while others remain enabled.

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Customizing Tooltips

The Diagram provides several options for customizing tooltip appearance and content, from simple styling with CSS classes to advanced customization using React templates.

The following example demonstrates how to use both shape and connection tooltip templates together to create a comprehensive tooltip experience.

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Styling Tooltips

You can apply custom styles to tooltips using the cssClass option. This allows you to define specific CSS classes that style the tooltip's appearance.

tsx
const shapes: ShapeOptions[] = [
    {
        id: '1',
        content: { text: 'Designer' },
        tooltipText: 'Creative Designer - Crafts visual concepts',
        tooltip: {
            visible: true,
            cssClass: 'role-tooltip'
        }
    }
];

The following example demonstrates how to style tooltips using the cssClass option.

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Shape Tooltip Template

Use the DiagramShapeTooltip component to define a custom template for shape tooltips. The template context provides direct access to the shape's dataItem.

tsx
import { DiagramShapeTooltip } from '@progress/kendo-react-diagram';

const shapeTooltipRender = (shape: any) => (
    <div style={{ padding: 8 }}>
        <strong>{shape.dataItem.name}</strong>
        <p style={{ margin: '4px 0 0' }}>{shape.dataItem.title}</p>
    </div>
);

const App = () => (
    <Diagram shapes={shapes} connections={connections}>
        <DiagramShapeTooltip>
            {shapeTooltipRender}
        </DiagramShapeTooltip>
    </Diagram>
);

You can access any properties defined in your shape's data model through the dataItem property.

The following example demonstrates a custom shape tooltip template with employee information.

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Connection Tooltip Template

Use the DiagramConnectionTooltip component to define a custom template for connection tooltips. The template context provides direct access to the connection's dataItem.

tsx
import { DiagramConnectionTooltip } from '@progress/kendo-react-diagram';

const connectionTooltipRender = (connection: any) => (
    <div style={{ padding: 8 }}>
        <strong>From:</strong> {connection.from}<br/>
        <strong>To:</strong> {connection.to}
    </div>
);

const App = () => (
    <Diagram shapes={shapes} connections={connections}>
        <DiagramConnectionTooltip>
            {connectionTooltipRender}
        </DiagramConnectionTooltip>
    </Diagram>
);

You can access any properties defined in your connection's data model through the dataItem property.

The following example demonstrates a custom connection tooltip template with financial transfer information.

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See Also