Image-free CSS Tooltip Pointers with Polygonal CSS

The challenge in executing this for jQuery UI is that we’ll need to pull it off without relying on images for the triangle shapes, because the jQuery UI CSS Framework enables markup to be entirely re-themable, using an infinite combination of backgrounds, borders, corner radius, and more. Using custom images for the pointer triangles would never match the flexibility and scalability of CSS alone. Since polygonal CSS can create non-rectangular shapes without images, perhaps it can provide the means to achieve our goal. Polygonal CSS works by setting an element’s width to something small and then setting thick borders on less than 4 sides. To make a triangle shape, 2 of those borders have to have transparent color, essentially masking out the one visible border at an angle in attempt to connect corners.

Image-free CSS Tooltip Pointers with Polygonal CSS
Via / WebAppers

Tags: CSS, tooltips