Title: Text Hover
Author: Scott Reilly
Published: juli 15, 2009
Last modified: maart 23, 2022
---
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This plugin **hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress**.
It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when
used with more recent versions of WordPress.
# Text Hover
By [Scott Reilly](https://profiles.wordpress.org/coffee2code/)
[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/text-hover.4.2.zip)
* [Details](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/#description)
* [Reviews](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/#reviews)
* [Installation](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/#installation)
* [Development](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/#developers)
[Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/)
## Description
This plugin allows you to easily define help text that appears when a visitor hovers
their mouse over a word or phrase in a post or page.
Via the plugin’s settings, simply specify the words or phrases that you want to
be associated with hover text, and of course, the desired hover texts themselves.
The format is quite simple; an example of which is shown here:
```
WP => WordPress
Matt => Matt Mullenweg
The Scooby Shack => the bar where the gang hangs out
```
Additional features of the plugin controlled both via settings and filters:
* Hover text can be enabled for comments (it isn’t by default)
* Hover text can be made case insensitive (it is case sensitive by default)
* Hover text can be limited to doing only one replacement per term, per post (by
default, all occurrences of a term are given hovertext)
* Hover text can be rendered using the default browser tooltip (by default, the
better-looking [qTip2](http://qtip2.com/) library is used)
* Hover text can be expanded to affect other filters
**Note:** This is not the same as my [Text Replace](https://wordpress.org/plugins/text-replace)
plugin, which defines terms or phrases that you want replaced by replacement text
when displayed on your site. Text Hover instead adds the hover text as additional
information for when visitors hover over the term, which is otherwise displayed
in the post as you typed it.
Links: [Plugin Homepage](https://coffee2code.com/wp-plugins/text-hover/) | [Plugin Directory Page](https://wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/)
| [GitHub](https://github.com/coffee2code/text-hover/) | [Author Homepage](https://coffee2code.com)
### Developer Documentation
Developer documentation can be found in [DEVELOPER-DOCS.md](https://github.com/coffee2code/text-hover/blob/master/DEVELOPER-DOCS.md).
That documentation covers the numerous hooks provided by the plugin. Those hooks
are listed below to provide an overview of what’s available.
* `c2c_text_hover_filters` : Customize what hooks get text hover applied to them.
* `c2c_text_hover_third_party_filters` : Customize what third-party hooks get text
hover applied to them.
* `c2c_text_hover_filter_priority` : Override the default priority for the `c2c_text_hover`
filter.
* `c2c_text_hover` Customize or override the setting defining all of the text hover
terms and their hover texts.
* `c2c_text_hover_comments` : Customize or override the setting indicating if text
hover should be enabled in comments.
* `c2c_text_hover_case_sensitive` : Customize or override the setting indicating
if text hover should be case sensitive.
* `c2c_text_hover_once` : Customize or override the setting indicating if text
hovering should be limited to once per term per piece of text being processed
regardless of how many times the term appears.
* `c2c_text_hover_use_pretty_tooltips` : Customize or override the setting indicating
if prettier tooltips should be used.
## Screenshots
* [[
* The admin options page for the plugin, where you define the terms/acronyms/phrases
and their related hover text
* [[
* The plugin in action for a post when the mouse is hovering over a defined hover
text term using the pretty tooltips
* [[
* The plugin in action for a post when the mouse is hovering over a defined hover
text term using default browser tooltips (in this case, Chrome on OSX)
## Installation
1. Whether installing or updating, whether this plugin or any other, it is always
advisable to back-up your data before starting
2. Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer. Or download and unzip `text-
hover.zip` inside the plugins directory for your site (typically `wp-content/plugins/`)
3. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress
4. Go to the `Settings` -> `Text Hover` admin settings page and customize the settings(
namely to define the terms/abbreviations and their explanations).
5. Optional: Configure other plugin settings as desired.
6. Use the terms/abbreviations in posts and/or pages (terms/abbreviations appearing
in existing posts will also be affected by this plugin)
## FAQ
### In my posts, hover text terms do not appear any differently than regular text (though I can hover over them and see the hover text)! What gives?
The plugin currently makes use of the standard HTML tag `abbr` to specify the terms
and their hover text. Browsers have default handling and display of `abbr`. It’s
possibly that the CSS for your theme is overriding the default display. I use the
following in my site’s styles.css file to ensure it displays for me in the manner
I prefer (which, by the same token, you can use more CSS formatting to further format
the hover terms) :
```
abbr {
text-decoration: underline dotted #000;
}
```
### Does this plugin modify the post content in the database?
No. The plugin filters post content on-the-fly.
### Will this work for posts I wrote prior to installing this plugin?
Yes, if they include strings that you’ve now defined as terms.
### What post fields get handled by this plugin?
By default, the plugin filters the post content, post excerpt fields, widget text,
and optionally comments and comment excerpts. You can use the ‘c2c_text_hover_filters’
filter to modify that behavior (see Hooks section).
### How can I get text hover to apply for post titles (or something not processed for text hover by default)?
The easiest way would be to add “the_title” (or some other filter’s name) as a line
in the “More filters” setting. That setting allows any additional specified filters
to be processed for text hovers.
You can also programmatically add to the list of filters that get processed for
text hover terms. See the Hooks section for an example.
### Is the plugin case sensitive?
By default, yes. There is a setting you can change to make it case insensitive.
Or you can use the ‘c2c_text_hover_case_sensitive’ filter (see Hooks section). Note
that the option applies to all terms/abbreviations. If you want to selectively have
terms/acronyms be case insensitive, you should leave the case sensitive setting
checked and add a listing for each case variation you wish to support.
### Will all instances of a given term be hovered in a single post?
By default, yes. There is a setting you can change so that only the first occurrence
of the term in the post gets hovered. Or if you are a coder, you can use the ‘c2c_text_hover_replace_once’
filter (see Hooks section).
### Can I style the tooltip?
Yes, but only if you have the pretty tooltips enabled (via settings or the filter).
The class you want to style in your custom CSS is ‘.text-hover-qtip’.
### Does this plugin explicitly support any third-party plugins?
Yes. While this plugin is compatible with many other plugins that modify post and
widget text, this plugin has explicit built-in support for Advanced Custom Fields
and Elementor, which provide additional content areas. This plugin provides hooks
that can be used to enable compatibility with other plugins and themes.
If you know the name of the filter provided by a plugin, you can add it to the “
More filters” setting to have its value processed for text hover.
### Why can’t I find or access the plugin’s settings page even though the plugin is activated?
The plugin’s settings page is found at “Settings” -> “Text Hover” in the admin sidebar
menu.
In order to see that link in the menu and to access the plugin’s settings page to
configure the plugin, you must be logged in as an administrator. More specifically,
you must be a user with the ‘manage_options’ and ‘unfiltered_html’ capabilities,
which by default are capabilities of the ‘administrator’ role. If you have a custom
role, or your administrator role has been customized, such that both capabilities
are not assigned to you, then you cannot configure the plugin.
### Does this plugin include unit tests?
Yes.
## Reviews
### [So easy, love!](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/so-easy-love/)
[lshenefield](https://profiles.wordpress.org/lshenefield/) november 3, 2021
I’m using this for a pretty scientific site where definitions of terms need to be
clear to the reader as they go through the paragraphs. It’s easy to use and having
the definition list in one place creates quick updates. No going to each phrase
in a page. You just do it all at once in the setting. I had a hard time finding
the CSS for the hover box itself, but did find it down below in the FAQ on the WP
plugin page. Now the box matches the rest of the site. Thank you!
### [Works as intended and easy to use.](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/works-as-intended-and-easy-to-use/)
[CLRD](https://profiles.wordpress.org/clrd/) mei 21, 2020 2 replies
Simple to use and yet very effective. Note: In some languages, blank spaces (” “)
are not used for word separation (i.e. SomeLanguagesHaveNoSpacesInBetween) like
chinese, japanese, etc. Therefore in those situations it won’t work as it thinks“
SomeLanguagesHaveNoSpacesInBetween” is one word. As a work around, you need to space
out the word so this plugin works. Lets’ say you want to have the hover text just
for “have”, you’ll need to append and prepend a space (” “) like so: “SomeLanguages
Have NoSpacesInBetween”. An aesthetic sacrifice, but does the job.
### [Great!](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/great-10091/)
[thebeautybb](https://profiles.wordpress.org/thebeautybb/) augustus 21, 2019
Works perfectly and does what it says it will do: add text hover/tooltip functionality.
This plugin is easy to use and I’ve become a fan of all the plugins by this author(
Scott Reilly) that I’ve tried so far! Thanks for creating so many great plugins!
### [simple, backward compatible](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/simple-backward-compatible/)
[kenneth.vogt](https://profiles.wordpress.org/kennethvogt/) maart 27, 2017
No short codes are needed and it works on all your preexisting posts and pages.
It is stupid simple.
### [Awesome! My yellow-free version.](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/awesome-my-yellow-free-version/)
[lullabyman](https://profiles.wordpress.org/lullabyman/) februari 8, 2017
So … totally cool, and can I just say it’s amazing that this seems to be the only
plugin that adds hover text to text? Image hovers just seem dumb to me … because
they cover the image. That’s what a caption is for. Anywho if the yellow background
made you want to puke, like it did me try this hack (newbies: go to this plug-in,
click “edit”, then search for “new-text”, add this to the beginning of that line:“//”[
but without the quotes] to make it just a comment) and replace the $new-text command
with this: $new_text = “\\1”; now you might have to retype the single and double quotes to get it
work … wordpress sometimes converts those to the left and right quotes which will
kill your code.
[ Read all 17 reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/reviews/)
## Contributors & Developers
“Text Hover” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this
plugin.
Contributors
* [ Scott Reilly ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/coffee2code/)
“Text Hover” has been translated into 2 locales. Thank you to [the translators](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/text-hover/contributors)
for their contributions.
[Translate “Text Hover” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/text-hover)
### Interested in development?
[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/text-hover/), check
out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/text-hover/), or subscribe
to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/text-hover/) by
[RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/text-hover/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).
## Changelog
#### 4.2 (2022-03-22)
Highlights:
This release introduces security hardening to restrict HTML tags that can be used
as hover text in fancy tooltips, adds DEVELOPER-DOCS.md, notes compatibility through
WP 5.9, and minor settings page and documentation tweaks.
Details:
* Change: Disallow all but the most basic formatting markup within hover text.
Props Rohan Chaudhari.
- As continues to be the case, markup only ever works in the better looking
tooltips.
- This only enforces the already documented limited markup support to basic
formatting tags.
- Existing text hovers will be unaffected until the next time settings get saved.
* New: Add DEVELOPER-DOCS.md and move hooks documentation into it
* Change: Remove settings page helptext about ‘replace_once’ setting not applying
to multibyte strings since it’s no longer true
* Change: Lowercase the displayed values for ‘when’ setting
* Change: Move ‘code’ tags out of translatable string for ‘when’ setting
* Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.9+
* Change: Remove “A screenshot of” prefix from all screenshot captions
* Change: Tweak installation instructions in README.md
* Change: Fix typo in function docblock
* Change: Update copyright date (2022)
* New: Add a few more possible TODO items
#### 4.1 (2021-06-29)
Highlights:
This feature release adds a new setting to allow for user-specified filters to be
processed, updates the plugin framework significantly, improves the plugin settings
page, restructures unit test files, notes compatibility through WP 5.7, and more.
Details:
* New: Add new setting “More filters” to allow for user-specified filters to be
processed
* Change: Update plugin framework to 064
- 064:
- New: For checkbox settings, support a ‘more_help’ config option for defining
help text to appear below checkbox and its label
- Fix: Fix URL for plugin listing donate link
- Change: Store donation URL as object variable
- Change: Update strings used for settings page donation link
- 063:
- Fix: Simplify settings initialization to prevent conflicts with other plugins
- Change: Remove ability to detect plugin settings page before current screen
is set, as it is no longer needed
- Change: Enqueue thickbox during `'admin_enqueue_scripts'` action instead of
during `'init'`
- Change: Use `is_plugin_admin_page()` in `help_tabs()` instead of reproducing
its functionality
- Change: Trigger a debugging warning if `is_plugin_admin_page()` is used before`'
admin_init'` action is fired
- 062:
- Change: Update `is_plugin_admin_page()` to use `get_current_screen()` when
available
- Change: Actually prevent object cloning and unserialization by throwing an
error
- Change: Check that there is a current screen before attempting to access its
property
- Change: Remove ‘type’ attribute from `style` tag
- Change: Incorporate commonly defined styling for inline_textarea
- 061:
- Fix bug preventing settings from getting saved
- 060:
- Rename class from `c2c_{PluginName}_Plugin_051` to `c2c_Plugin_060`
- Move string translation handling into inheriting class making the plugin framework
code plugin-agnostic
* Add abstract function `get_c2c_string()` as a getter for translated strings
* Replace all existing string usage with calls to `get_c2c_string()`
- Handle WordPress’s deprecation of the use of the term “whitelist”
* Change: Rename `whitelist_options()` to `allowed_options()`
* Change: Use `add_allowed_options()` instead of deprecated `add_option_whitelist()`
for WP 5.5+
* Change: Hook `allowed_options` filter instead of deprecated `whitelist_options`
for WP 5.5+
- New: Add initial unit tests (currently just covering `is_wp_version_cmp()`
and `get_c2c_string()`)
- Add `is_wp_version_cmp()` as a utility to compare current WP version against
a given WP version
- Refactor `contextual_help()` to be easier to read, and correct function docblocks
- Don’t translate urlencoded donation email body text
- Add inline comments for translators to clarify purpose of placeholders
- Change PHP package name (make it singular)
- Tweak inline function description
- Note compatibility through WP 5.7+
- Update copyright date (2021)
- 051:
- Allow setting integer input value to include commas
- Use `number_format_i18n()` to format integer value within input field
- Update link to coffee2code.com to be HTTPS
- Update `readme_url()` to refer to plugin’s readme.txt on plugins.svn.wordpress.
org
- Remove defunct line of code
* New: Add `get_default_filters()` as getter for core filters, third-party filters,
or both
* Change: Allow displayed dropdown values for ‘when’ setting to be translated
* Change: Improve settings page help text by adding, rephrasing, relocating, and
tweaaking some formatting
* Change: Change text_to_hover setting from being a textarea to inline textarea
* Change: Move translation of all parent class strings into main plugin file
* Change: Output newlines after block-level tags in settings page
* Change: Omit ‘cols’ attribute for textarea since it is overridden
* Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.7+
* Change: Update copyright date (2021)
* Change: Change plugin’s short description
* Change: Tweak plugin’s readme.txt tags
* Change: Sync installation instructions in README.txt with what’s in readme.txt
* Fix: Use correct textdomain for a string translation
* Unit tests:
- Change: Restructure unit test directories and files into `tests/` top-level
directory
* Change: Move `bin/` into `tests/`
* Change: Move `tests/bootstrap.php` into `tests/phpunit/`
* Change: In bootstrap, store path to plugin file constant so its value can
be used within that file and in test file
* Change: Move `tests/*.php` into `tests/phpunit/tests/`
* Change: Remove ‘test-‘ prefix from unit test files
* Change: Rename `phpunit.xml` to `phpunit.xml.dist` per best practices
- New: Add additional punctuation-related test cases
- New: Add helper function `get_core_filters()` and `get_3rd_party_filters()`
to DRY up data reuse
* New: Add a few more possible TODO items
* Change: Updated screenshot for settings page
#### 4.0 (2020-07-16)
Highlights:
This minor release adds a new setting that can allow the plugin to run later to
avoid potential conflicts with other plugins, now allows hover strings to begin
or end with punctuation, updates its plugin framework, adds a TODO.md file, updates
a few URLs to be HTTPS, expands unit testing, and updates compatibility to be WP
4.9-5.4+.
Details:
* New: Add new setting to allow control over when text hovers are handled early
or late in text processing process
* New: Add filter `c2c_text_hover_filter_priority` for filtering hook priority
for text hover handler
* New: Allow text to hover string to begin and/or end in punctuation.
* New: Add TODO.md and move existing TODO list from top of main plugin file into
it
* Change: Update plugin framework to 050
- 050:
- Allow a hash entry to literally have ‘0’ as a value without being entirely
omitted when saved
- Output donation markup using `printf()` rather than using string concatenation
- Update copyright date (2020)
- Note compatibility through WP 5.4+
- Drop compatibility with versions of WP older than 4.9
* Change: Remove plugin setting page help text indicating order matters (it hasn’t
since v3.8)
* Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.4+
* Change: Drop compatibility with versions of WP older than 4.9
* Change: Update links to coffee2code.com to be HTTPS
* Unit tests:
- New: Add `get_filter_names()` as a helper method for getting the default and
third-party filter names
- New: Add `unhook_default_filters()` as a helper method to unhook plugin’s
default filters hooked to `text_hover()`
- New: Add test case for hover text that includes HTML
- New: Add tests for `enqueue_scripts()`, `options_page_description()`
- New: Add test for setting name
- New: Add tests for setting defaults
- New: Add explicit tests to ensure falsey hover text values don’t alter original
text
- New: Add explicit tests to ensure text replacements don’t occur within `abbr`
tag contents or in any tag attributes
- Change: Store plugin instance in test object to simplify referencing it
- Change: Remove unnecessary unregistering of hooks in `tearDown()`
- Change: Add `$priority` argument to `test_hover_applies_to_default_filters()`
- Change: Remove duplicative `reset_options()` call
- Change: Rename unit test function so that it is treated as a unit test
- Change: Use HTTPS for link to WP SVN repository in bin script for configuring
unit tests (and delete commented-out code)
* Change: Update screenshot
_Full changelog is available in [CHANGELOG.md](https://github.com/coffee2code/text-hover/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md)._
## Meta
* Version **4.2**
* Last updated **4 years ago**
* Active installations **2.000+**
* WordPress version ** 4.9 or higher **
* Tested up to **5.9.13**
* Languages
* [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/), [Spanish (Chile)](https://cl.wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/),
and [Spanish (Spain)](https://es.wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/).
* [Translate into your language](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/text-hover)
* Tags
* [abbreviations](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/abbreviations/)[acronyms](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/acronyms/)
[help](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/help/)[terms](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/terms/)
[tooltips](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/tooltips/)
* [Advanced View](https://pap-aw.wordpress.org/plugins/text-hover/advanced/)
## Ratings
4.5 out of 5 stars.
* [ 12 5-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/reviews/?filter=5)
* [ 4 4-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/reviews/?filter=4)
* [ 0 3-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/reviews/?filter=3)
* [ 0 2-star reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/reviews/?filter=2)
* [ 1 1-star review ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/reviews/?filter=1)
[Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/reviews/#new-post)
[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/reviews/)
## Contributors
* [ Scott Reilly ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/coffee2code/)
## Support
Got something to say? Need help?
[View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/text-hover/)
## Donate
Would you like to support the advancement of this plugin?
[ Donate to this plugin ](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6ARCFJ9TX3522)