Add opacity (transparency) to hover box / Allow it to be outside the plot
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- R
- Stars
- 2.7k
- Forks
- 641
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
Plotly hover box has no transparency to it, which causes it to cover other data points, compromising the visual analysis of the data. Example:

Ideally it would allow box transparency like these one from dygraphs, which displays the hover text but does not cover/hide the region beneath it (http://dygraphs.com/tests/legend-values.html)

Additionaly, it could be great to have the possibility to show the tooltip/hover box information outside the plot, again to not cover any part of the plot and enable clear visual inspection. Another example from dygraphs:

Highcharts and dygraphs have those options as default.
There is some related discussion/request here: https://community.plotly.com/t/custom-hovertext-obstructs-plot-view-opacity-bottom-of-plot/9065
Changes like these would allow Plotly to be an excellent tool for financial plots and to be adopted by many more analysts from finance field.
Plotly is the best graphing tool in my opinion and I would like to stick to it, so I really appreciate if you can consider this request. Thank you for the awesome work.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
No files, tests, or entry points are named. Start by locating the repository's hover-box implementation and reviewing the linked community discussion, then compare the requested transparency and outside-the-plot behavior with the dygraphs examples. Done means both hover presentation options work without obscuring the plotted data.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- javascript, r
- Domain
- data-visualization, frontend
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100