May 23, 2025

Contributors

Interactive Sticky Tooltips

We've enhanced our tooltips to make data exploration more powerful and intuitive. You can now hold down the Option/Alt key (⌥) when viewing certain tooltips with a lot of data (charting e.g.) to make it "sticky" - allowing you to move your mouse freely inside the tooltip to interact with its content.

What's New

  • Sticky Tooltips with Alt Key: Press and hold the Option/Alt key while hovering over tooltips to freeze them in place.
  • Interactive Content: Once a tooltip is sticky, you can interact with its contents - perfect for exploring large datasets, reviewing span events, or analyzing correlated logs.
  • Scrollable Long Content: Sticky tooltips support scrolling, making it easy to navigate through extensive information.
  • Visual Guidance: A helpful indicator shows when sticky mode is available and active.

This feature is especially valuable when working with:

  • Dashboards containing long data series
  • Trace Explorer with multiple span events or correlated logs
  • Any tooltip containing interactive elements

Enhanced Trace Explorer Experience

We've also improved the Trace Explorer by automatically expanding attributes for selected span events and log records. Now when you click on a span event, the relevant attributes are immediately displayed, eliminating the need for additional clicks and making your debugging workflow faster and more efficient.Why This Matters for Real Users

Working with complex observability data brings unique challenges that our sticky tooltips directly address:

  • Eliminate the "hover dance": No more trying to keep your cursor perfectly still while reading lengthy error messages or studying detailed metrics.
  • Reduce cognitive load: Focus on understanding the data rather than fighting the UI to keep information visible.
  • Save valuable time: What used to require screenshots or note-taking can now be accomplished with a simple key press.
  • Improve debugging accuracy: Inspect and compare detailed trace data without losing context when your cursor moves.
  • Prevent frustration: When investigating critical issues, the last thing you need is disappearing information as you try to interact with it.

See it in action

Here are two examples showing how Sticky Tooltips enhance usability in different parts of the product:

  • Dashboard View: Explore long data series using scrollable, interactive tooltips

  • Trace Explorer: Freeze tooltips to inspect span events and logs without losing context

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