A tooltip class for Tkinter

Looking for a pure-Tkinter alternative to Tix that works the same on Windows, macOS, and Linux? Here is a minimal tooltip helper that adds a configurable delay, follows the cursor, and reliably cancels on leave or click. It avoids external dependencies, which is handy given Tix’s inconsistent availability on some Linux distros.

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import ttk

class Tooltip:
    def __init__(self, widget, text, delay=500):
        self.widget, self.text, self.delay = widget, text, delay
        self._after_id = None
        self._tip = None
        widget.bind("<Enter>", self._schedule)
        widget.bind("<Leave>", self._hide)
        widget.bind("<ButtonPress>", self._hide)
        widget.bind("<Motion>", self._move)

    def _schedule(self, _=None):
        self._cancel()
        self._after_id = self.widget.after(self.delay, self._show)

    def _show(self):
        if self._tip:
            return
        self._tip = tk.Toplevel(self.widget)
        self._tip.wm_overrideredirect(True)
        self._tip.wm_attributes("-topmost", True)
        tk.Label(self._tip, text=self.text, bg="#ffffe0",
                 relief="solid", bd=1, justify="left").pack(ipadx=4, ipady=2)
        self._move()

    def _move(self, event=None):
        if not self._tip:
            return
        x = (event.x_root + 12) if event else self.widget.winfo_rootx() + 12
        y = (event.y_root + 8) if event else self.widget.winfo_rooty() + self.widget.winfo_height() + 4
        self._tip.geometry(f"+{x}+{y}")

    def _hide(self, _=None):
        self._cancel()
        if self._tip:
            self._tip.destroy()
            self._tip = None

    def _cancel(self):
        if self._after_id:
            self.widget.after_cancel(self._after_id)
            self._after_id = None

# Example:
# btn = ttk.Button(root, text="Hover me")
# Tooltip(btn, "Click to submit", delay=700)

If you do want tkinter.tix on Ubuntu, you typically need both python3-tk and the system Tix library (tix) installed; without the latter, imports will fail. Tix is considered legacy, so prefer pure Tk when possible. See tkinter docs and tkinter.tix docs for details.