Description tooltips for Vaadin Grid header cells

Question

I'd like to define descriptions for Grid header cells, similarly to how AbstractComponent.setDescription(String description) works (i.e. tooltip shown on mouse hover). As the Grid doesn't support this in itself, I tried adding a Label component into the header cell, and then use setDescription() on the label. I can get the info tooltip working like this, but the downside is that clicking on the label component doesn't trigger sorting. If I want to sort the column, I need to click the header cell on the really narrow area that's left between the right edge of the label component and the column border, where the sorting indicator will be shown. If you look at the screenshot below, the highlighted area is the label component, and in order to trigger sorting, the user needs to click on the space on the right side of the component.

Is there a better way to apply descriptions to header cells than the one I described? And if not, is there a way to make the sorting work properly when the header cell contains a Component?

Answer 1

Based on the answer from kukis, I managed to come up with a simpler solution that doesn't require any JavaScript. Instead of adding a Label component into the header cell, I'm adding a div element manually with StaticCell.setHtml(), and setting the title attribute on it:

@Override
protected void init(VaadinRequest request) {
    Grid grid = new Grid();
    grid.addColumn("to");
    grid.addColumn("the");
    grid.addColumn("moon");

    Grid.HeaderRow headerRow = grid.getDefaultHeaderRow();
    headerRow.getCell("to").setHtml("<div title='Hello world'>to</div>");
    headerRow.getCell("the").setHtml("<div title='Hello world 2'>the</div>");
    headerRow.getCell("moon").setHtml("<div title='Hello world 3'>moon</div>");

    grid.addRow("1","2","3");
    grid.addRow("d","v","w");
    grid.addRow("g","s","h");

    setContent(new VerticalLayout(grid));
}

Answer 2

Feature added to Vaadin 8.4.0

Feature added to Grid in Vaadin 8.4.0.

Ticket: https://github.com/vaadin/framework/pull/10489

Release notes: https://vaadin.com/download/release/8.4/8.4.0/release-notes.html

Grid headers and footers now support tooltips.