A popover is a container-type

graphical control element A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct ...

that hovers over its parent window and blocks any other interaction with until it is selected. It can contain various other graphical control element such as checkboxes,

radio button A radio button or option button is a graphical control element that allows the user to choose only one of a predefined set of mutually exclusive options. The singular property of a radio button makes it distinct from checkboxes, where the user ...

s or a

list box A list box is a graphical control element that allows the user to select one or more items from a list contained within a static, multiple line text box. The user clicks inside the box on an item to select it, sometimes in combination with the ...

. Like any container-type graphical control element, it is meant to group elements that belong together and is not meant to be extensive. Popover graphical control element were introduced in

GTK+ GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprie ...

3.12 Apple included popovers in their human interface guidelines. Popovers are in use in the web, Bootstrap has a component to create popovers, similar to those found in iOS.Popovers
/ref> When hovering a link in Wikipedia, by default, there is a popup of page preview that is in a way popover: it includes a button and it has more content than in

tooltip The tooltip, also known as infotip or hint, is a common graphical user interface (GUI) element in which, when hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element, such as a description of a button's f ...

References

{{Graphical control elements Graphical control elements