fix: add tools directly to Overlay by Azaya89 · Pull Request #6713 · holoviz/holoviews

Azaya89 · 2025-10-28T13:17:29Z

This PR fixes the problem where tools specified via .opts(tools=[...]) on an Overlay were being ignored. The OverlayPlot._init_tools() method only collected tools from subplots but never processed tools from self.default_tools and self.tools.

Solution

Added logic to iterate through self.default_tools + self.tools and add them to the plot
Improved tool deduplication: Replaced simple type-based deduplication (tool_types list) with unique identifier-based deduplication (tool_ids set). This is better since most bokeh tools like PanTool have variants differentiated only by their dimensions (e.g., 'pan', 'xpan', 'ypan' are all of type PanTool)
Preserved special handling for hover tools and subcoordinate_y zoom tools which was causing the initial test failures
Added tests

import holoviews as hv
hv.extension('bokeh')

overlay = (hv.Curve([1, 2, 3]).opts(tools=['xpan']) * hv.Curve([2, 3, 4]).opts(tools=['ypan', 'zoom_out'])).opts(tools=['zoom_in', 'xpan', 'ypan'])
overlay

Azaya89 · 2025-10-28T13:19:19Z

This works now but it seems a bit verbose to me. Will try to find a more elegant way to implement...

codecov · 2025-10-29T14:37:47Z

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 99.54751% with 1 line in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 89.25%. Comparing base (cb09fb4) to head (b2f65ad).

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
holoviews/plotting/bokeh/util.py	97.22%	1 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main    #6713      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   89.23%   89.25%   +0.02%     
==========================================
  Files         336      336              
  Lines       72413    72606     +193     
==========================================
+ Hits        64616    64808     +192     
- Misses       7797     7798       +1

☔ View full report in Codecov by Sentry.
📢 Have feedback on the report? Share it here.

🚀 New features to boost your workflow:

❄️ Test Analytics: Detect flaky tests, report on failures, and find test suite problems.

hoxbro · 2025-11-28T11:43:44Z

Have pushed some changes. Left some todos and info with your name directly in the code.

One thing I noticed is that the tool ordering seems weird; it would be nice to have more consistency.

I also think we should check that this fixes #6654.

Azaya89 · 2025-11-28T13:40:50Z

+
+    tool_types = [type(tool).__name__ for tool in plot.state.tools]
+    defaults = ['WheelZoomTool', 'SaveTool', 'PanTool', 'BoxZoomTool', 'ResetTool']
+    # INFO(Azaya): Can this really be right?


Suggested change

# INFO(Azaya): Can this really be right?

Hmm, I found this interesting...

The test passes because it validates the internal tool ordering (i.e, checking plot.state.tools) but visually when you actually plot the same code, the ordering is now different (['PanTool', 'BoxZoomTool', 'WheelZoomTool', 'ZoomOutTool', 'ZoomInTool', 'SaveTool', 'ResetTool']). Maybe this is a result of how Bokeh handles the visual arrangement of the tools?

I don't know why this is the case at the top of my head. Try to see if you can understand by looking at the code and trying to use pure bokeh examples. Maybe also related to merge_tools.

I think it's definitely from bokeh

from bokeh.plotting import figure, show from bokeh.io import output_notebook output_notebook() x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] y = [4, 5, 5, 7, 2] default_tools = ['wheel_zoom', 'save', 'pan', 'box_zoom', 'reset'] extra_tools = ['zoom_out', 'zoom_in'] # create a plot p = figure( title="Toolbars", tools=extra_tools+default_tools, width=400, height=300, ) p.line(x, y) show(p)

p.toolbar.tools

[ZoomOutTool(id='p1475', ...), ZoomInTool(id='p1476', ...), WheelZoomTool(id='p1477', ...), SaveTool(id='p1478', ...), PanTool(id='p1479', ...), BoxZoomTool(id='p1480', ...), ResetTool(id='p1488', ...)]

So while plot.toolbar.tools respects the set order of the tools, visually it still follows the other way (i.e, ['PanTool', 'BoxZoomTool', 'WheelZoomTool', 'ZoomOutTool', 'ZoomInTool', 'SaveTool', 'ResetTool'])

Azaya89 · 2025-11-28T14:27:56Z

overlay_plot.mov

hoxbro · 2025-11-28T15:05:33Z

+        for name in ("dimensions", "tags", "name", "description", "icon"):
+            if identifier := getattr(tool, name, None):
+                # Convert lists/tuples to tuples (hashable)
+                if isinstance(identifier, list | tuple):


Suggested change

if isinstance(identifier, list | tuple):

if isinstance(identifier, list):

Don't use pipe for isinstance and no need to check for tuple.

hoxbro · 2025-12-03T08:49:37Z

+        for name in ("dimensions", "tags", "name", "description", "icon"):
+            if identifier := getattr(tool, name, None):
+                # Convert lists to tuples (hashable)
+                if isinstance(identifier, list):
+                    identifier = tuple(identifier)
+                return tool_type, identifier


What happens if the name is the same but the icon is not? They should likely not be identified as the same thing.

Azaya89 · 2025-12-04T10:50:52Z

What happens if the name is the same but the icon is not? They should likely not be identified as the same thing.

I've added implementation to identify as different types if there are different disambiguation properties. This now means that something like this will produce multiple PanTool instances:

import holoviews as hv
hv.extension('bokeh')

hv.Curve([1, 2, 3]).opts(tools=[PanTool(description='New Pan')])

Azaya89 · 2026-03-04T13:47:38Z

    return axis_props


+_DIRECTIONAL_TOOL_BASES = {


Added more tools and tool aliases that were missed before.

Azaya89 · 2026-03-04T13:48:15Z

+}
+
+
+def _get_tool_id_from_str(


Moved the str check into a separate helper fxn

Azaya89 · 2026-03-04T13:49:07Z

-    skip_tags: set[str] | None = None
+    properties: tuple[str, ...] = (
+        'dimensions',
+        'dimension',


Added 'dimension' for WheenPanTool specifically

Azaya89 · 2026-03-04T13:50:49Z

Also had GH Co-pilot help with adding more tests.

TheoMathurin · 2026-07-03T12:27:03Z

I'm always struggling a bit, when thinking where I should declare my tools (and opts in general), if they're specific to an element of the overlay, or if they're common to elements of the same type, or of all elements of the overlay.

add specified tools directly on overlay

5d1a553

Azaya89 self-assigned this Oct 28, 2025

Azaya89 added 3 commits October 29, 2025 15:07

add tool_id helper fxn and address sub_cordinate_y plots

769c838

add tests

025d4fd

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

961ce93

Azaya89 marked this pull request as ready for review October 29, 2025 15:11

Azaya89 requested review from hoxbro and maximlt October 29, 2025 15:11

hoxbro added this to the 1.22.1 milestone Oct 31, 2025

Azaya89 and others added 3 commits November 26, 2025 16:05

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

dbd03ed

refactor init_tools

7cdb736

small refactoring

8dfb343

Azaya89 commented Nov 28, 2025

View reviewed changes

Azaya89 added 3 commits November 28, 2025 14:41

parameterize the tests

5d579a3

add more identifiers

93bd708

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

31d3e04

hoxbro reviewed Nov 28, 2025

View reviewed changes

no need to check for tuples

42761e6

hoxbro modified the milestones: 1.22.1, 1.22.2 Dec 1, 2025

hoxbro reviewed Dec 3, 2025

View reviewed changes

Azaya89 added 2 commits December 4, 2025 10:27

deduplicate by multiple properties

a725c8d

add docstring

9d9d756

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

cdfbfe3

Azaya89 requested a review from hoxbro December 5, 2025 12:30

Azaya89 added 10 commits December 10, 2025 14:05

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

83af7f4

refactor get_tool_id

5fb2bb2

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

99fa3ab

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

ddccdea

small test improvement

21d6328

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

e1dac52

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

e2d73dc

refactor get_tool_id and init_tools

1f796b6

add more tests

436bfaf

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

c60cdb4

Azaya89 commented Mar 4, 2026

View reviewed changes

Azaya89 added 2 commits March 5, 2026 11:30

Merge branch 'main' into fix-6240

1ad8d75

use hv. imports

b2f65ad

hoxbro modified the milestones: 1.23.1, 1.23 Jul 2, 2026

	if isinstance(identifier, list \| tuple):
	if isinstance(identifier, list):

		}


		def _get_tool_id_from_str(

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Conversation

Azaya89 commented Oct 28, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Azaya89 commented Oct 28, 2025

Uh oh!

codecov Bot commented Oct 29, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Codecov Report

Uh oh!

hoxbro commented Nov 28, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Azaya89 Nov 28, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

hoxbro Nov 28, 2025

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Azaya89 Dec 2, 2025

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Azaya89 commented Nov 28, 2025

Uh oh!

hoxbro Nov 28, 2025

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

hoxbro Dec 3, 2025

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Azaya89 commented Dec 4, 2025

Uh oh!

Azaya89 Mar 4, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Azaya89 Mar 4, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Azaya89 Mar 4, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Azaya89 commented Mar 4, 2026

Uh oh!

TheoMathurin commented Jul 3, 2026

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

Azaya89 commented Oct 28, 2025 •

edited

Loading

codecov Bot commented Oct 29, 2025 •

edited

Loading

hoxbro commented Nov 28, 2025 •

edited

Loading

Azaya89 Nov 28, 2025 •

edited

Loading