R2025b Figure datatips appearing below colorbars or other elements

Hi all,

I recently upgraded from R2024a to R2025b, and I observed that the datatips are now displayed below other elements of the figures, such as colorbars or other figures when using subplots. Below is a comparison of the behavior in R2024a and R2025b for the same figure.

Is there a way to have the datatip always be at the front ? Or to keep using legacy figures of R2024a in Matlab R2025b ?

This is very important for me because I often edit the datatip content to contain additionnal information, which can result in big datatips and I want them to be over any other element of the figure.

R2024a

R2025b

[Mathieu NOE]

hello

seems this behaviour is new since R2025a :

here's Copilot answer to the problem (you can move on and ask him for a permanent fix if you want)

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In MATLAB R2025a, there was a graphics system update that changed how UI layers are managed, and this can cause data tips to appear behind a colorbar or other UI elements in some layouts.

This is due to changes in the stacking order (z-order) of annotations and axes children.

Fix: Bring Data Tips to the Front

You can manually adjust the stacking order so that the data tips are drawn above the colorbar.

Option 1 — Use uistack on the Data Tip

% Example plot 
surf(peaks);
 cb = colorbar;
 % Create a data tip programmatically 
dt = datatip(findobj(gca,'Type','Surface'), 25, 25);
 % Bring the data tip to the top of the stacking order 
uistack(dt,'top');

This works because datatip returns a graphics object that can be reordered.

Option 2 — Adjust Axes and Colorbar Layering

If the colorbar is blocking the data tip, you can make the axes (and its annotations) render on top:

ax = gca; ax.Layer = 'top';  % Ensures ticks, grid, and annotations are above plot elements 

However, this alone may not fix all cases in R2025a, because the colorbar is now a separate axes object.

Option 3 — Move Colorbar Behind

You can push the colorbar to the back:

cb = colorbar; uistack(cb,'bottom'); 

This ensures the colorbar is drawn first, so data tips appear above it.

Option 4 — Use AnnotationLayer (New in R2025a)

R2025a introduced an annotation layer for better control:

dt = datatip(findobj(gca,'Type','Surface'), 25, 25);
dt.AnnotationLayer = 'front';  % Forces it above all other UI elements 

(This property is new in R2025a — older versions will error.)

✅ Recommendation:

If you want interactive data tips to always appear above the colorbar, set:

h = datacursormode(gcf);
h.UpdateFcn = @(~,event) ''; % Keep default text drawnow; uistack(findall(gcf,'Type','DataTip'),'top'); 

and call it after creating the tip.

[Adam Danz]

Thanks for reporting this @Alexis Fouineau, we're looking into it.

Thanks for chipping in @Mathieu NOE. Copilot is right about this changing in R2025a but the rest about stacking order is only partially correct. The z-order it's refering to via uistack is only helpful within a layer but there is a back & front layer component and other annotation layering behind the scenes that is coming into play here as well.

I'll share a workaround if I find one.

[Alexis Fouineau]

Hi, @Mathieu NOE thank you for the answer, I tried all of the options above and unfortunately none seems to work..

@Adam Danz thanks for looking into this ! For now I will probably keep using R2024a until I have a solution.

Answer 1

[Catalytic]

Pull the data box to the left of the data tip anchor point, so that it won't overlap with the colorbar -

[Alexis Fouineau]

Thank you, I know I can do that, but as I said I typically edit the datatip with a lot of information and sometimes I can't work this around, I have to recenter the figure and go fullscreen, a problem I did not have in MATLAB R2024a.

Moreover, I also have the problem with subplots, where the datatip goes behind other axes of the figure.