React hook to listen for clicks outside of the component

React Cool Onclickoutside

This is a React hook to trigger callback when user clicks outside of the target component(s) area. It's a useful logic for UI interaction design (IxD) like dismiss a dropdown menu, modal or tooltip etc. You can check the features section to learn more.

Features

Requirement

To use react-cool-onclickoutside, you must use react@16.8.0 or greater which includes hooks.

Installation

This package is distributed via npm.

$ yarn add react-cool-onclickoutside
# or
$ npm install --save react-cool-onclickoutside

Usage

Common use case.

import React, { useState } from "react";
import useOnclickOutside from "react-cool-onclickoutside";

const Dropdown = () => {
  const [openMenu, setOpenMenu] = useState(false);
  const ref = useOnclickOutside(() => {
    setOpenMenu(false);
  });

  const handleClickBtn = () => {
    setOpenMenu(!openMenu);
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={handleClickBtn}>Button</button>
      {openMenu && <div ref={ref}>Menu</div>}
    </div>
  );
};

Support multiple refs. Callback only be triggered when user clicks outside of the registered components.

import React, { useState } from "react";
import useOnclickOutside from "react-cool-onclickoutside";

const App = () => {
  const [showTips, setShowTips] = useState(true);
  const ref = useOnclickOutside(() => {
    setShowTips(false);
  });

  return (
    <div>
      {showTips && (
        <>
          <div ref={ref}>Tooltip 1</div>
          <div ref={ref}>Tooltip 2</div>
        </>
      )}
    </div>
  );
};

Ignore Elements by CSS Class Name

You can tell react-cool-onclickoutside to ignore certain elements during the event loop by the ignore-onclickoutside CSS class name. If you want explicit control over the class name, use the ignoreClass option.

import React, { useState } from "react";
import useOnclickOutside from "react-cool-onclickoutside";

// Use the default CSS class name
const App = () => {
  const ref = useOnclickOutside(() => {
    // Do something...
  });

  return (
    <div>
      <div ref={ref}>I'm a ?</div>
      <div>Click me will trigger the event's callback</div>
      <div className="ignore-onclickoutside">
        Click me won't trigger the event's callback
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

// Use your own CSS class name
const App = () => {
  const ref = useOnclickOutside(
    () => {
      // Do something...
    },
    { ignoreClass: "my-ignore-class" }
  );

  return (
    <div>
      <div ref={ref}>I'm a ?</div>
      <div>Click me will trigger the event's callback</div>
      <div className="my-ignore-class">
        Click me won't trigger the event's callback
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

Disabling the Event Listener

In case you want to disable the event listener for performance reasons or fulfill some use cases. We provide the disabled option for you. Once you set it to true, the callback won’t be triggered.

import React, { useState } from "react";
import useOnclickOutside from "react-cool-onclickoutside";

const App = () => {
  const [disabled, setDisabled] = useState(false);
  const ref = useOnclickOutside(
    () => {
      // Do something...
    },
    { disabled }
  );

  const handleBtnClick = () => {
    setDisabled(true);
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={handleBtnClick}>
        Stop listening for outside clicks
      </button>
      <div ref={ref}>I'm a ?</div>
    </div>
  );
};

Use Your Own ref

In case of you had a ref already or you want to share a ref for other purposes. You can pass in the ref instead of using the one provided by this hook.

const ref = useRef();

useOnclickOutside(
  () => {
    // Do something...
  },
  { refs: [ref] }
);

API

const ref = useOnclickOutside(callback: (event: Event) => void, options?: object);

You must register the ref and pass the callback to use this hook. Moreover you can access the event object via the callback's parameter, default will be MouseEvent or TouchEvent.

const callback = (event) => {
  console.log("Event: ", event);
};

The options object contains the following keys.

Key Type Default Description
refs Array For some reasons, you can pass in your own ref(s) instead of using the built-in.
disabled boolean false Enable/disable the event listener.
eventTypes Array ['mousedown', 'touchstart'] Which events to listen for.
excludeScrollbar boolean false Whether or not to listen (ignore) to browser scrollbar clicks.
ignoreClass string ignore-onclickoutside To ignore certain elements during the event loop by the CSS class name that you defined.

GitHub