• Intro
• Installation
• Demo
• Examples
• Hooks
• Migrating from versions 3 and 4
• API

react-tiny-popover

A lightweight, highly customizable, and non-intrusive popover react HOC with no other dependencies! Typescript friendly, as well!

The component renders its child directly, without wrapping it with anything on the DOM, and in addition renders solely the JSX you provide when shown. It simply grabs the child component's coordinates and provides a robust and non-intrusive way for you to position your own content around the child. Your content will be appended to document.body when shown, and removed when hidden. You can use it to generate little popups around input or button elements, menu fly-outs, or in pretty much any situation where you want some content to appear and disappear dynamically around a target. You can also specify your own location for your popover content or hook into the existing positioning process, allowing you to essentially make modal windows and the like, as well!

react-tiny-popover will also guard against your window's current dimensions and reposition itself to prevent any kind of hidden overflow. You can specify a priority of desired positions to fall back to, if you'd like.

Optionally, you can provide a renderer function for your popover content that injects the popover's current position, in case your content needs to know where it sits in relation to its target.

Since react-tiny-popover tries to be as non-invasive as possible, it will simply render the content you provide with the position and padding from the target that you provide. If you'd like an arrow pointing to the target to appear along with your content and don't feel like building it yourself, you may be interested in wrapping your content with the customizable ArrowContainer component, also provided! ArrowContainer's arrow will follow its target dynamically, and handles boundary collisions as well.

Install

yarn add react-tiny-popover

or

npm install react-tiny-popover --save

Demo

👍

Examples

import { Popover } from 'react-tiny-popover'

...

<Popover
  isOpen={isPopoverOpen}
  positions={['top', 'bottom', 'left', 'right']} // preferred positions by priority
  content={<div>Hi! I'm popover content.</div>}
>
  <div onClick={() => setIsPopoverOpen(!isPopoverOpen)}>
    Click me!
  </div>
</Popover>;

import { Popover } from 'react-tiny-popover'

...

<Popover
  isOpen={isPopoverOpen}
  position={['top', 'left']} // if you'd like, you can limit the positions
  padding={10} // adjust padding here!
  reposition={false} // prevents automatic readjustment of content position that keeps your popover content within its parent's bounds
  onClickOutside={() => setIsPopoverOpen(false)} // handle click events outside of the popover/target here!
  content={({ position, nudgedLeft, nudgedTop }) => ( // you can also provide a render function that injects some useful stuff!
    <div>
      <div>Hi! I'm popover content. Here's my current position: {position}.</div>
      <div>I'm {` ${nudgedLeft} `} pixels beyond my boundary horizontally!</div>
      <div>I'm {` ${nudgedTop} `} pixels beyond my boundary vertically!</div>
    </div>
  )}
>
  <div onClick={() => setIsPopoverOpen(!isPopoverOpen)}>Click me!</div>
</Popover>;

import { useRef } from 'react';
import { Popover, ArrowContainer } from 'react-tiny-popover'

const clickMeButtonRef = useRef<HTMLButtonElement | undefined>();

<Popover
  isOpen={isPopoverOpen}
  positions={['top', 'right', 'left', 'bottom']}
  padding={10}
  onClickOutside={() => setIsPopoverOpen(false)}
  ref={clickMeButtonRef} // if you'd like a ref to your popover's child, you can grab one here
  content={({ position, childRect, popoverRect }) => (
    <ArrowContainer // if you'd like an arrow, you can import the ArrowContainer!
      position={position}
      childRect={targetRect}
      popoverRect={popoverRect}
      arrowColor={'blue'}
      arrowSize={10}
      arrowStyle={{ opacity: 0.7 }}
      className='popover-arrow-container'
      arrowClassName='popover-arrow'
    >
      <div
        style={{ backgroundColor: 'blue', opacity: 0.7 }}
        onClick={() => setIsPopoverOpen(!isPopoverOpen)}
      >
        Hi! I'm popover content. Here's my position: {position}.
      </div>
    </ArrowContainer>
  )}
>
  <button onClick={() => setIsPopoverOpen(!isPopoverOpen)}>
    Click me!
  </button>
</Popover>;

If you'd like to use a custom React element as Popover's target, you'll have to pass the ref that Popover provides to an inner DOM element of your component. The best way to accomplish this is with React's ref forwarding API. Here's a simple example, using Typescript:

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { Popover } from 'react-tiny-popover';

interface CustomComponentProps extends React.ComponentPropsWithoutRef<'div'> {
  onClick(): void;
}

const CustomComponent = React.forwardRef<HTMLDivElement, CustomComponentProps>((props, ref) => (
  <div ref={ref} onClick={props.onClick}>
    {props.children}
  </div>
));

const App: React.FC = () => {
  const [isPopoverOpen, setIsPopoverOpen] = useState(false);
  return (
    <div>
      <Popover isOpen={isPopoverOpen} content={<div>hey from popover content</div>}>
        <CustomComponent onClick={() => setIsPopoverOpen(!isPopoverOpen)}>
          hey from a custom target component
        </CustomComponent>
      </Popover>
    </div>
  );
};

export default App;

Hooks

If you prefer going completely headless (though react-tiny-popover is fairly headless as is), you may prefer usePopover and useArrowContainer instead.

To create your own custom arrow container, the useArrowContainer hook works as so:

import { useArrowContainer } from 'react-tiny-popover';

// ...

const { arrowContainerStyle, arrowStyle } = useArrowContainer({
  childRect // from PopoverState,
  popoverRect // from PopoverState,
  position // from PopoverState,
  arrowColor // string,
  arrowSize // number,
});

// ...

// You can then use these styles to render your arrow container in whatever way you'd like
return (
    <div style={arrowContainerStyle}>
      <div style={arrowStyle} />
      {children}
    </div>
);

Similarly, usePopover allows you to create your own popover component as so:

import { usePopover } from 'react-tiny-popover'

// ...

const onPositionPopover = useCallback(
  (popoverState: PopoverState) => setPopoverState(popoverState),
  [],
);

const [positionPopover, popoverRef] = usePopover({
  childRef,
  containerClassName,
  containerParent,
  contentLocation,
  positions,
  align,
  padding,
  boundaryInset,
  reposition,
  onPositionPopover,
});

// ...

After attaching popoverRef and childRef to the DOM, you can fire positionPopover at any time to update your popover's position.

Admittedly, this is a bit more advanced, but play around and see what you can come up with! Feel free to examine the internal Popover component to see how the hook is used there.

Migrating from versions 3 and 4

react-tiny-popover 5 and up has abandoned use of findDOMNode to gain a reference to Popover's target DOM node, and now explicitly relies on a ref. Since React has deprecated findDOMNode in StrictMode, now seems like an appropriate time to shift away from this under-the-hood logic toward a clearer and more declarative API.

If your code looked this way, it can stay this way. React elements handle refs out of the box with no issues:

<Popover
  isOpen={isPopoverOpen}
  content={<div>Hi! I'm popover content.</div>}
>
  <div onClick={() => setIsPopoverOpen(!isPopoverOpen)}>
    Click me!
  </div>
</Popover>;

However, if you use a custom component as a your Popover's child, you'll have to implement ref forwarding. Without ref forwarding, Popover will not be able to inject a reference into your component and refer to it.

For example:

interface Props extends React.ComponentPropsWithoutRef<'div'> {
  onClick(): void;
}

// this component will no longer work as a Popover child
const CustomComponent: React.FC<Props> = props => (
  <div onClick={props.onClick}>
    {props.children}
  </div>
)

// instead, you'll simply implement ref forwarding, as so:
const CustomComponent = React.forwardRef<HTMLDivElement, Props>((props, ref) => (
  <div ref={ref} onClick={props.onClick}>
    {props.children}
  </div>
));

Check out React's ref forwarding API for more info, and see the examples above.

API

Popover

Property	Type	Required	Description
children	JSX.Element or Function	✔️	If the JSX.Element you provide is a custom component, it should forward refs. If you provide a function of form (ref: React.Ref) => JSX.Element, it'll return from it the JSX.Element target that you'd like the popover content to track. Don't forget to attach that ref to it, though.
isOpen	boolean	✔️	When this boolean is set to true, the popover is visible and tracks the target. When the boolean is false, the popover content is neither visible nor present on the DOM.
content	JSX.Element or Function	✔️	Here, you'll provide the content that will appear as the popover. Rather than a JSX element like a <div>, you may supply a function that returns a JSX.Element, which will look like this: (popoverState: PopoverState) => JSX.Element. Here, position is of type 'top', 'bottom', 'left', 'right'. align is of type start, center, or end. Both targetRect and popoverRect are ClientRect objects of format { height: number, width: number, top: number, left: number, right: number, bottom: number }, and represent the popover content and target div's coordinates within your browser's window. nudgedLeft and nudgedTop specify the X and Y offset the popover content is shifted by to keep it within the window's bounds during a boundary collision. You may want to use these values to adjust your content depending on its location in relation to the window and the target, especially if you have repositioning disabled. Sweet.
padding	number		This number determines the gap, in pixels, between your target content and your popover content. Defaults to 6.
reposition	boolean		If false, rather than the popover content repositioning on a boundary collision, the popover content container will move beyond your containerParent's bounds. You are, however, supplied with nudgedLeft and nudgedTop values by the function you can opt to provide to content, so you may choose to handle content overflow as you wish.
position	string[]		You may provide a priority list of preferred positions for your popover content in relation to its target, in the form of an array. Valid values for the array are 'top', 'bottom', 'left', 'right'. If the popover reaches the edge of the window or its otherwise specified boundary (see 'containerParent, boundaryInset, and boundaryTolerance), and repositioning is enabled, it will attempt to render in the order you specify. The default order is ['top', 'left', 'right', 'bottom']. If you'd like, you can provide a shorter array like ['top', 'left']`. Once the array of positions is exhausted, the popover will no longer attempt to reposition.
align	string		Possible values are start, center, and end. If start is specified, the popover content's top or left location is aligned with its target's. With end specified, the content's bottom or right location is aligned with its target's. If center is specified, the popover content and target's centers are aligned. Defaults to center.
ref	React.Ref		Since Popover relies on ref forwarding to access its child, it's not simple to obtain a second reference to that child. This property acts as a "pass through" for you to obtain a ref to the child you've provided Popover. The value of the ref you provide here will be Popover's child.
onClickOutside	Function		If react-tiny-popover detects a click event outside of the target and outside of the popover, you may handle this event here, in the form of (e: MouseEvent) => void.
contentLocation	object or Function		If you'd like to hook directly into the positioning process, you may do so here! You can provide an object of type { top: number, left: number } to completely override the popover content's (popoverRect) location. You can also provide a function that looks like this: (popoverState: PopoverState) => { top: number, left: number } (The arguments to this function are the same as the content renderer function above).
containerParent	HTMLElement		Provide an HTML element here to have your popover content rendered within it rather than document.body. This element's boundaries will then be adhered to.
boundaryInset	number		This number specifies the inset around your containerParent's border that boundary violations are determined at. Defaults to 0. Can be negative.
containerStyle	object (CSSStyleDeclaration)		Your popover content is rendered to the DOM in a single container div. If you'd like to apply style directly to this container div, you may do so here! Be aware that as this div is a DOM element and not a React element, all style values must be strings. For example, 5 pixels must be represented as '5px', as you'd do with vanilla DOM manipulation in Javascript.
containerClassName	string		If you'd like to apply styles to the single container div that your popover content is rendered within via stylesheets, you can specify a custom className for the container here.

PopoverState

Property	Type	Description
isPositioned	boolean	After the popover has positioned its contents, this field is true. Prior, it is false.
childRect	ClientRect	The current rect of the popover's child (i.e., the source from which the popover renders).
popoverRect	ClientRect	The current rect of the popover's contents.
parentRect	ClientRect	The current rect of the popover child's parent.
position	'left' | 'right' | 'top' | 'bottom' | 'custom'	The current position of the popover in relation to the child. 'custom' implies the user has set an explicit contentLocation.
align	'start' | 'center' | 'end' | 'custom'	The cross-axis alignment of the popover's contents. 'custom' implies the user has set an explicit contentLocation.
padding	number	The distance between the popover's child and contents. If set to zero, the two are touching.
nudgedLeft	number	If the popover's contents encounter a boundary violation that does not warrant a reposition, the contents are instead "nudged" by the appropriate top and left values to keep the contents within the boundary. This is the left value.
nudgedTop	number	If the popover's contents encounter a boundary violation that does not warrant a reposition, the contents are instead "nudged" by the appropriate top and left values to keep the contents within the boundary. This is the top value.
boundaryInset	number	The popover's contents will encounter boundary violations prior to the actual containerParent's boundaries by this number in pixels. Can be negative.

ArrowContainer

Property	Type	Required	Description
position	string	✔️	The ArrowContainer needs to know its own position in relation to the target, so it can point in the correct direction!
children	JSX.Element	✔️	You'll provide the ArrowContainer with a JSX.Element child to render as your popover content.
targetRect	object	✔️	The ArrowContainer must know its target's bounding rect in order to position its arrow properly. This object is of type { width: number, height: number, top: number, left: number, right: number, bottom: number }.
popoverRect	object	✔️	This allows the ArrowContainer to know its own bounding rect in order to position its arrow properly. This object is of type { width: number, height: number, top: number, left: number, right: number, bottom: number }.
arrowSize	number		The size of the triangle arrow. Defaults to 10 or something like that.
arrowColor	string		The color of the arrow! Exciting.
arrowStyle	object		You may append to the arrow's style here.
style	object		If you'd like to append to the style of the ArrowContainer itself, do so here. Rad.