Detect click outside React component using hooks

Question

I am finding that I am reusing behaviour across an app that when a user clicks outside an element I can hide it.

With the introduction of hooks is this something I could put in a hook and share across components to save me writing the same logic in every component?

I have implemented it once in a component as follows.

const Dropdown = () => {
    const [isDropdownVisible, setIsDropdownVisible] = useState(false);   
    const wrapperRef = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);

    const handleHideDropdown = (event: KeyboardEvent) => {
        if (event.key === 'Escape') {
            setIsDropdownVisible(false);
        }
    };

    const handleClickOutside = (event: Event) => {
        if (
            wrapperRef.current &&
            !wrapperRef.current.contains(event.target as Node)
        ) {
            setIsDropdownVisible(false);
        }
    };

    useEffect(() => {
        document.addEventListener('keydown', handleHideDropdown, true);
        document.addEventListener('click', handleClickOutside, true);
        return () => {
            document.removeEventListener('keydown', handleHideDropdown, true);
            document.removeEventListener('click', handleClickOutside, true);
        };
    });

    return(
       <DropdownWrapper ref={wrapperRef}>
         <p>Dropdown</p>
       </DropdownWrapper>
    );
}

Answer 1

This is possible.

You can create a reusable hook called useComponentVisible

import { useState, useEffect, useRef } from 'react';

export default function useComponentVisible(initialIsVisible) {
    const [isComponentVisible, setIsComponentVisible] = useState(initialIsVisible);
    const ref = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);

    const handleHideDropdown = (event: KeyboardEvent) => {
        if (event.key === 'Escape') {
            setIsComponentVisible(false);
        }
    };

    const handleClickOutside = (event: Event) => {
        if (ref.current && !ref.current.contains(event.target as Node)) {
            setIsComponentVisible(false);
        }
    };

    useEffect(() => {
        document.addEventListener('keydown', handleHideDropdown, true);
        document.addEventListener('click', handleClickOutside, true);
        return () => {
            document.removeEventListener('keydown', handleHideDropdown, true);
            document.removeEventListener('click', handleClickOutside, true);
        };
    });

    return { ref, isComponentVisible, setIsComponentVisible };
}

Then in the component you wish to add the functionality to do the following:

const DropDown = () => {

    const { ref, isComponentVisible } = useComponentVisible(true);

    return (
       <div ref={ref}>
          {isComponentVisible && (<p>Going into Hiding</p>)}
       </div>
    );

}

Find a codesandbox example here.

Answer 2

Well, after struggling this for a bit, I have come to the next workarround, IN ADITION to what Paul Fitzgerald did, and having in count that my answer includes transitions too

First, I want my dropdown to be closed on ESCAPE key event and mouse click outside. To avoid creating a useEffect per event, I ended with a helper function:

//useDocumentEvent.js

import { useEffect } from 'react'
export const useDocumentEvent = (events) => {
  useEffect(
    () => {
      events.forEach((event) => {
        document.addEventListener(event.type, event.callback)
      })
      return () =>
        events.forEach((event) => {
          document.removeEventListener(event.type, event.callback)
        })
    },
    [events]
  )
}

After that, useDropdown hook that brings all the desired functionality:

//useDropdown.js

import { useCallback, useState, useRef } from 'react'
import { useDocumentEvent } from './useDocumentEvent'

/**
 * Functions which performs a click outside event listener
 * @param {*} initialState initialState of the dropdown
 * @param {*} onAfterClose some extra function call to do after closing dropdown
 */
export const useDropdown = (initialState = false, onAfterClose = null) => {
  const ref = useRef(null)
  const [isOpen, setIsOpen] = useState(initialState)

  const handleClickOutside = useCallback(
    (event) => {
      if (ref.current && ref.current.contains(event.target)) {
        return
      }
      setIsOpen(false)
      onAfterClose && onAfterClose()
    },
    [ref, onAfterClose]
  )

  const handleHideDropdown = useCallback(
    (event) => {
      if (event.key === 'Escape') {
        setIsOpen(false)
        onAfterClose && onAfterClose()
      }
    },
    [onAfterClose]
  )

  useDocumentEvent([
    { type: 'click', callback: handleClickOutside },
    { type: 'keydown', callback: handleHideDropdown },
  ])

  return [ref, isOpen, setIsOpen]
}

Finally, to use this(it has some emotion styling):

//Dropdown.js
import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react'
import styled from '@emotion/styled'

import { COLOR } from 'constants/styles'
import { useDropdown } from 'hooks/useDropdown'
import { Button } from 'components/Button'

const Dropdown = ({ children, closeText, openText, ...rest }) => {
  const [dropdownRef, isOpen, setIsOpen] = useDropdown()
  const [inner, setInner] = useState(false)
  const [disabled, setDisabled] = useState(false)
  const timeout = 150
  useEffect(() => {
    if (isOpen) {
      setInner(true)
    } else {
      setDisabled(true)
      setTimeout(() => {
        setDisabled(false)
        setInner(false)
      }, timeout + 10)
    }
  }, [isOpen])
  return (
    <div style={{ position: 'relative' }} ref={dropdownRef}>
      <Button onClick={() => setIsOpen(!isOpen)} disabled={disabled}>
        {isOpen ? closeText || 'Close' : openText || 'Open'}
      </Button>
      <DropdownContainer timeout={timeout} isVisible={isOpen} {...rest}>
        {inner && children}
      </DropdownContainer>
    </div>
  )
}

const DropdownContainer = styled.div(
  {
    position: 'absolute',
    backgroundColor: COLOR.light,
    color: COLOR.dark,
    borderRadius: '2px',
    width: 400,
    boxShadow: '0px 0px 2px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.5)',
    zIndex: 1,
    overflow: 'hidden',
    right: 0,
  },
  (props) => ({
    transition: props.isVisible
      ? `all 700ms ease-in-out`
      : `all ${props.timeout}ms ease-in-out`,
    maxHeight: props.isVisible ? props.maxHeight || 300 : 0,
  })
)

export { Dropdown }

And, to use it, simply:

//.... your code
<Dropdown>
  <Whatever.Needs.To.Be.Rendered />
</Dropdown>
//... more code

Credits to this solution are for previous answer here, this entry in medium and this article.