Develop Reference

Problems using useRef / useImperativeHandle in mapping components

I have a dashboard with different components. Everything is working with a separate start-button on each component, now I need to have a common start-button, and for accessing the children's subfunctions from a parent, I understand that in React you should use the useRef.(but its perhaps not correct, but I'm struggling to see another way). I would like to have the flexibility to choose which component to start from this "overall start-button"
I have a component list that i map through shown below.
return(
{ComponentsList.map((item) => {
return (
<Showcomponents
{...item}
key={item.name}
/>
)
This works fine, but I would like, as mentioned, to access a function called something like "buttonclick" in each of the children, so I tested this with a pressure-gauge component
The function "exposed" via the forwardRef and the useImparativeHandle
const ShowRadialGauge = forwardRef((props, ref) => {
useImperativeHandle(ref, () => ({
buttonclick() {
setStart(!start);
},
}));
)
then in my dashboard I changed to :
const gaugepressure = useRef();
return(
<div>
<Button onClick={() => gaugepressure.current.buttonclick()}>
Start processing
</Button>
<ShowRadialGauge ref={gaugepressure} />
<div>
)
This works fine if I use the useRef from the dashboard and instead of mapping over the components, I add them manually.
I understand the useRef is not a props, but its almost what I want. I want to do something like this:
return(
{ComponentsList.map((item) => {
return (
<Showcomponents
{...item}
key={item.name}
**ref={item.ref}**
/>
)
where the ref could be a part of my component array (as below) or a separate array.
export const ComponentsList = [
{
name: "Radial gauge",
text: "showradialgauge",
component: ShowRadialGauge,
ref: "gaugepressure",
},
{
name: "Heatmap",
text: "heatmap",
component: Heatmap,
ref: "heatmapstart",
},
]
Anyone have any suggestions, or perhaps do it another way?

You are on the right track with a React ref in the parent to attach to a single child component. If you are mapping to multiple children though you'll need an array of React refs, one for each mapped child, and in the button handler in the parent you will iterate the array of refs to call the exposed imperative handle from each.
Example:
Parent
// Ref to hold all the component refs
const gaugesRef = React.useRef([]);
// set the ref's current value to be an array of mapped refs
// new refs to be created as needed
gaugesRef.current = componentsList.map(
(_, i) => gaugesRef.current[i] ?? React.createRef()
);
const toggleAll = () => {
// Iterate the array of refs and invoke the exposed handle
gaugesRef.current.forEach((gauge) => gauge.current.toggleStart());
};
return (
<div className="App">
<button type="button" onClick={toggleAll}>
Toggle All Gauges
</button>
{componentsList.map(({ name, component: Component, ...props }, i) => (
<Component
key={name}
ref={gaugesRef.current[i]}
name={name}
{...props}
/>
))}
</div>
);
Child
const ShowRadialGauge = React.forwardRef(({ name }, ref) => {
const [start, setStart] = React.useState(false);
const toggleStart = () => setStart((start) => !start);
React.useImperativeHandle(ref, () => ({
toggleStart
}));
return (....);
});
The more correct/React way to accomplish this however is to lift the state up to the parent component and pass the state and handlers down to these components.
Parent
const [gaugeStarts, setGaugeStarts] = React.useState(
componentsList.map(() => false)
);
const toggleAll = () => {
setGaugeStarts((gaugeStarts) => gaugeStarts.map((start) => !start));
};
const toggleStart = (index) => {
setGaugeStarts((gaugeStarts) =>
gaugeStarts.map((start, i) => (i === index ? !start : start))
);
};
return (
<div className="App">
<button type="button" onClick={toggleAll}>
Toggle All Guages
</button>
{componentsList.map(({ name, component: Component, ...props },, i) => (
<Component
key={name}
start={gaugeStarts[i]}
toggleStart={() => toggleStart(i)}
name={name}
{...props}
/>
))}
</div>
);
Child
const ShowRadialGauge = ({ name, start, toggleStart }) => {
return (
<>
...
<button type="button" onClick={toggleStart}>
Toggle Start
</button>
</>
);
};

#Drew Reese
Thx Drew,
you are off course correct. I'm new to React, and I'm trying to wrap my head around this "state handling".
I tested your suggestion, but as you say, its not very "React'ish", so I lifted the state from the children up to the parent.
In the parent:
const [componentstate, setComponentstate] = useState([
{ id:1, name: "pressuregauge", start: false},
{ id:2, name: "motormap", start: false },
{ id:3, name: "heatmapstart", start: false},
]);
then in the component ShowRadialGauge, I did like this:
const ShowRadialGauge = ({ props, componentstate })
and if we need to keep the button in each component, I have the id in the componentstate object that is desctructured, so I can send that back.
.

First of all, why do you need refs to handle click when you can access it via onClick. The most common use case for refs in React is to reference a DOM element or store value that is persist between renders
My suggestion are these
First, try to make it simple by passing a function and then trigger it via onClick
Second if you really want to learn how to use imperativeHandle you can reference this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpEyAOkytkU.

getBoundingClientRect() on two React components and check if they overlap onScroll

I want to get a ref, more specifically a getBoundingClientRect() on the <Header/> and <Testimonials/> component. I then want to watch for a scroll event and check if the two components ever overlap. Currently, my overlap variable never flips to true even if what appears on the page is that the two components are overlaping.
const [isIntersecting, setIsIntersecting] = useState(false)
const header = useRef(null)
const testimonials = useRef(null)
const scrollHandler = _ => {
let headerRect = header.current.getBoundingClientRect();
let testiRect = testimonials.current.getBoundingClientRect();
let overlap = !(headerRect.right < testiRect.left ||
headerRect.left > testiRect.right ||
headerRect.bottom < testiRect.top ||
headerRect.top > testiRect.bottom)
console.log(overlap) // never flips to true
};
useEffect(() => {
window.addEventListener("scroll", scrollHandler, true);
return () => {
window.removeEventListener("scroll", scrollHandler, true);
};
}, []);
const App = () => {
return (
<div className="App">
<Header />
<LandingPage />
<div style={{ height: '100vh', backgroundColor: 'black', color: 'white' }}>
</div>
<AboutPage />
<TestimonialsPage />
<Footer />
</div>
);
}

First: Components can't receive directly a ref prop, unless you are wrapping the Component itself in a React.forwardRef wrapper:
const Component = React.forwardRef((props, ref) => (
<button ref={ref}>
{props.children}
</button>
));
// Inside your Parent Component:
const ref = useRef();
<Component ref={ref}>Click me!</Component>;
Second: you can also pass a ref down to a child as a standard prop, but you can't call that prop ref since that's a special reserved word just like the key prop:
const Component= (props) => (
<button ref={props.myRef}>
{props.children}
</button>
);
// Inside your Parent Component
const ref = useRef();
<Component myRef={ref}>Click me!</Component>;
This works perfectly fine, and if it's a your personal project you
might work like this with no issues, the only downside is that you
have to use custom prop name for those refs, so the code gets harder to
read and to mantain, especially if it's a shared repo.
Third: Now that you learnt how to gain access to the DOM node of a child Component from its parent, you must know that even if usually it's safe to perform manipulations on those nodes inside a useEffect ( or a componentDidMount ) since they are executed once the DOM has rendered, to be 100% sure you will have access to the right DOM node it's always better using a callback as a ref like this:
const handleRef = (node) => {
if (node) //do something with node
};
<Component ref={handleRef}/>
Basically your function hanldeRef will be called by React during
DOM node render by passing the node itself as its first parameter,
this way you can perform a safe check on the node, and be sure it's
100% valorized when you are going to perform your DOM manipulation.
Concerning your specific question about how to access the getBoundingClientRect of a child Component DOM node, I made a working example with both the approaches:
https://stackblitz.com/edit/react-pqujuz

You'll need to define each of your components as Forwarding Refs, eg
const Header = forwardRef<HTMLElement>((_, ref) => (
<header ref={ref}>
<h1>I am the header</h1>
</header>
));
You can then pass a HTMLElement ref to your components to refer to later
const headerRef = useRef<HTMLElement>(null);
const scrollHandler = () => {
console.log("header position", headerRef.current?.getBoundingClientRect());
};
useEffect(() => {
window.addEventListener("scroll", scrollHandler);
return () => {
window.removeEventListener("scroll", scrollHandler);
};
}, []);
return (
<Header ref={headerRef} />
);
I'm using TypeScript examples since it's easier to translate back down to JS than it is to go up to TS

How to get element height and width from ReactNode?

I have a dynamic component in which I pass in children as prop.
So the props look something like:
interface Props {
...some props
children: React.ReactNode
}
export default Layout({...some props, children}: Props) {...}
I need to access the size of the children elements (height and width), in the Layout component. Note that the children are from completely different components and are non-related.
I can use the Layout component as follow:
<Layout ...some props>
<Child1 /> // I need to know the height and width of this child
<Child2 /> // as well as this child
<Child3 /> // and this child.
</Layout>
How can I do so dynamically? Do I somehow have to convert ReactNode to HTMLDivElement? Note that there is no way I can pass in an array of refs as a prop into Layout. Because that the pages which use Layout are dynamically generated.
Since many doesn't really understand what I meant by dynamically generated. It means that the pages which are using the Layout component can pass in x amount of children. The amount of children is unknown but never 0.

You can achieve this by using React.Children to dynamically build up a list of references before rendering the children. If you have access to the children element references, you can follow the below approach. If you don't then you can follow the bit at the bottom.
You have access to the children element references
If the children components pass up their element reference, you can use React.Children to loop through each child and get each element reference. Then use this to perform calculations before the children components are rendered.
i.e. This is a very simple example on how to retrieve the references and use them.
interface LayoutWrapperProps {
onMount: () => void;
}
const LayoutWrapper: React.FC<LayoutWrapperProps> = ({ onMount, children }) => {
React.useEffect(() => {
onMount();
}, [onMount]);
return <>{children}</>;
};
const Layout: React.FC = ({ children }) => {
const references = React.useRef<HTMLElement[]>([]);
React.useEffect(() => {
references.current = [];
});
function getReference(ref: HTMLElement) {
references.current = references.current.filter(Boolean).concat(ref);
}
function getHeights() {
const heights = references.current.map((ref) =>
ref?.getBoundingClientRect()
);
console.log(heights);
}
const clonedChildren = React.Children.map(children, (child) => {
return React.cloneElement(child as any, {
ref: getReference
});
});
return <LayoutWrapper onMount={getHeights}>{clonedChildren}</LayoutWrapper>;
};
If you don't have access to the children element references
If the children components aren't passing up an element as the reference, you'll have to wrap the dynamic children components in a component so we can get an element reference. i.e.
const WrappedComponent = React.forwardRef((props, ref) => {
return (
<div ref={ref}>
{props.children}
</div>
)
});
When rendering the children components, then the code above that gets the references will work:
<Layout>
<WrappedComponent>
<Child1 />
</WrappedComponent>
</Layout>

Since we don't know how your children is built, here is what I can propose you :
import React from 'react';
import { render } from 'react-dom';
const App = () => {
const el1Ref = React.useRef();
const el2Ref = React.useRef();
const [childrenValues, setChildrenValues] = React.useState([]);
React.useEffect(() => {
setChildrenValues([
el1Ref.current.getBoundingClientRect(),
el2Ref.current.getBoundingClientRect()
]);
}, []);
return (
<Parent childrenVals={childrenValues}>
<span ref={el1Ref}>
<Child value="Hello" />
</span>
<span ref={el2Ref}>
<Child value="<div>Hello<br />World</div>" />
</span>
</Parent>
);
};
const Parent = ({ children, childrenVals }) => {
React.useEffect(() => {
console.log('children values from parent = ', childrenVals);
});
return <>{children}</>;
};
const Child = ({ value }) => {
return <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: value }} />;
};
render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));
And here is the repro on Stackblitz.
The idea is to manipulate how your children is built.

How can I render an array of components in react without them unmounting?

I have an array of React components that receive props from a map function, however the issue is that the components are mounted and unmounted on any state update. This is not an issue with array keys.
Please see codesandbox link.
const example = () => {
const components = [
(props: any) => (
<LandingFirstStep
eventImage={eventImage}
safeAreaPadding={safeAreaPadding}
isActive={props.isActive}
onClick={progressToNextIndex}
/>
),
(props: any) => (
<CameraOnboarding
safeAreaPadding={safeAreaPadding}
circleSize={circleSize}
isActive={props.isActive}
onNextClick={progressToNextIndex}
/>
),
];
return (
<div>
{components.map((Comp, index) => {
const isActive = index === currentIndex;
return <Comp key={`component-key-${index}`} isActive={isActive} />;
})}
</div>
)
}
If I render them outside of the component.map like so the follow, the component persists on any state change.
<Comp1 isActive={x === y}
<Comp2 isActive={x === y}
Would love to know what I'm doing wrong here as I am baffled.
Please take a look at this Codesandbox.
I believe I am doing something wrong when declaring the array of functions that return components, as you can see, ComponentOne is re-rendered when the button is pressed, but component two is not.

You should take a look at the key property in React. It helps React to identify which items have changed, are added, or are removed. Keys should be given to the elements inside the array to give the elements a stable identity

I think there are two problems:
To get React to reuse them efficiently, you need to add a key property to them:
return (
<div>
{components.map((Comp, index) => {
const isActive = index === currentIndex;
return <Comp key={anAppropriateKeyValue} isActive={isActive} />;
})}
</div>
);
Don't just use index for key unless the order of the list never changes (but it's fine if the list is static, as it appears to be in your question). That might mean you need to change your array to an array of objects with keys and components. From the docs linked above:
We don’t recommend using indexes for keys if the order of items may change. This can negatively impact performance and may cause issues with component state. Check out Robin Pokorny’s article for an in-depth explanation on the negative impacts of using an index as a key. If you choose not to assign an explicit key to list items then React will default to using indexes as keys.
I suspect you're recreating the example array every time. That means that the functions you're creating in the array initializer are recreated each time, which means to React they're not the same component function as the previous render. Instead, make those functions stable. There are a couple of ways to do that, but for instance you can just directly use your LandingFirstStep and CameraOnboarding components in the map callback.
const components = [
{
Comp: LandingFirstStep,
props: {
// Any props for this component other than `isActive`...
onClick: progressToNextIndex
}
},
{
Comp: CameraOnboarding,
props: {
// Any props for this component other than `isActive`...
onNextClick: progressToNextIndex
}
},
];
then in the map:
{components.map(({Comp, props}, index) => {
const isActive = index === currentIndex;
return <Comp key={index} isActive={isActive} {...props} />;
})}
There are other ways to handle it, such as via useMemo or useCallback, but to me this is the simple way — and it gives you a place to put a meaningful key if you need one rather than using index.
Here's an example handling both of those things and showing when the components mount/unmount; as you can see, they no longer unmount/mount when the index changes:
const {useState, useEffect, useCallback} = React;
function LandingFirstStep({isActive, onClick}) {
useEffect(() => {
console.log(`LandingFirstStep mounted`);
return () => {
console.log(`LandingFirstStep unmounted`);
};
}, []);
return <div className={isActive ? "active" : ""} onClick={isActive && onClick}>LoadingFirstStep, isActive = {String(isActive)}</div>;
}
function CameraOnboarding({isActive, onNextClick}) {
useEffect(() => {
console.log(`CameraOnboarding mounted`);
return () => {
console.log(`CameraOnboarding unmounted`);
};
}, []);
return <div className={isActive ? "active" : ""} onClick={isActive && onNextClick}>CameraOnboarding, isActive = {String(isActive)}</div>;
}
const Example = () => {
const [currentIndex, setCurrentIndex] = useState(0);
const progressToNextIndex = useCallback(() => {
setCurrentIndex(i => (i + 1) % components.length);
});
const components = [
{
Comp: LandingFirstStep,
props: {
onClick: progressToNextIndex
}
},
{
Comp: CameraOnboarding,
props: {
onNextClick: progressToNextIndex
}
},
];
return (
<div>
{components.map(({Comp, props}, index) => {
const isActive = index === currentIndex;
return <Comp key={index} isActive={isActive} {...props} />;
})}
</div>
);
};
ReactDOM.render(<Example/>, document.getElementById("root"));
.active {
cursor: pointer;
}
<div id="root"></div>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/17.0.1/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-dom/17.0.1/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>

how to access a component style in react js

I have a div tag I want to render only if renderCard() style overflow is scroll. I have tried a renderCard().style.overflow which does not seem to target this
Edit: renderCard added
const SearchCard = () => (
<button class="invisible-button" onClick={onSearchCardClick}>
//
</button>
);
const AnswerCard = () => (
<div className="results-set">
//
</div>
);
const renderCard = () => {
if (card && card.answer) {
return AnswerCard();
} else if (card) {
return SearchCard();
}
return null;
};
<React.Fragment>
<div id="search-results">{renderCard()}</div>
{renderFollowup ? null : (
<React.Fragment>
<div id="search-footer">
{
(renderCard().style.overflow = "scroll" ? (
<div className="scroll-button">
<a href="#bottomSection">
<img src="images/arrow_down.svg" alt="scroll to bottom" />
</a>
</div>
) : null)
}
</div>
</React.Fragment>
)}
</React.Fragment>
);
};

To do this you need a ref to the actual DOM element rendered by renderCard().
renderCard() here returns a React element which doesn't have the style property or any other DOM properties on it - it's just a React representation of what the DOM element will eventually be once rendered - hence you need to get the actual DOM element via a ref where you'll have access to this and other properties.
Example code below using useRef to create the ref that will be attached to the element with the style you need to access. Note how useEffect is used to access the ref's value because it's only available after the first render when the DOM element is present.
const Example = () => {
const ref = React.useRef()
React.useEffect(() => {
alert('overflow value is: ' + ref.current.style.overflow)
}, [])
return (
<div ref={ref} style={{ overflow: 'scroll' }}>hello world</div>
)
}
ReactDOM.render(<Example />, document.getElementById('root'))
<script crossorigin src="https://unpkg.com/react#16/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script crossorigin src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom#16/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>
<div id="root"></div>

Refactor the cards to be actual rendered components, pass the ref and attach to the elements
const SearchCard = ({ overflowRef }) => (
<button ref={overflowRef} class="invisible-button" onClick={onSearchCardClick}>
//
</button>
);
const AnswerCard = ({ overflowRef }) => (
<div ref={overflowRef} className="results-set">
//
</div>
);
const RenderCard = ({ overflowRef }) => {
if (card && card.answer) {
return <AnswerCard overflowRef={overflowRef} />;
} else if (card) {
return <SearchCard overflowRef={overflowRef} />;
}
return null;
};
In the component rendering them, create a ref using either createRef or useRef react hook if it is a functional component
const overflowRef = createRef();
or
const overflowRef = useRef();
Pass the ref to RenderCard, to be passed on
<RenderCard overflowRef={overflowRef} />
And then check the overflow value as such
overflowRef.current.style.overflow === "scroll"

With the approach above you might want to refactor some of the HoC components and pass a function from parent to child that returns the ref of the element to be accessed also I am not sure of the scope of the block of code where you are executing the ternary.
Perhaps a simpler hack is to rely on using a useState hook with vanilla DOM selectors and passing that into the or even better, just add it to the stateless func component that wraps React.Fragment as a hook:
const myComponent = () => {
const [hasScrollOverflow, setHasScrollOverflow] = useState(false);
React.useEffect(() => {
const element = document.querySelector(".results-set");
const elementStyle = element.style;
if (elementStyle.getPropertyValue('overflow') === 'scroll') {
setHasScrollOverflow(true);
}
}, [])
return (
<React.Fragment>
<div id="search-results">{renderCard()}</div>
{renderFollowup ? null : (
<React.Fragment>
<div id="search-footer">
{hasScrollOverflow ? (
<div className="scroll-button">
<a href="#bottomSection">
<img src="images/arrow_down.svg" alt="scroll to bottom" />
</a>
</div>
) : null}
</div>
</React.Fragment>
)}
</React.Fragment>
);
};