React Component State not working - javascript

I have been trying to implement a hover effect on a div-element like in this codesandbox:
https://codesandbox.io/s/XopkqJ5oV
The component in which I want to do this, is a reusable component that is used multiple times on the same page. I suppose that is the reason why I can't get it to work. What am I missing?
Even using the above code won't work in my application.
EDIT: Thank you for your responses. I found the issue:
I was not letting ShouldComponentUpdate know, it should take state.isHovering into account.
shouldComponentUpdate(nextProps, nextState) {
return (
nextProps.post.id !== this.props.post.id ||
nextProps.screenshotClickUrl !== this.props.screenshotClickUrl ||
nextProps.onImageClick !== this.props.onImageClick ||
nextProps.handleMouseHover !== this.props.handleMouseHover ||
nextState.isHovering !== this.state.isHovering
)
}

You're missing a this in:
toggleHoverState(state) {
return {
isHovering: !state.isHovering // Need a "this" to access state.
};
}
If you stack the elements too closely it will interfere with the mouse enter/leave events, e.g., if you space them apart:
const Foo = () => {
return (
<div>
<HoverExample />
<div style={{height: '2em', border: '1px solid blue'}} />
<HoverExample />
</div>
)
}
it work like (I think) you'd expect.
https://codesandbox.io/s/93l25m453o
I put borders around it to help visualize the issue.
If that doesn't make sense, see what happens when you have the hover indicator in an adjacent span rather than stacked:
https://codesandbox.io/s/5k5jj3rpok

Related

Is it generally considered to be bad practice to use firstChild etc in reactJS?

I once read that accessing the dom directly is considered bad practice when using react JS and wanted to clarify a use case in an accordion component I built. The component needs to animate when it expands/collapses so I decided to use CSS transitions for this.
To achieve this I essentially stick the element with the content of the accordion tab into an array which which is stored in a useRef object. Then, when the user clicks the trigger, I access the ref and alter the style property of the element, and other related element, by using methods such as firstElementChild and closest.
The resulting component is pretty clean and the method works well, I was just concerned whether or not there is something I am missing. I have seen multiple articles online which either use a library or nested hooks which ultimately use setTimeout to apply a style. This feels hacky to me.
Anyway, some code...
Event handlers:
const tabsRef = useRef<TabRef[]>([]);
const indRef = useRef<number[]>([]);
const alterTabs = (newIndexes: number[]) => {
tabsRef.current.forEach((tab) => {
tab.element.style.setProperty(
"height",
newIndexes.includes(tab.index)
? `${tab?.element?.firstElementChild?.clientHeight}px`
: "0px"
);
tab.element
?.closest("[aria-expanded]")
?.setAttribute("aria-expanded", `${newIndexes.includes(tab.index)}`);
});
};
const selectDay: React.MouseEventHandler = (
event: React.MouseEvent<HTMLButtonElement>
) => {
const trigger = event.currentTarget;
trigger?.setAttribute("disabled", "true");
const triggeredIndex = Number(trigger.dataset.index);
const newIndexes = indRef.current.includes(triggeredIndex)
? [...indRef.current.filter((index) => index !== triggeredIndex)]
: [...indRef.current, triggeredIndex];
alterTabs(newIndexes);
indRef.current = newIndexes;
trigger?.removeAttribute("disabled");
};
Relevant Render method:
{items.map((item, i) => (
<AccordionTriggerWrapper
key={Math.random().toString(36).substring(2, 9)}
data-index={i}
aria-expanded="false"
>
<AccordionTrigger>
<Button margin="sm" data-index={i} onClick={selectDay}>
<AccordionTitleIcon>
{item.icon && getIcon(item.icon)}
{item.title}
</AccordionTitleIcon>
{[getIcon("minus", 10), getIcon("plus", 10)]}
</Button>
</AccordionTrigger>
<Content>
<ContentInner
ref={(element) => {
tabsRef.current[i] = {
index: i,
element: element?.parentElement as HTMLElement,
};
}}
>
<ReactMarkdown
key={Math.random().toString(36).substring(2, 9)}
>
{item.content}
</ReactMarkdown>
</ContentInner>
</Content>
</AccordionTriggerWrapper>
))}
It's bad practice to dominate the DOM by yourself but small things like you do above, you can do it. Anyway, I can recommend you some react styling components like react-transition-group(especially), and you can take a look at React-Motion and React-Move. hit me up if it's helpful

REACT connect 4 game - attempt to reset grid over setState but results in "undefined"

I am trying to create a Connect of 4 game in React as an exercise.
If i want to reset the grid or for displaying player points, a reset of my grid is required rather than simply reloading the entire page.
In this case, dealing with my grid via state is a logical step, but after several attempts and variations, I'm unfortunately lost at the moment
In this variation below, this.state.grid always returns undefined on reset (console.log right after render method begins).
I see that the problem is most likely because in the gridHtml function I am already passing the grid to the state via setState.
If I call this.gridHTML() directly on the reset button, my grid completely disappears.
I am very grateful for any help at this point
import React from 'react';
class Grid extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
player: "red",
isGameOver: false,
gamestarts: false
};
this.findLastEmptyColl = this.findLastEmptyColl.bind(this);
this.onMouseEnter = this.onMouseEnter.bind(this);
this.onMouseLeave = this.onMouseLeave.bind(this);
this.onClick = this.onClick.bind(this);
this.checkForWinner = this.checkForWinner.bind(this);
this.gridHtml = this.gridHtml.bind(this);
this.reset = this.reset.bind(this);
};
/*left out MouseEnter, leave, click and win logic , those work fine and to keep it short */
gridHtml() {
let rows = Array(6).fill(0), cols = Array(7).fill(0);
let grid = rows.map((el, i) => {
return (
<div key={i} className="row">
{cols.map((value, index) => {
return (
<div key={index}
onMouseEnter={this.onMouseEnter}
onMouseLeave={this.onMouseLeave}
onClick={this.onClick}
className="col empty"
data-col={index}
data-row={i}>
</div>
);
})}
</div>
);
});
this.setState({
grid: grid
});
}
componentDidMount() {
this.gridHtml();
}
componentWillMount() {
this.gridHtml();
}
reset() {
this.setState({
grid: this.gridHtml(),
isGameOver: false,
gamestarts: false
})
}
render() {
console.log(this.state.grid);
return (
<>
{!this.state.gamestarts && <h4>Connect 4 - Player {this.state.player} begins!</h4>}
{this.state.gamestarts && <h4>Player {this.state.player} </h4>}
{(this.state.isGameOver && !this.state.gamestarts) && <h4>Player {this.state.player} has won</h4>}
<div id="board">
{this.state.grid}
</div>
<div>
<button style={{margin: "30px"}} onClick={() => {this.reset()}}>Reset</button>
</div>
</>
)
}
}
export default Grid;
Update:
I see that my understanding of React doesn't seem to be properly adjusted yet; in my reset() function, due to the asynchronicity of react, I assume that the dynamic assignment via setState of my grid should actually render automatically?
Again, the problem: when I currently press my reset button, the grid is re-created but the moves, red and yellow, are still on the grid as they were; last I thought of writing a function that instead of creating a new grid removes all CSS classes and data properties related to it - but that would make the whole point of doing something like this with React absurd.
To make it even clearer:
if I extend my reset() function with a setTimeout around setState, right after overwriting my grid, it works?! I can understand why but this right now feels like a hack and I don't want to leave it like this, because this is supposed to be the core competence of React? Hope it helps to understand better
reset () {
this.setState({grid: 'some text ... loading '});
setTimeout(() =>{
this.setState({
grid: this.gridHtml(),
isGameOver: false,
gamestarts: true,
player: "red"
});
}, 1000);
}
Hope somebody can explain?
Many thanks
Your gridHtml() function doesn't return anything so grid is being set to undefined. Try adding a return grid; statement to the end.

Targeting only the clicked item on a mapped component ( React quiz trivia App)

i'm trying to develop an App with React using the Open trivia Api. I have mapped a button component (using material ui) to show the different answers for each question. I'm struggling now to target only the clicked one to apply a css property: if the answer is correct should become green, else red. The problem is the fact that once i click, all button become red or green. I tried to store the index in a state and compare the real index, but it doesn't work. here is my code:
in the main APP.js
const [clickedOne, setClickedOne] = useState({
clickedIndex: null,
});
useEffect(() => {
grabData();
}, []);
const handleClick = (choice, ke) => {
setChoice(choice);
if (choice === data.correct_answer) {
setIsCorrect(true);
} else {
setIsCorrect(false);
}
setClickedOne({ clickedIndex: ke });
grabData();
};
The mapped button inside the Render:
{answers.map((answer, index) => {
return (
<ContainedButtons
choice={handleClick}
answer={answer}
correct={data.correct_answer}
isCorrect={isCorrect}
key={index}
id={index}
clicked={clickedOne}
/>
);
})}
Inside the Button component:
const backStyle = () => {
if (clicked === id) {
if (isCorrect) {
return "green";
} else if (isCorrect === false) {
return "red";
} else {
return null;
}
}
};
return (
<div className={classes.root}>
<Button
style={{ backgroundColor: backStyle() }}
value={answer}
onClick={() => choice(answer, id)}
variant="contained"
>
{decodeURIComponent(answer)}
</Button>
When i check now inside the backstyle function if the clicked===id, now nothing happens anymore. Without that if check, i would have all buttons red or green.
Thank you guys for the help!
I have looked at your codesandbox demo, there are alot of other problems apart from the one your question is about.
First of all, each time you make a request to the API to fetch next question, you are making a request to get 10 questions instead of 1. API request URL contains a query parameter named amount which determines how many questions will be fetched on each request. Change its value to 1.
"https://opentdb.com/api.php?amount=1&encode=url3986"
Secondly, there is a lot of unnecessary code and unnecessary use of useState hook. You only need 2 things to be stored in the state, data and answers
const [data, setData] = useState({});
const [answers, setAnswers] = useState([]);
Now, coming to the original problem of detecting which button is clicked and correctly updating its background color.
To achieve the desired functionality, take following steps:
create couple of CSS classes as shown below
button.bgGreen {
background-color: green !important;
}
button.bgRed {
background-color: red !important;
}
pass a handleClick function from App component to ContainedButtons component. When a button is clicked, this click handler will be invoked. Inside the handleClick function, get the text and the button that was clicked using Event.target and depending on whether user answered correctly or not, add appropriate CSS class, created in step 1, on the button that was clicked.
Instead of using index as key for ContainedButtons in map function, use something that will be unique each time. This is needed because we want React to not re-use the ContainedButtons because if React re-uses the ContainedButtons component, then CSS classes added in step 2 will not be removed from the button.
Here's a working codesanbox demo of your app with the above mentioned steps.
In this demo, i have removed the unnecessary code and also changed the key of ContainedButtons inside map function to key={answer.length * Math.random() * 100}. You can change it to anything that will ensure that this key will be unique each time.

Multiple elements with the same ref, React

I have a problem. It is:
let list = storage.map((element, index, array) => {
return (
<li key={index} className="list-element">
<div className="title-wrapper" onMouseEnter={this.handleMouseEnter}>
<p className="title">{array[index]['title']}</p>
<p className="title title-full" ref={node => this.title = node}>Text</p>
</div>
</li>
);
});
handleMouseEnter() {
this.title.style.opacity = "1";
}
So, when mouse enters .title-wrapper I want to set opacity to 1 on .title-full. But no matter on which .title-wrapper mouse enters, always opacity will be set to the last .title-full.
The problem is easy to solve with querySelector but I read that using it is bad thing in React, isn't it?
The reason this.title is always set to the last element is because you are setting each element in the loop to this.title, so the last one overwrites the one before it, and so on.
What about just using CSS directly, instead of handling it in React at all?
Example:
.title-wrapper:hover .title-full {
opacity: 1;
}
Just a general comment that refs aren't usually preferred in React (maybe for forms or modals sometimes). What you're emulating is a jQuery-like DOM manipulation approach, which can certainly work but is sidestepping the power of React being state-based, obvious, and easy to follow.
I would typically
this.setState({
hovered: true
})
in your handleMouseEnter method (and unset it in your mouseOut). Then choose your className based on this.state.hovered
I think going with CSS is definitely the best approach.
Just for anyone running into this issue of multiple refs in another context, you could solve the issue by storing the refs in an array
let list = storage.map((element, index, array) => {
return (
<li key={index} className="list-element">
<div className="title-wrapper" onMouseEnter={() => this.handleMouseEnter(index)}>
<p className="title">{array[index]['title']}</p>
<p className="title title-full" ref={node => this.titles[index] = node}>Text</p>
</div>
</li>
);
});
handleMouseEnter(index) {
this.titles[index].style.opacity = "1";
}
Again, you don't need to do this for your use case, just thought it might be helpful for others :D

React "after render" code?

I have an app where I need to set the height of an element (lets say "app-content") dynamically. It takes the height of the "chrome" of the app and subtracts it and then sets the height of the "app-content" to fit 100% within those constraints. This is super simple with vanilla JS, jQuery, or Backbone views, but I'm struggling to figure out what the right process would be for doing this in React?
Below is an example component. I want to be able to set app-content's height to be 100% of the window minus the size of the ActionBar and BalanceBar, but how do I know when everything is rendered and where would I put the calculation stuff in this React Class?
/** #jsx React.DOM */
var List = require('../list');
var ActionBar = require('../action-bar');
var BalanceBar = require('../balance-bar');
var Sidebar = require('../sidebar');
var AppBase = React.createClass({
render: function () {
return (
<div className="wrapper">
<Sidebar />
<div className="inner-wrapper">
<ActionBar title="Title Here" />
<BalanceBar balance={balance} />
<div className="app-content">
<List items={items} />
</div>
</div>
</div>
);
}
});
module.exports = AppBase;
componentDidMount()
This method is called once after your component is rendered. So your code would look like so.
var AppBase = React.createClass({
componentDidMount: function() {
var $this = $(ReactDOM.findDOMNode(this));
// set el height and width etc.
},
render: function () {
return (
<div className="wrapper">
<Sidebar />
<div className="inner-wrapper">
<ActionBar title="Title Here" />
<BalanceBar balance={balance} />
<div className="app-content">
<List items={items} />
</div>
</div>
</div>
);
}
});
One drawback of using componentDidUpdate, or componentDidMount is that they are actually executed before the dom elements are done being drawn, but after they've been passed from React to the browser's DOM.
Say for example if you needed set node.scrollHeight to the rendered node.scrollTop, then React's DOM elements may not be enough. You need to wait until the elements are done being painted to get their height.
Solution:
Use requestAnimationFrame to ensure that your code is run after the painting of your newly rendered object
scrollElement: function() {
// Store a 'this' ref, and
var _this = this;
// wait for a paint before running scrollHeight dependent code.
window.requestAnimationFrame(function() {
var node = _this.getDOMNode();
if (node !== undefined) {
node.scrollTop = node.scrollHeight;
}
});
},
componentDidMount: function() {
this.scrollElement();
},
// and or
componentDidUpdate: function() {
this.scrollElement();
},
// and or
render: function() {
this.scrollElement()
return [...]
In my experience window.requestAnimationFrame wasn't enough to ensure that the DOM had been fully rendered / reflow-complete from componentDidMount. I have code running that accesses the DOM immediately after a componentDidMount call and using solely window.requestAnimationFrame would result in the element being present in the DOM; however, updates to the element's dimensions aren't reflected yet since a reflow hasn't yet occurred.
The only truly reliable way for this to work was to wrap my method in a setTimeout and a window.requestAnimationFrame to ensure React's current call stack gets cleared before registering for the next frame's render.
function onNextFrame(callback) {
setTimeout(function () {
requestAnimationFrame(callback)
})
}
If I had to speculate on why this is occurring / necessary I could see React batching DOM updates and not actually applying the changes to the DOM until after the current stack is complete.
Ultimately, if you're using DOM measurements in the code you're firing after the React callbacks you'll probably want to use this method.
Just to update a bit this question with the new Hook methods, you can simply use the useEffect hook:
import React, { useEffect } from 'react'
export default function App(props) {
useEffect(() => {
// your post layout code (or 'effect') here.
...
},
// array of variables that can trigger an update if they change. Pass an
// an empty array if you just want to run it once after component mounted.
[])
}
Also if you want to run before the layout paint use the useLayoutEffect hook:
import React, { useLayoutEffect } from 'react'
export default function App(props) {
useLayoutEffect(() => {
// your pre layout code (or 'effect') here.
...
}, [])
}
You can change the state and then do your calculations in the setState callback. According to the React documentation, this is "guaranteed to fire after the update has been applied".
This should be done in componentDidMount or somewhere else in the code (like on a resize event handler) rather than in the constructor.
This is a good alternative to window.requestAnimationFrame and it does not have the issues some users have mentioned here (needing to combine it with setTimeout or call it multiple times). For example:
class AppBase extends React.Component {
state = {
showInProcess: false,
size: null
};
componentDidMount() {
this.setState({ showInProcess: true }, () => {
this.setState({
showInProcess: false,
size: this.calculateSize()
});
});
}
render() {
const appStyle = this.state.showInProcess ? { visibility: 'hidden' } : null;
return (
<div className="wrapper">
...
<div className="app-content" style={appStyle}>
<List items={items} />
</div>
...
</div>
);
}
}
I feel that this solution is dirty, but here we go:
componentDidMount() {
this.componentDidUpdate()
}
componentDidUpdate() {
// A whole lotta functions here, fired after every render.
}
Now I am just going to sit here and wait for the down votes.
React has few lifecycle methods which help in these situations, the lists including but not limited to getInitialState, getDefaultProps, componentWillMount, componentDidMount etc.
In your case and the cases which needs to interact with the DOM elements, you need to wait till the dom is ready, so use componentDidMount as below:
/** #jsx React.DOM */
var List = require('../list');
var ActionBar = require('../action-bar');
var BalanceBar = require('../balance-bar');
var Sidebar = require('../sidebar');
var AppBase = React.createClass({
componentDidMount: function() {
ReactDOM.findDOMNode(this).height = /* whatever HEIGHT */;
},
render: function () {
return (
<div className="wrapper">
<Sidebar />
<div className="inner-wrapper">
<ActionBar title="Title Here" />
<BalanceBar balance={balance} />
<div className="app-content">
<List items={items} />
</div>
</div>
</div>
);
}
});
module.exports = AppBase;
Also for more information about lifecycle in react you can have look the below link:
https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/state-and-lifecycle.html
I ran into the same problem.
In most scenarios using the hack-ish setTimeout(() => { }, 0) in componentDidMount() worked.
But not in a special case; and I didn't want to use the ReachDOM findDOMNode since the documentation says:
Note: findDOMNode is an escape hatch used to access the underlying DOM
node. In most cases, use of this escape hatch is discouraged because
it pierces the component abstraction.
(Source: findDOMNode)
So in that particular component I had to use the componentDidUpdate() event, so my code ended up being like this:
componentDidMount() {
// feel this a little hacky? check this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26556436/react-after-render-code
setTimeout(() => {
window.addEventListener("resize", this.updateDimensions.bind(this));
this.updateDimensions();
}, 0);
}
And then:
componentDidUpdate() {
this.updateDimensions();
}
Finally, in my case, I had to remove the listener created in componentDidMount:
componentWillUnmount() {
window.removeEventListener("resize", this.updateDimensions.bind(this));
}
There is actually a lot simpler and cleaner version than using request animationframe or timeouts. Iam suprised no one brought it up:
the vanilla-js onload handler.
If you can, use component did mount, if not, simply bind a function on the onload hanlder of the jsx component. If you want the function to run every render, also execute it before returning you results in the render function. the code would look like this:
runAfterRender = () =>
{
const myElem = document.getElementById("myElem")
if(myElem)
{
//do important stuff
}
}
render()
{
this.runAfterRender()
return (
<div
onLoad = {this.runAfterRender}
>
//more stuff
</div>
)
}
}
I'm actually having a trouble with similar behaviour, I render a video element in a Component with it's id attribute so when RenderDOM.render() ends it loads a plugin that needs the id to find the placeholder and it fails to find it.
The setTimeout with 0ms inside the componentDidMount() fixed it :)
componentDidMount() {
if (this.props.onDidMount instanceof Function) {
setTimeout(() => {
this.props.onDidMount();
}, 0);
}
}
After render, you can specify the height like below and can specify the height to corresponding react components.
render: function () {
var style1 = {height: '100px'};
var style2 = { height: '100px'};
//window. height actually will get the height of the window.
var hght = $(window).height();
var style3 = {hght - (style1 + style2)} ;
return (
<div className="wrapper">
<Sidebar />
<div className="inner-wrapper">
<ActionBar style={style1} title="Title Here" />
<BalanceBar style={style2} balance={balance} />
<div className="app-content" style={style3}>
<List items={items} />
</div>
</div>
</div>
);`
}
or you can specify the height of the each react component using sass. Specify first 2 react component main div's with fixed width and then the third component main div's height with auto. So based on the third div's content the height will be assigned.
For me, no combination of window.requestAnimationFrame or setTimeout produced consistent results. Sometimes it worked, but not always—or sometimes it would be too late.
I fixed it by looping window.requestAnimationFrame as many times as necessary.
(Typically 0 or 2-3 times)
The key is diff > 0: here we can ensure exactly when the page updates.
// Ensure new image was loaded before scrolling
if (oldH > 0 && images.length > prevState.images.length) {
(function scroll() {
const newH = ref.scrollHeight;
const diff = newH - oldH;
if (diff > 0) {
const newPos = top + diff;
window.scrollTo(0, newPos);
} else {
window.requestAnimationFrame(scroll);
}
}());
}
For me, componentDidUpdate alone or window.requestAnimationFrame alone didn't solve the problem, but the following code worked.
// Worked but not succinct
componentDidUpdate(prevProps, prevState, snapshot) {
if (this.state.refreshFlag) { // in the setState for which you want to do post-rendering stuffs, set this refreshFlag to true at the same time, to enable this block of code.
window.requestAnimationFrame(() => {
this.setState({
refreshFlag: false // Set the refreshFlag back to false so this only runs once.
});
something = this.scatterChart.current.canvas
.toDataURL("image/png"); // Do something that need to be done after rendering is finished. In my case I retrieved the canvas image.
});
}
}
And later I tested with requestAnimationFrame commented, it still worked perfectly:
// The best solution I found
componentDidUpdate(prevProps, prevState, snapshot) {
if (this.state.refreshFlag) { // in the setState for which you want to do post-rendering stuffs, set this refreshFlag to true at the same time, to enable this block of code.
// window.requestAnimationFrame(() => {
this.setState({
refreshFlag: false // Set the refreshFlag back to false so this only runs once.
});
something = this.scatterChart.current.canvas
.toDataURL("image/png"); // Do something that need to be done after rendering is finished. In my case I retrieved the canvas image.
// });
}
}
I'm not sure whether it's just a coincidence that the extra setState induced a time delay, so that when retrieving the image, the drawing is already done (I will get the old canvas image if I remove the setState).
Or more possibly, it was because setState is required to be executed after everything is rendered, so it forced the waiting for the rendering to finish.
-- I tend to believe the latter, because in my experience, calling setState consecutively in my code will result in each one triggered only after the last rendering finished.
Lastly, I tested the following code. If this.setState({}); doesn't update the component, but wait till the rendering finishes, this would be the ultimate best solution, I thought. However, it failed. Even when passing an empty {}, setState() still updates the component.
// This one failed!
componentDidUpdate(prevProps, prevState, snapshot) {
// if (this.state.refreshFlag) {
// window.requestAnimationFrame(() => {
this.setState({});
something = this.scatterChart.current.canvas
.toDataURL("image/png");
// });
// }
}
I recommend that you make use of hooks.
They are available from version 16.8.0 onwards.
You can check the behavior of this hook in the official react documentation.
Something like this:
import React, { useEffect } from 'react'
const AppBase = ({ }) => {
useEffect(() => {
// set el height and width etc.
}, [])
return (
<div className="wrapper">
<Sidebar />
<div className="inner-wrapper">
<ActionBar title="Title Here" />
<BalanceBar balance={balance} />
<div className="app-content">
<List items={items} />
</div>
</div>
</div>
);
}
export default AppBase
I had weird situation when i need to print react component which receives big amount of data and paint in on canvas. I've tried all mentioned approaches, non of them worked reliably for me, with requestAnimationFrame inside setTimeout i get empty canvas in 20% of the time, so i did the following:
nRequest = n => range(0,n).reduce(
(acc,val) => () => requestAnimationFrame(acc), () => requestAnimationFrame(this.save)
);
Basically i made a chain of requestAnimationFrame's, not sure is this good idea or not but this works in 100% of the cases for me so far (i'm using 30 as a value for n variable).
I am not going to pretend I know why this particular function works, however window.getComputedStyle works 100% of the time for me whenever I need to access DOM elements with a Ref in a useEffect — I can only presume it will work with componentDidMount as well.
I put it at the top of the code in a useEffect and it appears as if it forces the effect to wait for the elements to be painted before it continues with the next line of code, but without any noticeable delay such as using a setTimeout or an async sleep function. Without this, the Ref element returns as undefined when I try to access it.
const ref = useRef(null);
useEffect(()=>{
window.getComputedStyle(ref.current);
// Next lines of code to get element and do something after getComputedStyle().
});
return(<div ref={ref}></div>);
for functional components you can react-use-call-onnext-render, its a custom hook that allows schedule callback on a later render.
It is used successfully on one of my other projects.
for requiring dimension of a dom element,
see this example,its the third example on react-use-call-onnext-render examples:
let's say we want to get dimensions of a removable DOM element,lets say div that is controlled by showBox state
variable. for that we can use getBoundingClientRect(). however, we want to call this function only after the element
mounted into the dom, so will schedule this call one render after the variable responsible for showing this element
in the dom has changed,and this variable is showBox, so he will be dependency of useCallOnNextRender:
const YourComponent = () => {
const [showBox, setShowBox] = useState(false)
const divRef = useRef()
const callOnNextShowBoxChange = useCallOnNextRender()
return (
<>
<div style={canvasStyle} id="canvas">
<button style={boxStyle} onClick={() => {
setShowBox(!showBox)
callOnNextShowBoxChange(() => console.log(divRef.current.getBoundingClientRect())) //right value
}}>toggle show box
</button>
<div style={{border: "black solid 1px"}} ref={divRef}>
{showBox ? <div style={boxStyle}>box2</div> : null}
</div>
</div>
</>
);
};
After trying all the suggested solutions above with no luck I found one of my elements in the middle had CSS transition, that's why I failed to get correct computed geometry after props changed.
So I had to use onTransitionEnd listener to wait for a moment when to try getting the computed by DOM height of container element.
Hope this will save someone's work day lol.
From the ReactDOM.render() documentation:
If the optional callback is provided, it will be executed after the
component is rendered or updated.
A little bit of update with ES6 classes instead of React.createClass
import React, { Component } from 'react';
class SomeComponent extends Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
// this code might be called when there is no element avaliable in `document` yet (eg. initial render)
}
componentDidMount() {
// this code will be always called when component is mounted in browser DOM ('after render')
}
render() {
return (
<div className="component">
Some Content
</div>
);
}
}
Also - check React component lifecycle methods:The Component Lifecycle
Every component have a lot of methods similar to componentDidMount eg.
componentWillUnmount() - component is about to be removed from browser DOM

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