Yes it's new, I just open sourced it 😛
The other day I wanted to measure some DOM nodes. This is useful when you have to align items, or respond to browser width, or ... lots of reasons okay.
I had to align a curvy line with elements that aren't under my control. This little stepper component uses flexbox to evenly space circles, CSS layouting aligns the title, and you see where this is going.
SVG in the background detects position of itself, positions of the title and circle, and uses those to define the start
and end
line of my curve. 👌
Many ways you can do this.
@lavrton linked to a list of existing NPM packages that sort of do it. @mcalus shared how he uses react-sizeme
to get it done.
All great, but I wanted something even simpler. I also didn't know about them and kind of just wanted to make my own.
Here's an approach I found works great
useDimensions hook
This seemed like a neat approach so I turned it into an open source React Hook. You might enjoy it.
useDimensions source
Yep that's it. It really is that simple.
useRef
creates a React.ref, lets you access the DOMuseState
gives you place to store/read the resultuseLayoutEffect
runs before browser paint but after all is knowngetClientBoundingRect()
measures a DOM node. Width, height, x, y, etctoJSON
turns a DOMRect object into a plain object so you can destructure
Here's how to use it in your project 👇
First, add useDimensions
to your project
$ yarn add react-use-dimensionsor$ npm install --save react-use-dimensions
Using it in a component looks like this
<code class="javascript">import React from 'react';import useDimensions from 'react-use-dimensions';const MyComponent = () => {const [ref, { x, y, width }] = useDimensions();return (<div ref={ref}>This is the element you'll measure</div>)}
useDimensions
returns a 2-element array. First the ref
, second the dimensions.
This is so multiple useDimensions
hooks in the same component don't step on each others' toes. Create as many refs and measurement objects as you'd like.
<code class="javascript">const MyComponent = () => {const [stepRef, stepSize] = useDimensions();const [titleRef, titleSize] = useDimensions();console.log("Step is at X: ", stepSize.x);console.log("Title is", titleSize.width, "wide");return (<div><div ref={stepRef}>This is a step</div><h1 ref={titleRef}>The title</h1></div>)}
MIT License of course.
Consider retweeting if you think it's neat
Enjoy ✌️ ~Swizec
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