An onClickOutside wrapper for React components

This is a React Higher Order Component (HOC) that you can use with your own React components if you want to have them listen for clicks that occur somewhere in the document, outside of the element itself (for instance, if you need to hide a menu when people click anywhere else on your page).

Note that this HOC relies on the .classList property, which is supported by all modern browsers, but not by deprecated and obsolete browsers like IE (noting that Microsoft Edge is not Microsoft Internet Explorer. Edge does not have any problems with the classList property for SVG elements). If your code relies on classList in any way, you want to use a polyfill like dom4.

This HOC supports stateless components as of v5.7.0, and switched to using transpiled es6 classes rather than createClass as of v6.

Sections covered in this README

• Installation
• Regulate which events to listen for
• Regulate whether or not to listen for outside clicks
• Regulate whether or not to listen to scrollbar clicks
• Regulating evt.preventDefault() and evt.stopPropagation()
• Marking elements as "skip over this one" during the event loop
• Older React code: "What happened to the Mixin??"
  • But how can I access my component? It has an API that I rely on!
• Which version do I need for which version of React?
  • Support-wise, only the latest version will receive updates and bug fixes.
• IE does not support classList for SVG elements!
• I can't find what I need in the README

Installation

Use npm:

$> npm install react-onclickoutside --save

(or --save-dev depending on your needs). You then use it in your components as:

// ES6 Class and Module Syntax
import React, { Component } from "react";
import onClickOutside from "react-onclickoutside";

class MyComponent extends Component {
  handleClickOutside = evt => {
    // ..handling code goes here...
  };
}

export default onClickOutside(MyComponent);

or:

// good old node.js/CommonJS require
// .default is needed because library is bundled as ES6 module
var onClickOutside = require("react-onclickoutside").default;
var createReactClass = require("create-react-class");

// create a new component, wrapped by this onclickoutside HOC:
var MyComponent = onClickOutside(
  createReactClass({
    // ...,
    handleClickOutside: function(evt) {
      // ...handling code goes here...
    }
    // ...
  })
);

Note that if you try to wrap a React component class without a handleClickOutside(evt) handler like this, the HOC will throw an error. In order to use a custom event handler, you can specify the function to be used by the HOC as second parameter (this can be useful in environments like TypeScript, where the fact that the wrapped component does not implement the handler can be flagged at compile-time):

// load the HOC:
import React, { Component } from "react";
import onClickOutside from "react-onclickoutside";

// create a new component, wrapped below by onClickOutside HOC:
class MyComponent extends Component {
  // ...
  myClickOutsideHandler(evt) {
    // ...handling code goes here...
  }
  // ...
}
var clickOutsideConfig = {
  handleClickOutside: function(instance) {
    return instance.myClickOutsideHandler;
  }
};
var EnhancedComponent = onClickOutside(MyComponent, clickOutsideConfig);

Note that if you try to wrap a React component with a custom handler that the component does not implement, the HOC will throw an error at run-time.

Regulate which events to listen for

By default, "outside clicks" are based on both mousedown and touchstart events; if that is what you need, then you do not need to specify anything special. However, if you need different events, you can specify these using the eventTypes property. If you just need one event, you can pass in the event name as plain string:

<MyComponent eventTypes="click" ... />

For multiple events, you can pass in the array of event names you need to listen for:

<MyComponent eventTypes={["click", "touchend"]} ... />

Regulate whether or not to listen for outside clicks

Wrapped components have two functions that can be used to explicitly listen for, or do nothing with, outside clicks

• enableOnClickOutside() - Enables outside click listening by setting up the event listening bindings.
• disableOnClickOutside() - Disables outside click listening by explicitly removing the event listening bindings.

In addition, you can create a component that uses this HOC such that it has the code set up and ready to go, but not listening for outside click events until you explicitly issue its enableOnClickOutside(), by passing in a properly called disableOnClickOutside:

import React, { Component } from "react";
import onClickOutside from "react-onclickoutside";

class MyComponent extends Component {
  // ...
  handleClickOutside(evt) {
    // ...
  }
  // ...
}
var EnhancedComponent = onClickOutside(MyComponent);

class Container extends Component {
  render(evt) {
    return <EnhancedComponent disableOnClickOutside={true} />;
  }
}

Using disableOnClickOutside() or enableOnClickOutside() within componentDidMount or componentWillMount is considered an anti-pattern, and does not have consistent behaviour when using the mixin and HOC/ES7 Decorator. Favour setting the disableOnClickOutside property on the component.

Regulate whether or not to listen to scrollbar clicks

By default this HOC will listen for "clicks inside the document", which may include clicks that occur on the scrollbar. Quite often clicking on the scrollbar should close whatever is open but in case your project invalidates that assumption you can use the excludeScrollbar property to explicitly tell the HOC that clicks on the scrollbar should be ignored:

import React, { Component } from "react";
import onClickOutside from "react-onclickoutside";

class MyComponent extends Component {
  // ...
}
var EnhancedComponent = onClickOutside(MyComponent);

class Container extends Component {
  render(evt) {
    return <EnhancedComponent excludeScrollbar={true} />;
  }
}

Alternatively, you can specify this behavior as default for all instances of your component passing a configuration object as second parameter:

import React, { Component } from "react";
import onClickOutside from "react-onclickoutside";

class MyComponent extends Component {
  // ...
}
var clickOutsideConfig = {
  excludeScrollbar: true
};
var EnhancedComponent = onClickOutside(MyComponent, clickOutsideConfig);

Regulating evt.preventDefault() and evt.stopPropagation()

Technically this HOC lets you pass in preventDefault={true/false} and stopPropagation={true/false} to regulate what happens to the event when it hits your handleClickOutside(evt) function, but beware: stopPropagation may not do what you expect it to do.

Each component adds new event listeners to the document, which may or may not cause as many event triggers as there are event listening bindings. In the test file found in ./test/browser/index.html, the coded uses stopPropagation={true} but sibling events still make it to "parents".

Marking elements as "skip over this one" during the event loop

If you want the HOC to ignore certain elements, you can tell the HOC which CSS class name it should use for this purposes. If you want explicit control over the class name, use outsideClickIgnoreClass={some string} as component property, or if you don't, the default string used is ignore-react-onclickoutside.

Older React code: "What happened to the Mixin??"

Due to ES2015/ES6 class syntax making mixins essentially impossible, and the fact that HOC wrapping works perfectly fine in ES5 and older versions of React, as of this package's version 5.0.0 no Mixin is offered anymore.

If you absolutely need a mixin... you really don't.

But how can I access my component? It has an API that I rely on!

No, I get that. I constantly have that problem myself, so while there is no universal agreement on how to do that, this HOC offers a getInstance() function that you can call for a reference to the component you wrapped, so that you can call its API without headaches:

import React, { Component } from 'react'
import onClickOutside from 'react-onclickoutside'

class MyComponent extends Component {
  // ...
  handleClickOutside(evt) {
    // ...
  }
  ...
}
var EnhancedComponent = onClickOutside(MyComponent);

class Container extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.getMyComponentRef = this.getMyComponentRef.bind(this);
  }

  someFunction() {
    var ref = this.myComponentRef;
    // 1) Get the wrapped component instance:
    var superTrueMyComponent = ref.getInstance();
    // and call instance functions defined for it:
    superTrueMyComponent.customFunction();
  }

  getMyComponentRef(ref) {
    this.myComponentRef = ref;
  }

  render(evt) {
    return <EnhancedComponent disableOnClickOutside={true} ref={this.getMyComponentRef}/>
  }
}

Note that there is also a getClass() function, to get the original Class that was passed into the HOC wrapper, but if you find yourself needing this you're probably doing something wrong: you really want to define your classes as real, require'able etc. units, and then write wrapped components separately, so that you can always access the original class's statics etc. properties without needing to extract them out of a HOC.

Which version do I need for which version of React?

If you use React 0.12 or 0.13, version 2.4 and below will work.

If you use React 0.14, use v2.5 through v4.9, as these specifically use react-DOM for the necessary DOM event bindings.

If you use React 15, you can use v4.x, which offers both a mixin and HOC, or use v5.x, which is HOC-only.

If you use React 15.5, you can use v5.11.x, which relies on createClass as supplied by create-react-class rather than React.createClass.

If you use React 16 or 15.5 in preparation of 16, use v6.x, which uses pure class notation.

Support-wise, only the latest version will receive updates and bug fixes.

I do not believe in perpetual support for outdated libraries, so if you find one of the older versions is not playing nice with an even older React: you know what to do, and it's not "keep using that old version of React".

IE does not support classList for SVG elements!

This is true, but also an edge-case problem that only exists for older versions of IE (including IE11), and should be addressed by you, rather than by thousands of individual libraries that assume browsers have proper HTML API implementations (IE Edge has proper classList support even for SVG).

If you need this to work, you can add a shim for classList to your page(s), loaded before you load your React code, and you'll have instantly fixed every library that you might remotely rely on that makes use of the classList property. You can find several shims quite easily, a good one to start with is the dom4 shim, which adds all manner of good DOM4 properties to "not quite at DOM4 yet" browser implementations.

Eventually this problem will stop being one, but in the mean time you are responsible for making your site work by shimming everything that needs shimming for IE. As such, if you file a PR to fix classList-and-SVG issues specifically for this library, your PR will be closed and I will politely point you to this README.md section. I will not accept PRs to fix this issue. You already have the power to fix it, and I expect you to take responsibility as a fellow developer to shim what you need instead of getting obsolete quirks supported by libraries whose job isn't to support obsolete quirks.

To work around the issue you can use this simple shim:

if (!("classList" in SVGElement.prototype)) {
  Object.defineProperty(SVGElement.prototype, "classList", {
    get() {
      return {
        contains: className => {
          return this.className.baseVal.split(" ").indexOf(className) !== -1;
        }
      };
    }
  });
}

I can't find what I need in the README

If you've read the whole thing and you still can't find what you were looking for, then the README is missing important information that should be added in. Please file an issue with a request for additional documentation, describing what you were hoping to find in enough detail that it can be used to write up the information you needed.