Detect click outside React component

Question

I\'m looking for a way to detect if a click event happened outside of a component, as described in this article. jQuery closest() is used to see if the target from a click e

Answer 1

Typescript with Hooks

Note: I'm using React version 16.3, with React.createRef. For other versions use the ref callback.

Dropdown component:

interface DropdownProps {
 ...
};

export const Dropdown: React.FC<DropdownProps> () {
  const ref: React.RefObject<HTMLDivElement> = React.createRef();
  
  const handleClickOutside = (event: MouseEvent) => {
    if (ref && ref !== null) {
      const cur = ref.current;
      if (cur && !cur.contains(event.target as Node)) {
        // close all dropdowns
      }
    }
  }

  useEffect(() => {
    // Bind the event listener
    document.addEventListener("mousedown", handleClickOutside);
    return () => {
      // Unbind the event listener on clean up
      document.removeEventListener("mousedown", handleClickOutside);
    };
  });

  return (
    <div ref={ref}>
        ...
    </div>
  );
}

Answer 2

I know this is an old question, but I keep coming across this and I had a lot of trouble figuring this out in a simple format. So if this would make anyones life a bit easier, use OutsideClickHandler by airbnb. It is a the simplest plugin to accomplish this task without writing your own code.

Example:

hideresults(){
   this.setState({show:false})
}
render(){
 return(
 <div><div onClick={() => this.setState({show:true})}>SHOW</div> {(this.state.show)? <OutsideClickHandler onOutsideClick={() => 
  {this.hideresults()}} > <div className="insideclick"></div> </OutsideClickHandler> :null}</div>
 )
}

Answer 3

componentWillMount(){

  document.addEventListener('mousedown', this.handleClickOutside)
}

handleClickOutside(event) {

  if(event.path[0].id !== 'your-button'){
     this.setState({showWhatever: false})
  }
}

Event path[0] is the last item clicked

Answer 4

In my DROPDOWN case the Ben Bud's solution worked well, but I had a separate toggle button with an onClick handler. So the outside clicking logic conflicted with the button onClick toggler. Here is how I solved it by passing the button's ref as well:

import React, { useRef, useEffect, useState } from "react";

/**
 * Hook that triggers onClose when clicked outside of ref and buttonRef elements
 */
function useOutsideClicker(ref, buttonRef, onOutsideClick) {
  useEffect(() => {

    function handleClickOutside(event) {
      /* clicked on the element itself */
      if (ref.current && !ref.current.contains(event.target)) {
        return;
      }

      /* clicked on the toggle button */
      if (buttonRef.current && !buttonRef.current.contains(event.target)) {
        return;
      }

      /* If it's something else, trigger onClose */
      onOutsideClick();
    }

    // Bind the event listener
    document.addEventListener("mousedown", handleClickOutside);
    return () => {
      // Unbind the event listener on clean up
      document.removeEventListener("mousedown", handleClickOutside);
    };
  }, [ref]);
}

/**
 * Component that alerts if you click outside of it
 */
export default function DropdownMenu(props) {
  const wrapperRef = useRef(null);
  const buttonRef = useRef(null);
  const [dropdownVisible, setDropdownVisible] = useState(false);

  useOutsideClicker(wrapperRef, buttonRef, closeDropdown);

  const toggleDropdown = () => setDropdownVisible(visible => !visible);

  const closeDropdown = () => setDropdownVisible(false);

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={toggleDropdown} ref={buttonRef}>Dropdown Toggler</button>
      {dropdownVisible && <div ref={wrapperRef}>{props.children}</div>}
    </div>
  );
}

Answer 5

Alternatively to .contains, you can use the .closest method. When you want to check if a click was outside of the element with id="apple" then i can use:

const isOutside = !e.target.closest("#apple");

This checks if any element in the tree above the clicked one has an id of "apple". We have to negate the result!

Answer 6

Alternatively:

const onClickOutsideListener = () => {
    alert("click outside")
    document.removeEventListener("click", onClickOutsideListener)
  }

...

return (
  <div
    onMouseLeave={() => {
          document.addEventListener("click", onClickOutsideListener)
        }}
  >
   ...
  </div>