how react programmatically focus input

Question

I\'m trying to implement a very simple use case, a UI feature, where:

1. There is a label with some content in it
2. If clicked, a text input replaces it wi

Answer 1

The way you have used refs is not the most preferred way or else its not the best practice anymore . try some thing like this

class MyClass extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.focus = this.focus.bind(this);
  }

  focus() {
    this.textInput.current.focus();
  }

  render() {

    return (
      <div>
        <input
          type="text"
          ref={(input) => { this.textInput = input; }} />
        <input
          type="button"
          value="Set Focus"
          onClick={this.focus}
        />
      </div>
    );
  }
}

Update
From React 16.3 upwards you can use the React.createRef() API

class MyClass extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    // create a ref to store the textInput DOM element
    this.textInput = React.createRef();
    this.focus = this.focus.bind(this);
  }

  focus() {
    // Explicitly focus the text input using the raw DOM API
    // Note: we're accessing "current" to get the DOM node
    this.textInput.current.focus();
  }

  render() {
    // tell React that we want to associate the <input> ref
    // with the `textInput` that we created in the constructor
    return (
      <div>
        <input
          type="text"
          ref={this.textInput} />
        <input
          type="button"
          value="Set Focus"
          onClick={this.focus}
        />
      </div>
    );
  }
}

Answer 2

@BenCarp's answer in typescript

Pass the inputRef to an input and just call setFocus to set the focus to it.

export const useInputFocus = (): [MutableRefObject<HTMLInputElement | undefined>, () => void] => {
  const inputRef = useRef<HTMLInputElement>();
  const setFocus = (): void => {
    const currentEl = inputRef.current;
    if (currentEl) {
      currentEl.focus();
    }
  };
  return [inputRef, setFocus];
};

Answer 3

In addition to the previous answers, I've added setTimeout to make it work

handleClick() {


    if (this.searchInput) {
        setTimeout(() => {

            this.searchInput.focus();

        }, 100);
    }
}

where searchInput is the jsx ref of the input

<input
      type="text"
      name="searchText"
      ref={(input) => { this.searchInput = input; }}
      placeholder="Search" />

and the handleClick() is an onClick handler to any element

Answer 4

Use componentDidUpdate method to every time update the component

componentDidUpdate(prevProps, prevState) {
     this.input.focus();
}

Answer 5

Just add autofocus attribute to the input. (of course in JSX it is autoFocus)

<input autoFocus ...

Answer 6

useFocus hook

// General Focus Hook
const useFocus = (initialFocus = false, id = "") => {
    const [focus, setFocus] = useState(initialFocus)
    const setFocusWithTrueDefault = (param) => setFocus(isBoolean(param)? param : true)
    return ([
        setFocusWithTrueDefault, {
            autoFocus: focus,
            key: `${id}${focus}`,
            onFocus: () => setFocus(true),
            onBlur: () => setFocus(false),
        },
    ])
}


const FocusDemo = () => {

    const [labelStr, setLabelStr] = useState("Your initial Value")
    const [setFocus, focusProps] = useFocus(true)

    return (
        <> {/* React.Fragment */}
            <input
                onChange={(e)=> setLabelStr(e.target.value)}
                value={labelStr}
                {...focusProps}
            />
            <h3 onClick={setFocus}>{labelStr}</h3>
        </>
    )

}

For a more complete demo [click here][1].