How can I make React Portal work with React Hook?

Question

I have this specific need to listen to a custom event in the browser and from there, I have a button that will open a popup window. I\'m currently using React Portal to open

Answer 1

const Portal = ({ children }) => {
  const [modalContainer] = useState(document.createElement('div'));
  useEffect(() => {
    // Find the root element in your DOM
    let modalRoot = document.getElementById('modal-root');
    // If there is no root then create one
    if (!modalRoot) {
      const tempEl = document.createElement('div');
      tempEl.id = 'modal-root';
      document.body.append(tempEl);
      modalRoot = tempEl;
    }
    // Append modal container to root
    modalRoot.appendChild(modalContainer);
    return function cleanup() {
      // On cleanup remove the modal container
      modalRoot.removeChild(modalContainer);
    };
  }, []); // <- The empty array tells react to apply the effect on mount/unmount

  return ReactDOM.createPortal(children, modalContainer);
};

Then use the Portal with your modal/popup:

const App = () => (
  <Portal>
    <MyModal />
  </Portal>
)

Answer 2

You could create a small helper hook which would create an element in the dom first:

import { useLayoutEffect, useRef } from "react";
import { createPortal } from "react-dom";

const useCreatePortalInBody = () => {
    const wrapperRef = useRef(null);
    if (wrapperRef.current === null && typeof document !== 'undefined') {
        const div = document.createElement('div');
        div.setAttribute('data-body-portal', '');
        wrapperRef.current = div;
    }
    useLayoutEffect(() => {
        const wrapper = wrapperRef.current;
        if (!wrapper || typeof document === 'undefined') {
            return;
        }
        document.body.appendChild(wrapper);
        return () => {
            document.body.removeChild(wrapper);
        }
    }, [])
    return (children => wrapperRef.current && createPortal(children, wrapperRef.current);
}

And your component could look like this:

const Demo = () => {
    const createBodyPortal = useCreatePortalInBody();
    return createBodyPortal(
        <div style={{position: 'fixed', top: 0, left: 0}}>
            In body
        </div>
    );
}

Please note that this solution would not render anything during server side rendering.

Answer 3

Thought id chime in with a solution that has worked very well for me which creates a portal element dynamically, with optional className and element type via props and removes said element when the component unmounts:

export const Portal = ({
  children,
  className = 'root-portal',
  element = 'div',
}) => {
  const [container] = React.useState(() => {
    const el = document.createElement(element)
    el.classList.add(className)
    return el
  })

  React.useEffect(() => {
    document.body.appendChild(container)
    return () => {
      document.body.removeChild(container)
    }
  }, [])

  return ReactDOM.createPortal(children, container)
}

Answer 4

The issue is: a new div is created on every render, just create the div outside render function and it should work as expected,

const containerEl = document.createElement('div')
const PopupWindowWithHooks = props => {
   let externalWindow = null
   ... rest of your code ...

https://codesandbox.io/s/q9k8q903z6

Answer 5

You could also just use react-useportal. It works like:

import usePortal from 'react-useportal'

const App = () => {
  const { openPortal, closePortal, isOpen, Portal } = usePortal()
  return (
    <>
      <button onClick={openPortal}>
        Open Portal
      </button>
      {isOpen && (
        <Portal>
          <p>
            This is more advanced Portal. It handles its own state.{' '}
            <button onClick={closePortal}>Close me!</button>, hit ESC or
            click outside of me.
          </p>
        </Portal>
      )}
    </>
  )
}

Answer 6

The chosen/popular answer is close, but it needlessly creates unused DOM elements on every render. The useState hook can be supplied a function to make sure the initial value is only created once:

const [containerEl] = useState(() => document.createElement('div'));