@open-pioneer/react-utils

This package provides React utilities that help a developer create applications.

Usage

Titled sections

Use the <TitledSection> and <SectionHeading> components instead of raw hX HTML tags (such as <h1> or <h2>). This way, the appropriate heading level is determined automatically.

Example:

import { TitledSection, SectionHeading } from "@open-pioneer/react-utils";

function SomeComponent(props) {
    return (
        {/* Renders as h1 if this is the topmost section.
            Title strings are automatically wrapped into `SectionHeading`. */}
        <TitledSection title="Root Title">
            ... Some content ...
            {/* Custom react component as title. Renders as the next level (h2). */}
            <TitledSection title={<SectionHeading size="4xl">Sub Title</SectionHeading>}>
                ... More content ...
            </TitledSection>
        </TitledSection>
    );
}
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To override the automatic heading level, use the ConfigureTitledSection component. This can be used for example to override the initial heading level or to force a certain level when the React tree differs from the DOM tree.

Example:

<ConfigureTitledSection level={2}>
    <TheRestOfYourApplication />
</ConfigureTitledSection>
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In the preceding example the topmost heading(s) in TheRestOfYourApplication start at level 2, and nested headings use increasing levels as usual. For more details, see the API documentation.

Roving menu

The roving menu is a render-less component that can be used to implement an accessible menu with keyboard navigation. It implements focus management and supports navigation using the arrow keys and home/end buttons.

To create a roving menu, use the useRovingMenu hook in combination with the RovingMenuRoot. You must apply the menuProps to some container element (a div, a list, etc.) and the menuState to the <RovingMenuRoot />, which acts as a context provider.

For example:

import { useRovingMenu, RovingMenuRoot } from "@open-pioneer/react-utils";

function HorizontalMenu() {
    const { menuProps, menuState } = useRovingMenu({
        orientation: "horizontal"
    });

    return (
        <HStack {...menuProps} justify="center" gap={5} padding={2}>
            <RovingMenuRoot menuState={menuState}>
                <MenuItem value="1" />
                <MenuItem value="2" />
                <MenuItem value="3" />
                <MenuItem value="4" />
            </RovingMenuRoot>
        </HStack>
    );
}
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To implement a menu item, use the useRovingMenuItem hook. You must provide a unique value for the item (unique within the menu). You must also make certain to apply the resulting itemProps to the menu item component (which can be any focusable DOM element). These props implement keyboard navigation and focus handling.

For example:

function MenuItem(props: { value: string }) {
    const { value } = props;
    const { itemProps } = useRovingMenuItem({
        value
    });

    return (
        <Button {...itemProps} onClick={() => console.log(`Button ${value} triggered.`)}>
            {value}
        </Button>
    );
}
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Disabled menu items

Use the disabled prop of useRovingMenuItem to indicate that your menu item is currently disabled. Disabled items will lose focus and will be skipped during keyboard navigation.

To mark your items as disabled for your users, prefer aria-disabled over HTML's disabled attribute. The disabled attribute completely disables focus and any browser events, which makes moving the focus to a neighboring item difficult to implement.

Unmounting / hiding menu items

display: none in combination with a disabled: true in useRovingMenuItem works well. As an alternative, you can also completely unmount your component from a parent of your menu item.

Note that returning null or undefined from your component will interfere with focus handling. You should always render your menu item's dom node, for as long as your item exists.

Nested menus

Roving menu supports limited nesting (2 levels deep).

For the outer menu, use the normal useRovingMenu() hook with a certain orientation. For the child menu, use the useNestedRovingMenu() hook with the opposite orientation.

The child menu will act as an item in its parent menu, so it requires a value as well.

Example for the child menu:

function NestedMenu() {
    const { menuProps, menuState } = useNestedRovingMenu({
        orientation: "horizontal",
        value: "some-value"
    });

    return (
        <HStack {...menuProps} justify="center" gap={5} padding={2}>
            <RovingMenuRoot menuState={menuState}>{/* nested items ... */}</RovingMenuRoot>
        </HStack>
    );
}
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Hooks

useCommonComponentProps()

A helper hook that automatically computes containerProps: common properties to set on the topmost container element of a public component.

For the time being, these properties are className (combined component class and optional additional class names) and data-testid (for tests).

Example:

// SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2023-2025 Open Pioneer project (https://github.com/open-pioneer)
// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
import { CommonComponentProps, useCommonComponentProps } from "@open-pioneer/react-utils";
// ...

// Inherit from CommonComponentProps
export interface InitialExtentProps extends CommonComponentProps {
    // props ...
}

export const InitialExtent: FC<InitialExtentProps> = (props: InitialExtentProps) => {
    // Use the hook to compute container props (classNames, data-testid, maybe more in the future)
    const { containerProps } = useCommonComponentProps("initial-extent", props);

    // Pass containerProps directly to the container
    return <Box {...containerProps}>{/* ... */}</Box>;
};
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useEvent()

The useEvent can be used to obtain a stable event handler function with changing implementation. This is useful to avoid re-triggering useEffect-hooks when only the event handler changed.

Example:

import { useEvent } from "@open-pioneer/react-utils";

function SomeReactComponent(props) {
    // NOTE: logMessage() must not be called during rendering!
    const logMessage = useEvent((message: string) => {
        console.log(message, props.someProperty);
    });
    const someService = ...; // injected

    // Changes of prop.someProperty will not cause the effect to re-fire, because the function identity
    // of `logMessage` remains stable.
    useEffect(() => {
        const handle = someService.registerHandler(logMessage);
        return () => handle.destroy();
    }, [someService, logMessage]);
}
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Warning: the function returned by useEvent must not be called during rendering.
It can only be used in an effect or in a event handler callback.

For more details, see the API docs of useEvent or https://github.com/reactjs/rfcs/blob/useevent/text/0000-useevent.md.

License

Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE file)