use-resize-observer

What is use-resize-observer?

The use-resize-observer package provides a React hook that allows you to monitor an element for size changes. It is useful for responsive design and element-specific adjustments based on width and height. It leverages the ResizeObserver API to offer a simple and efficient way to react to size changes in components.

What are use-resize-observer's main functionalities?

Basic usage for monitoring size changes

This code demonstrates how to use the use-resize-observer hook to monitor the size of a component. By destructuring `ref`, `width`, and `height` from the hook, you can easily track the dimensions of the element that the `ref` is attached to.

import useResizeObserver from 'use-resize-observer';

const MyComponent = () => {
  const { ref, width, height } = useResizeObserver();

  return (
    <div ref={ref}>
      The width is {width} and the height is {height}.
    </div>
  );
};

Using with a callback

This example shows how to use the hook with a callback function. The `onResize` option allows you to provide a function that will be called whenever the observed element's size changes, receiving the new `width` and `height` as parameters.

import useResizeObserver from 'use-resize-observer';

const MyComponent = () => {
  const { ref } = useResizeObserver({
    onResize: ({ width, height }) => {
      console.log(`New size: ${width}x${height}`);
    }
  });

  return <div ref={ref}>Resize me and check the console!</div>;
};

Other packages similar to use-resize-observer

react-resize-detector

react-resize-detector is another package that provides components and hooks to listen to resize events. Compared to use-resize-observer, it offers more customization options, such as the ability to choose between a hook or a higher-order component for detecting resize events. However, use-resize-observer might be simpler to use for straightforward use cases.

resize-observer-polyfill

resize-observer-polyfill is not a React-specific package but a polyfill for the ResizeObserver API. It can be used in conjunction with React but requires manual setup and teardown of the observer. use-resize-observer abstracts this setup, offering a more integrated React hook approach.

README

use-resize-observer

A React hook that allows you to use a ResizeObserver to measure an element's size.

Highlights

• Written in TypeScript.
• Tiny: 648B (minified, gzipped) Monitored by size-limit.
• Exposes an onResize callback if you need more control.
• box option.
• Works with SSR.
• Works with CSS-in-JS.
• Supports custom refs in case you had one already.
• Uses RefCallback by default To address delayed mounts and changing ref elements.
• Ships a polyfilled version
• Handles many edge cases you might not even think of. (See this documentation and the test cases.)
• Easy to compose (Throttle / Debounce, Breakpoints)
• Tested in real browsers (Currently latest Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, Opera, IE 11, iOS and Android, sponsored by BrowserStack)

In Action

CodeSandbox Demo

Install

yarn add use-resize-observer --dev
# or
npm install use-resize-observer --save-dev

Options

Option	Type	Description	Default
ref	undefined | RefObject | HTMLElement	A ref or element to observe.	undefined
box	undefined | "border-box" | "content-box" | "device-pixel-content-box"	The box model to use for observation.	"content-box"
onResize	undefined | ({ width?: number, height?: number }) => void	A callback receiving the element size. If given, then the hook will not return the size, and instead will call this callback.	undefined
round	undefined | (n: number) => number	A function to use for rounding values instead of the default.	Math.round()

Response

Name	Type	Description
ref	RefCallback	A callback to be passed to React's "ref" prop.
width	undefined | number	The width (or "blockSize") of the element.
height	undefined | number	The height (or "inlineSize") of the element.

Basic Usage

Note that the default builds are not polyfilled! For instructions and alternatives, see the Transpilation / Polyfilling section.

import React from "react";
import useResizeObserver from "use-resize-observer";

const App = () => {
  const { ref, width = 1, height = 1 } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>();

  return (
    <div ref={ref}>
      Size: {width}x{height}
    </div>
  );
};

To observe a different box size other than content box, pass in the box option, like so:

const { ref, width, height } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>({
  box: "border-box",
});

Note that if the browser does not support the given box type, then the hook won't report any sizes either.

Box Options

Note that box options are experimental, and as such are not supported by all browsers that implemented ResizeObservers. (See here.)

content-box (default)

Safe to use by all browsers that implemented ResizeObservers. The hook internally will fall back to contentRect from the old spec in case contentBoxSize is not available.

border-box

Supported well for the most part by evergreen browsers. If you need to support older versions of these browsers however, then you may want to feature-detect for support, and optionally include a polyfill instead of the native implementation.

device-pixel-content-box

Surma has a very good article on how this allows us to do pixel perfect rendering. At the time of writing, however this has very limited support. The advices on feature detection for border-box apply here too.

Custom Rounding

By default this hook passes the measured values through Math.round(), to avoid re-rendering on every subpixel changes.

If this is not what you want, then you can provide your own function:

Rounding Down Reported Values

const { ref, width, height } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>({
  round: Math.floor,
});

Skipping Rounding

import React from "react";
import useResizeObserver from "use-resize-observer";

// Outside the hook to ensure this instance does not change unnecessarily.
const noop = (n) => n;

const App = () => {
  const {
    ref,
    width = 1,
    height = 1,
  } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>({ round: noop });

  return (
    <div ref={ref}>
      Size: {width}x{height}
    </div>
  );
};

Note that the round option is sensitive to the function reference, so make sure you either use useCallback or declare your rounding function outside of the hook's function scope, if it does not rely on any hook state. (As shown above.)

Getting the Raw Element from the Default RefCallback

Note that "ref" in the above examples is a RefCallback, not a RefObject, meaning you won't be able to access "ref.current" if you need the element itself.

To get the raw element, either you use your own RefObject (see later in this doc), or you can merge the returned ref with one of your own:

import React, { useCallback, useEffect, useRef } from "react";
import useResizeObserver from "use-resize-observer";
import mergeRefs from "react-merge-refs";

const App = () => {
  const { ref, width = 1, height = 1 } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>();

  const mergedCallbackRef = mergeRefs([
    ref,
    (element: HTMLDivElement) => {
      // Do whatever you want with the `element`.
    },
  ]);

  return (
    <div ref={mergedCallbackRef}>
      Size: {width}x{height}
    </div>
  );
};

Passing in Your Own ref

You can pass in your own ref instead of using the one provided. This can be useful if you already have a ref you want to measure.

const ref = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);
const { width, height } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>({ ref });

You can even reuse the same hook instance to measure different elements:

CodeSandbox Demo

Measuring a raw element

There might be situations where you have an element already that you need to measure. ref now accepts elements as well, not just refs, which means that you can do this:

const { width, height } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>({
  ref: divElement,
});

Using a Single Hook to Measure Multiple Refs

The hook reacts to ref changes, as it resolves it to an element to observe. This means that you can freely change the custom ref option from one ref to another and back, and the hook will start observing whatever is set in its options.

Opting Out of (or Delaying) ResizeObserver Instantiation

In certain cases you might want to delay creating a ResizeObserver instance.

You might provide a library, that only optionally provides observation features based on props, which means that while you have the hook within your component, you might not want to actually initialise it.

Another example is that you might want to entirely opt out of initialising, when you run some tests, where the environment does not provide the ResizeObserver.

(See discussions)

You can do one of the following depending on your needs:

• Use the default ref RefCallback, or provide a custom ref conditionally, only when needed. The hook will not create a ResizeObserver instance up until there's something there to actually observe.
• Patch the test environment, and make a polyfill available as the ResizeObserver. (This assumes you don't already use the polyfilled version, which would switch to the polyfill when no native implementation was available.)

The "onResize" Callback

By the default the hook will trigger a re-render on all changes to the target element's width and / or height.

You can opt out of this behaviour, by providing an onResize callback function, which'll simply receive the width and height of the element when it changes, so that you can decide what to do with it:

import React from "react";
import useResizeObserver from "use-resize-observer";

const App = () => {
  // width / height will not be returned here when the onResize callback is present
  const { ref } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>({
    onResize: ({ width, height }) => {
      // do something here.
    },
  });

  return <div ref={ref} />;
};

This callback also makes it possible to implement your own hooks that report only what you need, for example:

• Reporting only width or height
• Throttle / debounce
• Wrap in requestAnimationFrame

Hook Composition

As this hook intends to remain low-level, it is encouraged to build on top of it via hook composition, if additional features are required.

Throttle / Debounce

You might want to receive values less frequently than changes actually occur.

CodeSandbox Demo

Breakpoints

Another popular concept are breakpoints. Here is an example for a simple hook accomplishing that.

CodeSandbox Demo

Defaults (SSR)

On initial mount the ResizeObserver will take a little time to report on the actual size.

Until the hook receives the first measurement, it returns undefined for width and height by default.

You can override this behaviour, which could be useful for SSR as well.

const { ref, width = 100, height = 50 } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>();

Here "width" and "height" will be 100 and 50 respectively, until the ResizeObserver kicks in and reports the actual size.

Without Defaults

If you only want real measurements (only values from the ResizeObserver without any default values), then you can just leave defaults off:

const { ref, width, height } = useResizeObserver<HTMLDivElement>();

Here "width" and "height" will be undefined until the ResizeObserver takes its first measurement.

Container/Element Query with CSS-in-JS

It's possible to apply styles conditionally based on the width / height of an element using a CSS-in-JS solution, which is the basic idea behind container/element queries:

CodeSandbox Demo

Transpilation / Polyfilling

By default the library provides transpiled ES5 modules in CJS / ESM module formats.

Polyfilling is recommended to be done in the host app, and not within imported libraries, as that way consumers have control over the exact polyfills being used.

That said, there's a polyfilled CJS module that can be used for convenience:

import useResizeObserver from "use-resize-observer/polyfilled";

Note that using the above will use the polyfill, even if the native ResizeObserver is available.

To use the polyfill as a fallback only when the native RO is unavailable, you can polyfill yourself instead, either in your app's entry file, or you could create a local useResizeObserver module, like so:

// useResizeObserver.ts
import { ResizeObserver } from "@juggle/resize-observer";
import useResizeObserver from "use-resize-observer";

if (!window.ResizeObserver) {
  window.ResizeObserver = ResizeObserver;
}

export default useResizeObserver;

The same technique can also be used to provide any of your preferred ResizeObserver polyfills out there.

Related

• @zeecoder/container-query
• @zeecoder/react-resize-observer

License

MIT

Changelog

9.1.0-alpha.1 (2022-11-21)

Features

• Exported some TS types (e056e19), closes #98