React useHover hook

Angelos Chalaris · React, Hooks, State, Callback · Oct 5, 2021

Handles the event of hovering over the wrapped component.

  • Use the useState() hook to create a variable that holds the hovering state.
  • Use the useCallback() hook to memoize two handler functions that update the state.
  • Use the useCallback() hook to create a callback ref and create or update the listeners for the 'mouseover' and 'mouseout' events.
  • Use the useRef() hook to keep track of the last node passed to callbackRef to be able to remove its listeners.
const useHover = () => {
  const [isHovering, setIsHovering] = React.useState(false);

  const handleMouseOver = React.useCallback(() => setIsHovering(true), []);
  const handleMouseOut = React.useCallback(() => setIsHovering(false), []);

  const nodeRef = React.useRef();

  const callbackRef = React.useCallback(
    node => {
      if (nodeRef.current) {
        nodeRef.current.removeEventListener('mouseover', handleMouseOver);
        nodeRef.current.removeEventListener('mouseout', handleMouseOut);
      }

      nodeRef.current = node;

      if (nodeRef.current) {
        nodeRef.current.addEventListener('mouseover', handleMouseOver);
        nodeRef.current.addEventListener('mouseout', handleMouseOut);
      }
    },
    [handleMouseOver, handleMouseOut]
  );

  return [callbackRef, isHovering];
};
const MyApp = () => {
  const [hoverRef, isHovering] = useHover();

  return <div ref={hoverRef}>{isHovering ? 'Hovering' : 'Not hovering'}</div>;
};

ReactDOM.render(<MyApp />, document.getElementById('root'));

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