🤹 use-ref-list

Easily manage an ordered list of refs in React.

Codesandbox Demo

Why not useRef?

This library aims to solve the problem of obtaining a list of refs where the order matters like when interacting with lists for keyboard controls. It does so by utilizing useMutableSource to collect refs in the order they appear in the rendered tree no matter if they are memoized or deep within the tree.

Install

yarn add use-ref-list

npm install use-ref-list

Usage

Due to the use of useMutableSource internally, this package only works with the experiemental version of React right now.

yarn add react@experimental react-dom@experimental

Since this library relies on an impure render to collect refs, it is not advised for use on the server and should rather be accessed imperatively after JavaScript has loaded.

useRefList () => [refs, useRef]

The main export that returns an array of refs as well as an instance hook that's used to subscribe refs.

refs { current: [{ ref, key }] }

This is a collection of the currently subscribed refs.

useRef (key, initialValue) => [ref, index]

This should be used in place of the normal React.useRef. The ref will be collected at each call site and added to the returned refs array from useRefList.

This hook should only be called once in a component.

Example

import * as React from 'react'
import { useRefList } from 'use-ref-list'
 
function ListItem({ useRef, children }) {
  const id = React.unstable_useOpaqueIdentifier()
  const [ref, refIndex] = useRef(id)
  return (
    <li ref={ref}>
      {children} {refIndex}
    </li>
  )
}
 
function App() {
  const [refs, useRef] = useRefList()
  React.useLayoutEffect(() => {
    // access to all collected refs
    console.log(refs.current)
  }, [])
  return (
    <ul>
      <ListItem useRef={useRef}>Item 1</ListItem>
      <ListItem useRef={useRef}>Item 2</ListItem>
      <ListItem useRef={useRef}>Item 3</ListItem>
    </ul>
  )
}