This package has been deprecated

Author message:

The package was moved to `@floating-ui/vue`.

Vue Floating UI

This package is fully inspired by @floating-ui/react-dom and has the very similar API.

This package exports Vue bindings for the @floating-ui/dom package — a library that provides "anchored positioning" for a floating element to position it next to a given reference element.

npm install vue-floating-ui

Usage

useFloating wraps computePosition and accepts all of its options. The most basic usage is the following:

<script setup>
import { ref } from 'vue';
import { useFloating } from 'vue-floating-ui';

const reference = ref(null);
const floating = ref(null);
const { x, y, strategy } = useFloating(reference, floating);
</script>

<template>
  <button type="button" ref="reference">Button</button>
  <div
    :style="{
      position: strategy,
      top: `${y ?? 0}px`,
      left: `${x ?? 0}px`,
      width: 'max-content',
    }"
    ref="floating"
  >
    Tooltip
  </div>
</template>

This will position the floating Tooltip element at the bottom center of the Button element by default.

• x and y are Ref objects that contain the positioning coordinates. These values are null initially.
• strategy is a Ref object with a string value, 'absolute' (default) or 'fixed'.

To understand the fallback ?? 0 values, and the 'max-content' width, visit Initial layout.

Customizing the positioning

View the computePosition options. Example:

import { ref } from 'vue';
import { flip, offset, shift, useFloating } from 'vue-floating-ui';

const reference = ref(null);
const floating = ref(null);

useFloating(reference, floating, {
  placement: 'right',
  strategy: 'fixed',
  middleware: [offset(10), flip(), shift()],
});

The useFloating composable also supports Ref options:

import { ref } from 'vue';
import { flip, offset, shift, useFloating } from 'vue-floating-ui';

const reference = ref(null);
const floating = ref(null);
const placement = ref('right');
const strategy = ref('fixed');
const middleware = ref([offset(10), flip(), shift()]);

useFloating(reference, floating, {
  placement,
  strategy,
  middleware,
});

Updating

useFloating only calculates the position once on render, or when the reference/floating elements changed — for example, the floating element gets mounted via conditional rendering.

To ensure the floating element remains anchored to its reference element while scrolling or resizing, pass the autoUpdate utility to the whileElementsMounted option:

import { ref } from 'vue';
import { autoUpdate, useFloating } from 'vue-floating-ui';

const reference = ref(null);
const floating = ref(null);

useFloating(reference, floating, {
  // default
  whileElementsMounted: autoUpdate,

  // or, pass options
  whileElementsMounted(reference, floating, update) {
    // IMPORTANT: Make sure the cleanup function is returned!
    return autoUpdate(reference, floating, update, {
      animationFrame: true,
    });
  },
});

whileElementsMounted is a fully reactive callback option to handle mounting/unmounting of the elements, which can be useful for other use cases.

Alternatively (or additionally), you may want to update manually in some cases. The composable returns an update function to update the position at will:

const { update } = useFloating(reference, floating);

Custom components

Custom component template refs can be passed too:

<script setup>
import { ref } from 'vue';
import { useFloating } from 'vue-floating-ui';

import MyButton from './MyButton.vue';
import MyTooltip from './MyTooltip.vue';

const reference = ref(null);
const floating = ref(null);
const { x, y, strategy } = useFloating(reference, floating);
</script>

<template>
  <MyButton ref="reference">Button</MyButton>
  <MyTooltip :strategy="strategy" :y="y" :x="x" ref="floating">Tooltip</MyTooltip>
</template>

Arrow

A template ref can be passed as the element:

<script setup>
import { computed, ref } from 'vue';
import { arrow, useFloating } from 'vue-floating-ui';

const reference = ref(null);
const floating = ref(null);
const floatingArrow = ref(null);
const { x, y, middlewareData } = useFloating(reference, floating, {
  middleware: [arrow({ element: floatingArrow })],
});
const floatingArrowPosition = computed(() => ({
  x: middlewareData.value.arrow?.x ?? null,
  y: middlewareData.value.arrow?.y ?? null,
}));
</script>

<template>
  <button type="button" ref="reference">Button</button>
  <div ref="floating">
    Tooltip
    <div ref="floatingArrow" />
  </div>
</template>

Arrow styles

In the tutorial, it shows you how to style the arrow.

This styling relies on the final (or resultant) placement, which can be different from the preferred one you passed as an option to useFloating (if you're using flip or autoPlacement middleware).

This final placement gets returned from the composable to enable the static side position style:

const { placement } = useFloating(reference, floating);

Virtual Element

See Virtual Elements for details. Example:

<script setup>
import { onMounted, ref } from 'vue';
import { useFloating } from 'vue-floating-ui';

const reference = ref(null);
const floating = ref(null);
const { x, y, strategy } = useFloating(reference, floating);

onMounted(() => {
  /**
   * Assign the virtual element to reference inside
   * a lifecycle hook or effect or event handler.
   */
  reference.value = {
    getBoundingClientRect() {
      return {
        // ...
      };
    },
  };
});
</script>

<template>
  <div
    :style="{
      position: strategy,
      top: `${y ?? 0}px`,
      left: `${x ?? 0}px`,
      width: 'max-content',
    }"
    ref="floating"
  >
    Tooltip
  </div>
</template>

Examples

These are just examples. The component APIs are not designed perfectly, but you can use them as a starting point for your own components and design the API however you like.

• Tooltip