usePositioner

Usage#

import { usePositioner } from '@primereact/headless/positioner';

const [anchorEl, setAnchorEl] = React.useState<HTMLElement | null>(null);
const [contentEl, setContentEl] = React.useState<HTMLDivElement | null>(null);
 
const positioner = usePositioner({
    anchor: anchorEl,
    content: contentEl,
    side: 'bottom',
    sideOffset: 8,
    flip: true
});
 
<>
    <button ref={setAnchorEl}></button>
    <div ref={setContentEl}></div>
</>;

usePositioner computes placement for a floating element relative to an anchor, handling overflow with flip/shift and exposing the computed placement for styling. It powers Popover.Positioner, Select.Positioner, and similar primitives.

Features#

• Dual-mode positioning — uses the native CSS Anchor Positioning API when available and falls back to JavaScript otherwise
• Overflow handling — flip moves the content to the opposite side and shift slides it along the cross-axis to stay within the viewport
• Placement reporting — state.actualSide / state.actualAlign reflect the final placement after flip and shift
• Arrow-aware offsets — passing an arrow element auto-derives sideOffset from its size and injects CSS variables for positioning
• Responsive updates — RAF-throttled scroll/resize listeners plus ResizeObserver on both anchor and content
• Imperative recalculation — updatePlacement() forces a new layout when content dimensions change outside the observed events

Working with callbacks#

Pick preferred placement#

Use side and align to express the preferred edge and cross-axis alignment.

usePositioner({ anchor, content, side: 'top', align: 'start' });

side accepts 'top', 'right', 'bottom', or 'left'. align accepts 'start', 'center', or 'end'.

Attach an arrow#

Pass an arrow element and the hook exposes CSS variables for positioning the arrow tip, derived from the final placement.

usePositioner({ anchor, content, arrow: arrowEl });

var(--px-placer-arrow-x)      /* center X of arrow */
var(--px-placer-arrow-y)      /* center Y of arrow */
var(--px-placer-arrow-left)   /* left offset of arrow */
var(--px-placer-arrow-top)    /* top offset of arrow */
var(--px-transform-origin)    /* transform origin pointing to anchor */

React to placement changes#

Register onPlacementChange to run logic when flip or shift moves the content — for example, swapping an arrow direction or updating an aria-live message.

usePositioner({
    anchor,
    content,
    onPlacementChange: ({ side, align }) => setPlacement({ side, align })
});

Constrain placement inside a container#

Pass a boundary element (JavaScript fallback mode) to keep the floating element inside a specific scroll region instead of the viewport.

usePositioner({ anchor, content, boundary: containerEl });

Hide when the anchor leaves the viewport#

Enable hideWhenDetached so the content hides automatically once the anchor scrolls out of the boundary.

usePositioner({ anchor, content, hideWhenDetached: true });

Force a recompute#

Call updatePlacement() after imperative content changes (such as loading data) so the hook picks up the new dimensions.

const positioner = usePositioner({ anchor, content });
 
positioner.updatePlacement();

Styling with data attributes#

The hook writes data-side and data-align on the content and arrow element for placement-aware CSS.

[data-side='bottom'] {
    margin-top: 4px;
}
[data-side='top'] {
    margin-bottom: 4px;
}
[data-side='bottom'][data-align='start'] {
    /* bottom-start placement */
}

API#

usePositioner#

Accessibility#

usePositioner is a structural positioning utility. It does not introduce ARIA roles or keyboard interactions. Accessibility concerns are handled by the consumer component (e.g., Popover, Tooltip, Select).