As part of becoming a better Vue programmer, I am trying to implement a popup similar to Popper with a clean and Vueish architecture. Here is a simple schematic that I came up with:
So basically there is a target component, which is the reference for the popup's position. The popup can be positioned above, below, right and left of the target, therefore I will need to have access to the target element in my popup. Also, the target can be an arbitrary component. It can be a simple button or span, but also something much more complex.
Then there is the popup itself, which will be put into a modal at the end of the body, It contains the actual content. The content again can be an arbitrary component.
I have a working implementation of the popup, but the basic structure seems to be far from perfect. I am using two slots, one for the target element and one for the content.
Here is what I have come up with so far for the template:
<template>
<div ref="targetContainer">
<slot name="target"></slot>
</div>
<teleport to="body">
<div v-show="show" class="modal" ref="modal">
<div ref="popover" class="popover" :style="{top: popoverTop + 'px', left: popoverLeft + 'px'}">
<slot name="content"></slot>
</div>
</div>
</teleport>
</template>
There are several issues with this that I am not really happy with.
- Using the popup is not very simple
When using this popup in another component, two <template> tags are rquired. This is ungly and not very intuitive. A very simple use case looks like this:
<modal :show="showPopup" @close="showPopup=false">
<template v-slot:target>
<button @click="showPopup=true"></button>
</template>
<template v-slot:content>
<div>Hello World!</div>
</template>
</modal>
- The target is wrapped in another
<div>
This is done to get access to the target element, that I need for the layout. In mounted() I am referencing the target element like this:
let targetElement = this.$refs.targetContainer.children[0];
Is this really the best way to do this? I would like to get rid of the wrapping <div> element, which just asks for unintended side effects.
The best solution would be to get rid of one slot and somehow reference the target element in another way because I only need its layout information, it does not have to be rendered inside the popover component.
Can someone point me in the right direction?
