Can't get access to ref on Transition.Child or Transition

I’m trying to make a modal utility in React, and I wаnt to add code that allows clicking outside of the modal.

<Transition
              show={visible}
              className={clsx("fixed z-10 inset-0 overflow-y-auto")}
            >
              <div className="flex items-end justify-center msin-h-screen pt-4 px-4 pb-20 text-center sm:block sm:p-0">
                <Transition.Child
                  enter="ease-out duration-300"
                  enterFrom="opacity-0"
                  enterTo="opacity-100"
                  leave="ease-in duration-200"
                  leaveFrom="opacity-100"
                  leaveTo="opacity-0"
                  className="fixed inset-0 transition-opacity"
                >
                  <div aria-hidden="true">
                    <div className="absolute inset-0 bg-gray-500 opacity-75"></div>
                  </div>
                </Transition.Child>

                {/* This element is to trick the browser into centering the modal contents. */}
                <span
                  className="hidden sm:inline-block sm:align-middle sm:h-screen"
                  aria-hidden="true"
                >
                  &#8203;
                </span>
                <Transition.Child
                  enter="ease-out duration-300"
                  enterFrom="opacity-0 translate-y-4 sm:translate-y-0 sm:scale-95"
                  enterTo="opacity-100 translate-y-0 sm:scale-100"
                  leave="ease-in duration-200"
                  leaveFrom="opacity-100 translate-y-0 sm:scale-100"
                  leaveTo="opacity-0 translate-y-4 sm:translate-y-0 sm:scale-95"
                  className="inline-block align-bottom bg-white rounded-lg text-left overflow-hidden shadow-xl transform transition-all sm:my-8 sm:align-middle sm:max-w-lg sm:w-full"
                  role="dialog"
                  aria-modal="true"
                  aria-labelledby="modal-headline"
                >
...

What I wanted to do was attach a ref to my child so that I can detect whether or not the user has clicked outside the modal. This is however not possible, and I think it should be, as the <Transition.Child> creates a div for me. I’d like to be able to referece that div:

function MyComponent() {
   const ref = useRef(null);
   
   useEffect(() => {
    function handleClickOutside(event) {
      if (ref.current && !ref.current.contains(event.target)) {
          // user has clicked outside of modal...
      }
    }

    document.addEventListener("mousedown", handleClickOutside);
    return () => {
      document.removeEventListener("mousedown", handleClickOutside);
    };
  }, [ref]);
   
   return <Transition><Transition.Child ref={ref}>...</Transition.Child></Transition>
}

This doesn’t work, because Transition.Child and Transition components don’t forward refs to the div.

[RobinMalfait]

Possible solutions:

1. Use the Dialog component to have this functionality, alongside additional relevant functionality for modals, for free
2. Use the ref that gets exposed by Transition and prevent it from rendering its own div, like so:

<Transition show={open} as={React.Fragment}>
      {(ref) => (
        <div ref={ref}></div>
      )}
</Transition>

Transition and Transition.Child both expose their ref like that. See e.g. the UI Docs for further reference.

Going to comment on this real quick, because in the latest version (in develop branch) this is not the case anymore, because we now have the same API for every component.

That said, I’ll make sure that every component will be able to expose a ref to the underlying DOM node if it makes sense!

[moiz-frost]

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