How to position a React-Bootstrap popover

Developers generally use the React Bootstrap library to create responsive and visually appealing web applications. The Popover component of this library is highly useful because it provides it can display additional information or options when users interact with certain elements on a web page. In this Answer, we will learn how to position a React-Bootstrap Popover.

Note: The examples below have React-Bootstrap installed and set up for simplicity.

Importing the components

To use the Popover component, we’ll need to import it along with other necessary components from the react-bootstrap library as follows:

import { OverlayTrigger, Popover, Button } from 'react-bootstrap';
Import components from react-bootstrap library

Creating a popover

To create a popover inside the Popover component, we will render the Popover.Header component to indicate the title of the popover and the Popover.Body component to indicate its body/content. We will then store this popover in a variable and output it inside the JSX template as follows:

const popover = (
    <Popover>
        <Popover.Header as="h3">
            Popover title {/* Popover Title */}
        </Popover.Header>
        <Popover.Body>
            React-Bootstrap popover content to be added here. {/* Popover Content */}
        </Popover.Body>
    </Popover>
);
Creating a popover

Positioning the popover

To output and control the position of the Popover, we use the placement prop provided by the OverlayTrigger component. This prop accepts various values, such as top, bottom, left, and right, etc. Moreover, to set the type of event the overlay listens to, we use the trigger prop.

Let’s look at an example where we set up a button-triggered popover and position it at the top when the button is clicked.

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import './index.css';
import App from './App';
import reportWebVitals from './reportWebVitals';

const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root'));
root.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>
);

// If you want to start measuring performance in your app, pass a function
// to log results (for example: reportWebVitals(console.log))
// or send to an analytics endpoint. Learn more: https://bit.ly/CRA-vitals
reportWebVitals();
Positioning the popover

Code explanation

  • Line 2: We import the OverlayTrigger, Popover, and Button components from the react-bootstrap library.

  • Lines 5–15: We define the content of the popover using the Popover component. The popover includes a title and body with specific content.

  • Line 20: We use the OverlayTrigger component, which is used to wrap a Button component. This sets up the behavior to display the popover when the button is clicked.

Controlling the triggers of the popover

We can also control when the popover appears by changing the trigger prop in the OverlayTrigger component. The trigger prop accepts values like click, focus, or hover. Let’s look at an example where we position the popover at different positions and trigger it differently

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import './index.css';
import App from './App';
import reportWebVitals from './reportWebVitals';

const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root'));
root.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>
);

// If you want to start measuring performance in your app, pass a function
// to log results (for example: reportWebVitals(console.log))
// or send to an analytics endpoint. Learn more: https://bit.ly/CRA-vitals
reportWebVitals();
Adjust the placement of the popover to different positions

Code explanation

  • Line 20: We set the trigger prop to click and the placement prop to top.

  • Line 26: We set the trigger prop to hover and the placement prop to left.

  • Line 32: We set the trigger prop to focus and the placement prop to right.

  • Line 38: We set the trigger prop to click and the placement prop to bottom.

We can also display the Popover component without using the OverlayTrigger component if we want to display the popover directly without any explicit trigger. Let’s look at an example of it.

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import './index.css';
import App from './App';
import reportWebVitals from './reportWebVitals';

const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root'));
root.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>
);

// If you want to start measuring performance in your app, pass a function
// to log results (for example: reportWebVitals(console.log))
// or send to an analytics endpoint. Learn more: https://bit.ly/CRA-vitals
reportWebVitals();
Adjusting the placement of the popover to different positions

Code explanation

  • Line 2: We import the Popover component from the react-bootstrap library.

  • Lines 7–12: We use the Popover component directly in the return statement and render the content of the popover, including a title and body with specific content.

The OverlayTrigger component provides the placement and trigger props that make positioning a React-Bootstrap Popover a straightforward task. We can customize the content within the popover to suit our specific needs, creating interactive user interfaces.

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