useHover Hook

The useHover hook provides an easy way to track whether an element is being hovered over by the user. This is especially useful for enhancing the user interface with hover-based interactions, such as tooltips, highlights, or animations.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to use the useHover hook in your React projects, including setup, usage, and an example implementation.

Usage

The useHover hook is simple to use and returns two values:

1. elementRef: A ref that you attach to the DOM element you want to track.
2. isHovered: A boolean that indicates whether the element is currently being hovered.

Example

Here is an example of how to use the useHover hook in a component:

import React from "react";
import { useHover } from "react-enhanced-hooks";
 
function App() {
  const [elementRef, isHovered] = useHover();
 
  return (
    <div ref={elementRef}>
      <p>{isHovered ? "Hover over element" : "Hover to check"}</p>
    </div>
  );
}
 
export default App;

How It Works

• elementRef: This ref is assigned to the DOM element (in this case, a div). It tells the hook which element to monitor for hover events.
• isHovered: This boolean is updated in real-time and reflects whether the user is currently hovering over the element.

Whenever the user hovers over the div, the text will update to “Hover over element.” When the hover ends, the text changes back to “Hover to check.”

Hook Signature

The useHover hook follows this simple signature:

const [elementRef, isHovered] = useHover();

Returns: - elementRef: A React ref object that you attach to the element you want to track. - isHovered: A boolean value representing whether the element is currently being hovered over.

Key Features

• Easy Integration: Attach the returned elementRef to any DOM element, and you’ll instantly know when it’s being hovered.
• Real-time Updates: The isHovered boolean updates in real-time, allowing for seamless hover state detection.
• Lightweight: The hook is lightweight, making it a perfect fit for small and large-scale applications alike.
• Reusable: You can use the useHover hook across multiple elements and components by creating separate instances.

This hook is ideal for tooltips, UI hover effects, and conditional rendering based on hover state.

Advanced Usage

Multiple Hover Elements

You can track hover states for multiple elements by creating separate instances of the useHover hook for each element:

import React from "react";
import { useHover } from "react-enhanced-hooks";
 
function App() {
  const [hoverRef1, isHovered1] = useHover();
  const [hoverRef2, isHovered2] = useHover();
 
  return (
    <div>
      <div ref={hoverRef1}>
        <p>{isHovered1 ? "Hovering over element 1" : "Hover over element 1"}</p>
      </div>
      <div ref={hoverRef2}>
        <p>{isHovered2 ? "Hovering over element 2" : "Hover over element 2"}</p>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}
 
export default App;

Styling Based on Hover State

You can dynamically change styles based on whether the element is being hovered:

import React from "react";
import { useHover } from "react-enhanced-hooks";
 
function HoverBox() {
  const [hoverRef, isHovered] = useHover();
 
  return (
    <div
      ref={hoverRef}
      style={{
        width: "200px",
        height: "200px",
        backgroundColor: isHovered ? "lightblue" : "lightgray",
        transition: "background-color 0.3s",
      }}
    >
      <p>{isHovered ? "Hovered!" : "Hover me!"}</p>
    </div>
  );
}
 
export default HoverBox;

In this example, the background color of the box changes when hovered over, and transitions smoothly using CSS.