In this tech blog post, we will explore how to create a custom React hook called useWindowBlurEffect. This hook will allow you to easily handle side effects in your application based on the window blur event. We will walk through the steps to create this hook and show you how to utilize it in your code.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Prerequisites
• Creating the Hook
• Using the useWindowBlurEffect Hook
• Conclusion

Introduction

In many applications, there may be a need to trigger specific actions when the user switches focus away from the application window. This could be useful for scenarios such as pausing a video player or disabling auto-saving when the user is not actively interacting with the application.

To achieve this functionality, we can create a custom React hook that listens for the blur event on the window object and executes specified side effects when the event occurs.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into creating the useWindowBlurEffect hook, make sure you have the following prerequisites installed:

• React (version 16.8 or higher)
• Basic knowledge of React Hooks

Creating the Hook

To create the useWindowBlurEffect hook, follow these steps:

1. Import the necessary dependencies:

import { useEffect } from 'react';

1. Define the useWindowBlurEffect hook:

const useWindowBlurEffect = (effect) => {
  useEffect(() => {
    const handleBlur = () => {
      effect();
    };

    window.addEventListener('blur', handleBlur);

    return () => {
      window.removeEventListener('blur', handleBlur);
    };
  }, [effect]);
};

1. Export the useWindowBlurEffect hook:

export default useWindowBlurEffect;

Using the useWindowBlurEffect Hook

Now that we have created the useWindowBlurEffect hook, let’s see how it can be used in a React component.

Here’s an example of how you can use the hook to toggle a boolean state when the window loses focus:

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import useWindowBlurEffect from './useWindowBlurEffect';

const App = () => {
  const [isWindowFocused, setWindowFocused] = useState(true);

  useWindowBlurEffect(() => {
    setWindowFocused(false);
  });

  return (
    <div>
      {isWindowFocused ? (
        <h1>Application is in focus</h1>
      ) : (
        <h1>Application is not in focus</h1>
      )}
    </div>
  );
};

export default App;

In this example, whenever the window loses focus, the useWindowBlurEffect hook will trigger the provided side effect of setting the isWindowFocused state to false.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have learned how to create a custom React hook called useWindowBlurEffect for handling side effects based on window blur events. By utilizing this hook, you can easily add behavior to your application when the user switches focus away from the window. The hook allows for clean and reusable code, improving the modularity and maintainability of your React components.

We hope you find this custom hook useful in handling window blur effects in your React applications! #React #CustomHook