Popper

A Popper can be used to display some content on top of another. It's an alternative to react-popper.

Some important features of the Popper component:

🕷 Popper relies on the 3rd party library (Popper.js) for perfect positioning.
💄 It's an alternative API to react-popper. It aims for simplicity.
📦 10 kB gzipped (7 kB from Popper.js).
The children is Portal to the body of the document to avoid rendering problems. You can disable this behavior with disablePortal.
The scroll isn't blocked like with the Popover component. The placement of the popper updates with the available area in the viewport.
Clicking away does not hide the Popper component. If you need this behavior, you can use ClickAwayListener - see the example in the menu documentation section.
The anchorEl is passed as the reference object to create a new Popper.js instance.

Simple Popper

<button aria-describedby={id} type="button" onClick={handleClick}>
  Toggle Popper
</button>
<Popper id={id} open={open} anchorEl={anchorEl}>
  <div className={classes.paper}>The content of the Popper.</div>
</Popper>

Transitions

The open/close state of the popper can be animated with a render prop child and a transition component. This component should respect the following conditions:

Be a direct child descendent of the popper.
Call the onEnter callback prop when the enter transition starts.
Call the onExited callback prop when the exit transition is completed. These two callbacks allow the popper to unmount the child content when closed and fully transitioned.

Popper has built-in support for react-transition-group.

<button aria-describedby={id} type="button" onClick={handleClick}>
  Toggle Popper
</button>
<Popper id={id} open={open} anchorEl={anchorEl} transition>
  {({ TransitionProps }) => (
    <Fade {...TransitionProps} timeout={350}>
      <div className={classes.paper}>The content of the Popper.</div>
    </Fade>
  )}
</Popper>

Alternatively, you can use react-spring.

<button aria-describedby={id} type="button" onClick={handleClick}>
  Toggle Popper
</button>
<Popper id={id} open={open} anchorEl={anchorEl} transition>
  {({ TransitionProps }) => (
    <Fade {...TransitionProps}>
      <div className={classes.paper}>The content of the Popper.</div>
    </Fade>
  )}
</Popper>

Positioned Popper

Scroll playground

Scroll around this container to experiment with flip and preventOverflow modifiers.

Appearance

Placement

Disable portal (the children stay within it's parent DOM hierarchy)

Modifiers (options from Popper.js)

Prevent overflow

Flip (flip the popper’s placement when it starts to overlap its reference element)Arrow

  <Popper
    placement="bottom"
    disablePortal={false}
    modifiers={{
      flip: {
        enabled: true,
      },
      preventOverflow: {
        enabled: true,
        boundariesElement: 'scrollParent',
      },
      arrow: {
        enabled: false,
        element: arrowRef,
      },
    }}
  >

Faked reference object

The anchorEl property can be a reference to a fake DOM element. You just need to create an object shaped like the ReferenceObject.

Highlight part of the text to see the popper:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam ipsum purus, bibendum sit amet vulputate eget, porta semper ligula. Donec bibendum vulputate erat, ac fringilla mi finibus nec. Donec ac dolor sed dolor porttitor blandit vel vel purus. Fusce vel malesuada ligula. Nam quis vehicula ante, eu finibus est. Proin ullamcorper fermentum orci, quis finibus massa. Nunc lobortis, massa ut rutrum ultrices, metus metus finibus ex, sit amet facilisis neque enim sed neque. Quisque accumsan metus vel maximus consequat. Suspendisse lacinia tellus a libero volutpat maximus.

<Typography aria-describedby={id} onMouseUp={handleMouseUp}>
  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam ipsum purus, bibendum sit
  amet vulputate eget, porta semper ligula. Donec bibendum vulputate erat, ac fringilla mi
  finibus nec. Donec ac dolor sed dolor porttitor blandit vel vel purus. Fusce vel malesuada
  ligula. Nam quis vehicula ante, eu finibus est. Proin ullamcorper fermentum orci, quis
  finibus massa. Nunc lobortis, massa ut rutrum ultrices, metus metus finibus ex, sit amet
  facilisis neque enim sed neque. Quisque accumsan metus vel maximus consequat. Suspendisse
  lacinia tellus a libero volutpat maximus.
</Typography>
<Popper id={id} open={open} anchorEl={anchorEl} transition placement="bottom-start">
  {({ TransitionProps }) => (
    <Fade {...TransitionProps} timeout={350}>
      <Paper>
        <Typography className={classes.typography}>The content of the Popper.</Typography>
      </Paper>
    </Fade>
  )}
</Popper>

Complementary projects

For more advanced use cases you might be able to take advantage of:

PopupState helper

There is a 3rd party package material-ui-popup-state that takes care of popper state for you in most cases.

<PopupState variant="popper" popupId="demo-popup-popper">
  {popupState => (
    <div>
      <Button variant="contained" {...bindToggle(popupState)}>
        Toggle Popper
      </Button>
      <Popper {...bindPopper(popupState)} transition>
        {({ TransitionProps }) => (
          <Fade {...TransitionProps} timeout={350}>
            <Paper>
              <Typography className={classes.typography}>The content of the Popper.</Typography>
            </Paper>
          </Fade>
        )}
      </Popper>
    </div>
  )}
</PopupState>

API

<Popper />