Hooks

Owl hooks are a way to factorize code, even if it depends on some component lifecycle. Most hooks provided by Owl are related to the lifecycle of a component, but some of them (such as useComponent) provide a way to build specific hooks.

Using these hooks, it is possible to build many customized hooks that help solve a specific problem, or make some common tasks easier. The rest of this page documents the list of hooks provided by the Odoo web framework.

Name	Short Description
useAssets	load assets
useAutofocus	focus automatically an element referenced by autofocus
useBus	subscribe and unsubscribe to a bus
usePager	Display the pager of the control panel of a view.
usePosition	position an element relative to a target

useAssets

Location

@web/core/assets

Description

See the section on lazy loading assets for more details.

useAutofocus

Location

@web/core/utils/hooks

Description

Focus an element referenced by a t-ref=”autofocus” in the current component as soon as it appears in the DOM and if it was not displayed before.

import { useAutofocus } from "@web/core/utils/hooks";

class Comp {
  setup() {
    this.inputRef = useAutofocus();
  }
  static template = "Comp";
}

<t t-name="Comp" owl="1">
  <input t-ref="autofocus" type="text"/>
</t>

API

useAutofocus()

Returns

the element reference.

useBus

Location

@web/core/utils/hooks

Description

Add and clear an event listener to a bus. This hook ensures that the listener is properly cleared when the component is unmounted.

import { useBus } from "@web/core/utils/hooks";

class MyComponent {
  setup() {
    useBus(this.env.bus, "some-event", event => {
      console.log(event);
    });
  }
}

API

useBus(bus, eventName, callback)

Arguments

• bus (EventBus()) – the target event bus

• eventName (string()) – the name of the event that we want to listen to

• callback (function()) – listener callback

usePager

Location

@web/search/pager_hook

Description

Display the Pager of the control panel of a view. This hooks correctly sets env.config to provide the props to the pager.

import { usePager } from "@web/search/pager_hook";

class CustomView {
  setup() {
    const state = owl.hooks.useState({
      offset: 0,
      limit: 80,
      total: 50,
    });
    usePager(() => {
      return {
        offset: this.state.offset,
        limit: this.state.limit,
        total: this.state.total,
        onUpdate: (newState) => {
          Object.assign(this.state, newState);
        },
      };
    });
  }
}

API

usePager(getPagerProps)

Arguments

• getPagerProps (function()) – function that returns the pager props.

usePosition

Location

@web/core/position_hook

Description

Helps positioning an HTMLElement (the popper) relatively to another HTMLElement (the reference). This hook ensures the positioning is updated when the window is resized/scrolled.

import { usePosition } from "@web/core/position_hook";

class MyPopover extends owl.Component {
  setup() {
    // Here, the reference is the target props, which is an HTMLElement
    usePosition(this.props.target);
  }
}
MyPopover.template = owl.tags.xml`
  <div t-ref="popper">
    I am positioned through a wonderful hook!
  </div>
`;

Important

You should indicate your popper element using a t-ref directive.

API

usePosition(reference[, options])

Arguments

• reference (HTMLElement or ()=>HTMLElement()) – the target HTMLElement to be positioned from

• options (Options()) – the positioning options (see table below)

Option	Type	Description
popper	string	this is a useRef reference for the element that will get positioned. Default is "popper".
container	HTMLElement	the container from which the popper is expected not to overflow. If overflowing occurs, other popper positions are tried until a not overflowing one is found. (default: the <html/> node)
margin	number	added margin between popper and reference elements (default: 0)
position	Direction[-Variant]	the desired position. It is a string composed of one Direction and one Variant separated by a dash character. Direction could be: top, bottom, right, left. Variant could be: start, middle, end. The variant can be omitted (default variant is middle). Examples of valid positions: right-end, top-start, left-middle, left. (default position: bottom)
onPositioned	(el: HTMLElement, position: PositioningSolution) => void	a callback that will be called everytime a positioning occurs (e.g. on component mounted/patched, document scroll, window resize…). Can be used i.e. for dynamic styling regarding the current position. The PositioningSolution is an object having the following type: { direction: Direction, variant: Variant, top: number, left: number }.

Example

import { usePosition } from "@web/core/position_hook";

class DropMenu extends owl.Component {
  setup() {
    const toggler = owl.useRef("toggler");
    usePosition(
      () => toggler.el,
      {
        popper: "menu",
        position: "right-start",
        onPositioned: (el, { direction, variant }) => {
          el.classList.add(`dm-${direction}`); // -> "dm-top" "dm-right" "dm-bottom" "dm-left"
          el.style.backgroundColor = variant === "middle" ? "red" : "blue";
        },
      },
    );
  }
}
DropMenu.template = owl.tags.xml`
  <button t-ref="toggler">Toggle Menu</button>
  <div t-ref="menu">
    <t t-slot="default">
      This is the menu default content.
    </t>
  </div>
`;