use-breakpoint

A React hook (>=18) for getting the current responsive media breakpoint.

useBreakpoint

Initialize useBreakpoint with a configuration object, and optionally a default breakpoint name (in non-window environments like SSR). The return value will be an object with the breakpoint's name (string), min-width, and max-width values (number):

import useBreakpoint from 'use-breakpoint'

/**
 * It is important to bind the object of breakpoints to a variable for memoization to work correctly.
 * If they are created dynamically, try using the `useMemo` hook.
 */
const BREAKPOINTS = { mobile: 0, tablet: 768, desktop: 1280 }

const CurrentBreakpoint = () => {
  const { breakpoint, maxWidth, minWidth } = useBreakpoint(
    BREAKPOINTS,
    'desktop',
  )
  return <p>The current breakpoint is {breakpoint}!</p>
}

Return values

Given a configuration BREAKPOINTS = { mobile: 0, tablet: 768, desktop: 1280 } and a window size of 1280x960, the hook will return as the breakpoint:

1. const { breakpoint } = useBreakpoint(BREAKPOINTS)
   • undefined when rendered server-side
   • 'desktop' when rendered client-side
2. const { breakpoint } = useBreakpoint(BREAKPOINTS, 'mobile')
   • 'mobile' when rendered server-side
   • 'mobile' on the first client-side render
   • 'desktop' on subsequent client-side renders

Hydration

If supplied a default breakpoint, the hook will always return that value when rendered server-side. To not cause inconsistencies during the first client-side render, the default value is also used client-side for the first render, instead of the (possibly different) real breakpoint.

For example, given a breakpoint config:

const { breakpoint } = useBreakpoint(BREAKPOINTS, 'mobile')

When rendered server-side, breakpoint === 'mobile' always, because there is no window. On client-side with a desktop-sized window, on the first render breakpoint === 'mobile', and then on following renders breakpoint === 'desktop'. This is to ensure ReactDOM.hydrate behaves correctly. The implementation relies on the useSyncExternalStore React hook with the getServerSnapshot callback.

Functionality

This hook uses the window.matchMedia functionality to calculate the current breakpoint. For a list of breakpoints, we generate some css media queries in the form of (min-width: XXXpx) and (max-width: YYYpx) and then add listeners for the changes. useBreakpoint will then update its return value when the breakpoint changes from one rule to another.

getCSSMediaQueries

To use the same breakpoint configuration in CSS-in-JS, you can use the getCSSMediaQueries helper:

import { getCSSMediaQueries } from 'use-breakpoint'

const BREAKPOINTS = { mobile: -1, tablet: 768, desktop: 1280 }

const cssQueries = getCSSMediaQueries(BREAKPOINTS, 'screen')
// {
//    desktop: "@media only screen and (min-width: 1280px)",
//    mobile: "@media only screen and (max-width: 767px)",
//    tablet: "@media only screen and (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1279px)",
//  }

The second option can be omitted to leave out the media type condition.

Developing

This project is built with Typescript. A Storybook is included for local previewing. The easiest way to get started is cloning the repo and starting the storybook server locally via npm start.