Discussion: Position utility about ui HOT 9 CLOSED

If an element, a popover for example, does not fit on screen in it's defined position:

Flip the orientation (top-left becomes bottom-left, right-bottom becomes left-bottom)
If said element still does not fit:

place in original position and resize, vertical or horizontal, to fit on screen.
If element still does not fit and cannot be resized:

place element offscreen. Layout/app has to handle this?

I think this is a good starting point.

The current popover already has some logic that will adjust it's position, but in regards to the whole body, not the viewport. It's not resizing the element but moving it, see the "Popover ( out of body )" stories"

Flipping positions can be very tricky, so this only would be ok with a limited amount of positions if we default to "render off screen" in case it doesn't fit into the screen.

My preferred solution would be to then be:

1. Check provided position
2. Check flipped position
3. Depends on component:
   • for the Popover:
     Show the contents in a modal
   • for the tooltip:
     Display the message a bit more prominently at the bottom/center of the viewport (similar to the alertbars)

No resizing or moving, using a Modal for the Popover will always work & using a message at the bottom of the screen for tooltips should also always work). Resizing & re-positioning is quite complicated, adds complexity (and therefore possible bugs) to the components and makes it a lot harder to maintain

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My preferred solution would be to then be:

1. Check provided position

2. Check flipped position

3. Depends on component:
   
   * for the Popover:
     Show the contents in a modal
   * for the tooltip:
     Display the message a bit more prominently at the bottom/center of the viewport (similar to the alertbars)

No resizing or moving, using a Modal for the Popover will always work & using a message at the bottom of the screen for tooltips should also always work). Resizing & re-positioning is quite complicated, adds complexity (and therefore possible bugs) to the components and makes it a lot harder to maintain

I recognize that this solve the issue of 'what to do with elements that don't fit', but I think this would be a confusing user experience. Content would present differently depending on scroll position, but how is a user to understand that? Also, popover vs. modal is not only a matter of visual presentaton. Modal is intended to interrupt a flow, is is therefore reserved for actions/info that needs to break a user flow and be dealt with. A popover is intended for the exact opposite, providing info inline without breaking flow. I think mixing between these based on screen size/position would result in a fragmented, difficult to understand user experience. The same applies to switching between a tooltip and an alert bar.

I think the better solution would be to display the element that doesn't fit offscreen. For example, a huge popover that doesn't fit on either axis of the body/viewport would have to get internal scrollbars. This is not ideal at all, but having this much content would also break our design and usage guidelines for the use of a popover, so it will never be ideal.

Of course, it is important to keep in mind we are discussing edge cases here. Most tooltips, if used as intended, will fit on screen somewhere, for example.

Note: I've updated my post above with a clearer example of the 12 positions.

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Here are some illustrated examples of each scenario and the suggested behaviour to aid discussion.

Working as intended, space available

No space in intended position, using opposite position

No space in intended position, no space in opposite position, popover container not allowed to scroll. Body/app wrapper scrolls

No space in intended position, no space in opposite position, popover container allowed to scroll

*The principles above would also apply to horizontal scrolling.

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Is there a precedent for libraries flipping the intended position of a directional popup of there is no space? It seems counter intuitive to me for the user to specify a position, and then for us to not listen to that.

I've seen this kind of behaviour with dropdowns, but I don't think I've seen it happen when specifying a direction like you'd do with tooltips.

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Is there a precedent for libraries flipping the intended position of a directional popup of there is no space? It seems counter intuitive to me for the user to specify a position, and then for us to not listen to that.

I've seen this kind of behaviour with dropdowns, but I don't think I've seen it happen when specifying a direction like you'd do with tooltips.

True, this does possibly display differently than the intended position, but in the pursuit of the main goal which is: display this thing on screen. If we don't flip the position then it won't be on screen. So I guess it depends how important position is, whether it's a preference or a hard requirement.

I think allowing a no-flip/no-reposition or similar property would solve this for elements that need to be in a certain position. It would then be up to the implementer to decide 'is the position so important that it should be placed off-screen, even when other space/positions are available?'

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For reference, I have also worked on a project that used this library: https://popper.js.org/ , which also includes 'flip' functionality.

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Yeah, I think it's important to signal clearly to the user that it might display in a different direction. A noFlip or noReposition toggle would be a clear way to indicate that. I think I'd prefer calling the direction preferredDirection, so that everyone specifying a direction knows that it's preferred, not strict. Something in that direction?

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Draft specs for components that need a position utility: dhis2/ui-core#522

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Hi! Due to a lack of activity on this issue over time it seems to be stale. If still relevant, please provide information that moves it forward: e.g. more information, reason to keep it open, supply a pull request, etc.
Any activity will keep it open, otherwise it will be closed automatically. Thanks! 🤖

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