I’m proud of implementing a custom popover system with dynamic positioning logic, including flip behavior and responsive layout adjustments, all without relying on external positioning libraries. I also handled escape key and outside click closing manually, which helped me better understand how popovers work under the hood.
Next time, I would consider using transform: translate(...) instead of top/left for smoother, GPU-accelerated transitions. I'd also like to extract reusable popover primitives/hooks that can be used across different components.
What challenges did you encounter, and how did you overcome them?The biggest challenge was positioning the popover dynamically to avoid viewport overflow. I had to compute available space and implement flip logic manually. Ensuring the arrow stayed properly aligned with the button during resizing and flip transitions was also tricky.
To overcome this, I used ResizeObserver, getBoundingClientRect, and a combination of custom hooks and utilities (updatePopoverPosition, positionArrow).
What specific areas of your project would you like help with?Any feedback is welcome.
