Access and Modify a DOM Node with the React useRef and useEffect Hooks

Kent C. Dodds
InstructorKent C. Dodds
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To use VanillaTilt we need to get access to a div so that it can work its magic. To make this happen we'll learn about React's useRef and useEffect methods.

We'll cover:

  • Creating a reference to a DOM node with useRef
  • Making a callback function using useEffect
  • Using .init to assign VanillaTilt to that DOM node
  • Returning a cleanup function to avoid memory leaks
  • Initializing useEffect with a dependency list to prevent rerendering.