onClick works but onDoubleClick is ignored on React component

I am building a Minesweeper game with React and want to perform a different action when a cell is single or double clicked. Currently, the onDoubleClick function will never fire, the alert from onClick is shown. If I remove the onClick handler, onDoubleClick works. Why don’t both events work? Is it possible to have both events on an element?

/** @jsx React.DOM */

var Mine = React.createClass({
  render: function(){
    return (
      <div className="mineBox" id={this.props.id} onDoubleClick={this.props.onDoubleClick} onClick={this.props.onClick}></div>
    )
  }
});

var MineRow = React.createClass({
  render: function(){
    var width = this.props.width,
        row = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < width; i++){
      row.push(<Mine id={String(this.props.row + i)} boxClass={this.props.boxClass} onDoubleClick={this.props.onDoubleClick} onClick={this.props.onClick}/>)
    }
    return (
      <div>{row}</div>
    )
  }
})

var MineSweeper = React.createClass({
  handleDoubleClick: function(){
    alert('Double Clicked');
  },
  handleClick: function(){
    alert('Single Clicked');
  },
  render: function(){
    var height = this.props.height,
        table = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < height; i++){
      table.push(<MineRow width={this.props.width} row={String.fromCharCode(97 + i)} onDoubleClick={this.handleDoubleClick} onClick={this.handleClick}/>)
    }
    return (
      <div>{table}</div>
    )
  }
})

var bombs = ['a0', 'b1', 'c2'];
React.renderComponent(<MineSweeper height={5} width={5} bombs={bombs}/>, document.getElementById('content'));

Answer

Edit:

I’ve found that this is not an issue with React 0.15.3.

Original:

For React 0.13.3, here are two solutions.

1. ref callback

Note, even in the case of double-click, the single-click handler will be called twice (once for each click).

const ListItem = React.createClass({

  handleClick() {
    console.log('single click');
  },

  handleDoubleClick() {
    console.log('double click');
  },

  refCallback(item) {
    if (item) {
      item.getDOMNode().ondblclick = this.handleDoubleClick;
    }
  },

  render() {
    return (
      <div onClick={this.handleClick}
           ref={this.refCallback}>
      </div>
    );
  }
});

module.exports = ListItem;

2. lodash debounce

I had another solution that used lodash, but I abandoned it because of the complexity. The benefit of this was that “click” was only called once, and not at all in the case of “double-click”.

import _ from 'lodash'

const ListItem = React.createClass({

  handleClick(e) {
    if (!this._delayedClick) {
      this._delayedClick = _.debounce(this.doClick, 500);
    }
    if (this.clickedOnce) {
      this._delayedClick.cancel();
      this.clickedOnce = false;
      console.log('double click');
    } else {
      this._delayedClick(e);
      this.clickedOnce = true;
    }
  },

  doClick(e) {
    this.clickedOnce = undefined;
    console.log('single click');
  },

  render() {
    return (
      <div onClick={this.handleClick}>
      </div>
    );
  }
});

module.exports = ListItem;

on the soapbox

I appreciate the idea that double-click isn’t something easily detected, but for better or worse it IS a paradigm that exists and one that users understand because of its prevalence in operating systems. Furthermore, it’s a paradigm that modern browsers still support. Until such time that it is removed from the DOM specifications, my opinion is that React should support a functioning onDoubleClick prop alongside onClick. It’s unfortunate that it seems they do not.