---
title: Popups
hide_title: true
---
import CopyToClipboardButton from '/src/components/copytoclipboardbutton'
import ImportButton from '/src/components/importbutton'

# Popups

## What you will learn in this guide

This guide will teach you how to use Popups in Noodl (represented by the [Show Popup](/nodes/popups/show-popup) and [Close Popup](/nodes/popups/show-popup) nodes). Popups are modal UI components that's put on top of the regular UI flow i.e. you have to close them to return to the main flow. They are typically used to present confirmation dialogies ("Save / Cancel?") or error messages. They can also be used to present inline UI flows, for example wizards and forms, that need to be completed as part of another flow.

## Overview

The guide will cover the following topics

* Simple styling of Popups
* Opening and closing Popups and sending the result of a popup
* Advanced styling of Popups
* Making a reusable, extendible Popup component

The example we are building in the guide will make use of lists so it's recommended to have done the [List Basics](/docs/guides/data/list-basics) guide before starting this guide.

## What's a Popup in Noodl?

Basically any component you create can be opened as a Popup in Noodl. A Popup is layered on top of your regular UI that originates from the root node of your App. Also, when the Popup is open, you cannot interact with any of the control in the regular tree.

Let's try it out.

## Some initial UI

We are going to create a small App to add Popups into. Start a new project in Noodl and select the "Hello World" template. Then remove the **Text** node. We want to create a list of people. Let's start with some static data. Add in a [Static Array](/nodes/data/array/static-array) node. Make sure it's set to `JSON` type and paste in the data below.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/list-1.png)

</div>

```json
[
    {"firstname":"John", "lastname":"Barry", "age":24, "location":"Bristol, England"},
    {"firstname":"Stefani", "lastname":"Worthington", "age":41, "location":"Kilkenny, Ireland"},
    {"firstname":"Lisa", "lastname":"Hunter", "age":22, "location":"Wigan, England"},
    {"firstname":"Ronan", "lastname":"Holden", "age":56, "location":"Aberdeen, Scotland"},
    {"firstname":"Martin", "lastname":"McCarthy", "age":26, "location":"Glasgow, Scotland"},
    {"firstname":"Rodney", "lastname":"O'Hara", "age":53, "location":"Dublin, Ireland"},
    {"firstname":"Phil", "lastname":"Lineker", "age":21, "location":"Hartlepool, England"}
]
```

Then add in a [Repeater](/nodes/ui-controls/repeater) node under the root **Group** node. Also add an [Array](/nodes/data/array/array-node) node next to the **Static Array**. Give the **Array** the **Id** `People`. Finally connect the **Item** output of the **Static Array** to the same input on the **Array**. Then the **Items** output from the **Array** to the **Items** input of the **Repeater**.

Your main app should now look something like this:

<div className="ndl-image-with-background l">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/list-1.png)

</div>

We need to create a list item as well. Create a new visual component. Call it `List Item`.
Do a simple layout visualizing the data items in the **Static Array**. You can for example copy and paste the nodes below into the list item component.

<div class="ndl-image-with-background l">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/list-item-1.png)

<CopyToClipboardButton json={{"nodes":[{"id":"563a9961-1e16-62e4-10e1-2a97fba28687","type":"Group","x":-251,"y":-58,"parameters":{"sizeMode":"explicit","height":{"value":40,"unit":"px"},"flexDirection":"row"},"ports":[],"children":[{"id":"1ce9f404-33ef-5efc-d514-9c7f7105c321","type":"Text","label":"First Name","x":-231,"y":44,"parameters":{"width":{"value":25,"unit":"%"},"alignY":"center"},"ports":[],"children":[]},{"id":"4f627f54-67be-9f43-de8f-239f7d2cc788","type":"Text","label":"Last Name","x":-231,"y":140,"parameters":{"width":{"value":25,"unit":"%"},"alignY":"center"},"ports":[],"children":[]},{"id":"8b2dd25c-0ff3-f3db-0c2f-8198d0feaece","type":"Text","label":"Age","x":-231,"y":236,"parameters":{"width":{"value":10,"unit":"%"},"alignY":"center"},"ports":[],"children":[]},{"id":"0b069cd5-68c3-1a18-5962-561316fa3390","type":"Text","label":"Location","x":-231,"y":332,"parameters":{"width":{"value":30,"unit":"%"},"alignY":"center"},"ports":[],"children":[]},{"id":"493b675a-33d2-85df-754f-5d540765aa44","type":"Group","x":-231,"y":428,"parameters":{"sizeMode":"explicit","width":{"value":10,"unit":"%"}},"ports":[],"children":[{"id":"8b7ae2ea-9f7e-f3c5-b364-8527bd0928d3","type":"net.noodl.controls.button","label":"Delete button","x":-211,"y":474,"parameters":{"useIcon":true,"sizeMode":"contentSize","alignX":"center","alignY":"center","useLabel":false,"iconIconSource":{"class":"material-icons","code":"delete"},"width":{"value":10,"unit":"px","isFixed":false},"height":{"value":20,"unit":"px","isFixed":false},"paddingLeft":{"value":4,"unit":"px"},"paddingRight":{"value":4,"unit":"px"},"paddingTop":{"value":4,"unit":"px"}},"ports":[],"children":[]}]}]},{"id":"54762794-37ba-54a4-22fc-f33b3b2e4e18","type":"Model2","x":172,"y":28,"parameters":{"idSource":"foreach","properties":"firstname,lastname,age,location"},"ports":[],"children":[]},{"id":"4311a736-5a74-4961-0910-e29325bc4421","type":"Component Outputs","x":318.62192606679525,"y":320.6984274555043,"parameters":{},"ports":[{"name":"Request Delete","plug":"input","type":{"name":"*"},"index":1}],"children":[]},{"id":"09a3e9af-aaf1-3e7d-e293-f9e544a89290","type":"Switch","x":101.58788062761681,"y":250.0541174251976,"parameters":{},"ports":[],"children":[]}],"connections":[{"fromId":"54762794-37ba-54a4-22fc-f33b3b2e4e18","fromProperty":"prop-firstname","toId":"1ce9f404-33ef-5efc-d514-9c7f7105c321","toProperty":"text"},{"fromId":"54762794-37ba-54a4-22fc-f33b3b2e4e18","fromProperty":"prop-lastname","toId":"4f627f54-67be-9f43-de8f-239f7d2cc788","toProperty":"text"},{"fromId":"54762794-37ba-54a4-22fc-f33b3b2e4e18","fromProperty":"prop-age","toId":"8b2dd25c-0ff3-f3db-0c2f-8198d0feaece","toProperty":"text"},{"fromId":"54762794-37ba-54a4-22fc-f33b3b2e4e18","fromProperty":"prop-location","toId":"0b069cd5-68c3-1a18-5962-561316fa3390","toProperty":"text"},{"fromId":"8b7ae2ea-9f7e-f3c5-b364-8527bd0928d3","fromProperty":"onClick","toId":"4311a736-5a74-4961-0910-e29325bc4421","toProperty":"Request Delete"},{"fromId":"563a9961-1e16-62e4-10e1-2a97fba28687","fromProperty":"hoverStart","toId":"09a3e9af-aaf1-3e7d-e293-f9e544a89290","toProperty":"on"},{"fromId":"563a9961-1e16-62e4-10e1-2a97fba28687","fromProperty":"hoverEnd","toId":"09a3e9af-aaf1-3e7d-e293-f9e544a89290","toProperty":"off"},{"fromId":"09a3e9af-aaf1-3e7d-e293-f9e544a89290","fromProperty":"state","toId":"8b7ae2ea-9f7e-f3c5-b364-8527bd0928d3","toProperty":"visible"}]}} />
</div>

Then set the newly created List Item component as the Template in the **Repeater** node.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/repeater-1.png)

</div>

You will now have a list of people that looks something like this:

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/app-1.png)

</div>

Now let's implement delete on this list. The delete button is already there. When the user clicks the delete button we want to trigger the [Remove Object From Array](/nodes/data/array/remove-from-array) node, with the **Id** of the `People` **Array** and the id of the **Object** to remove fed into it. There is a [specific guide on Arrays](/docs/guides/data/arrays) if you want to learn more about how to manipulate **Arrays**.

The remove functionality is implemented like below in the main App.


<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/list-2.png)

</div>

Try clicking the delete button on some items. If you refresh the viewer, they will re-appear, since they are stored in a **Static Array**.

## Implementing a Confirm Popup

A typical case to use a Popup is to confirm a destructive action such as a deletion. So let's create a Popup for that.

Create a new visual component. Call it "Confirm Delete Popup". Then, also in the main App, create an **Show Popup** node. Connect the `Request Delete` signal from the **Repeater** to the **Show** signal of the **Show Popup** node. Clicking the delete button will now open our Popup. However we need to tell the **Show Popup** node which component to show. Select the newly createad "Confirm Delete Popup" component.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-panel-1.png)

</div>

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/list-3.png)

</div>

## Layout and visuals of a Popup

Go into it the Popup component. Popups are layed out in an individual layer on top of everything, so you can more or less see it as a new root node. 

### The Popup Background

We start by modifying the root **Group** node. This is typically the background of the whole Popup layer, i.e. you probably would want to make this cover the whole screen and perhaps make semi transparent. We cannot use the **Opacity** to make it transparent, because that will be inherited by all the children of the **Group** as well. Instead we chose a semit transparent color. It will sort of fade out what's behind the popup.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-0.png)

</div>

### The Popup Dialogue

The next thing to build is the dialogue. We want it to be nice and rounded. Let's add another **Group** node. Give it a white color. Also make the corners rounded, with a grey color and a corner radius of 20 pixels.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-1.png)

</div>

The size of the popup is interesting. We want the size to be dependen on its content. At the same time we don't want it to be too small or too wide horizontally. So we set its size to `content size` and center it horizontally and vertically.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-2.png)

</div>

Then and then go ahead set
 * **Min width = 200 px**
 * **Max width = 400 px**
 * **Min height = 100 px**
 * **Max height = 100 px**

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-3.png)

</div>

Finally add some padding, 15 px in all directions.
The popup should now look something like this:

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-4.png)

</div>

### Adding some content

So let's add some content. A **Text** node which is a title, (i.e. give it a larger font size, perhaps 30 px and with centered text). Then another smaller **Text** with the actual deletion message.
Finally add a **Group** that will contain the two buttons, layed out horizontally.
Add the two buttons (one green and one red). Align them to the left and right. Finally add some margins to make things look less constricted.

You popup will now look something like below. You can also copy and paste the nodes if you want this exact look.


<div class="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-5.png)

<CopyToClipboardButton json={{"nodes":[{"id":"74711a71-f264-654c-9855-2aa66a25f0e0","type":"Group","x":-336,"y":-142,"parameters":{"backgroundColor":"#FFFFFFB2"},"ports":[],"children":[{"id":"14a19f8f-22f0-5196-9813-c34b47a000d8","type":"Group","label":"Group","x":-316,"y":-96,"parameters":{"sizeMode":"contentSize","alignX":"center","alignY":"center","paddingTop":{"value":15,"unit":"px"},"paddingBottom":{"value":15,"unit":"px"},"paddingRight":{"value":15,"unit":"px"},"paddingLeft":{"value":15,"unit":"px"},"borderRadius":{"value":20,"unit":"px"},"borderStyle":"solid","backgroundColor":"#FFFFFF","borderColor":"#484545","minWidth":{"value":200,"unit":"px"},"maxWidth":{"value":400,"unit":"px"},"minHeight":{"value":100,"unit":"px"},"maxHeight":{"value":400,"unit":"px"}},"ports":[],"children":[{"id":"75b58ecf-48ab-dbad-e4ca-0f6a7e077f23","type":"Text","label":"Title","x":-296,"y":-50,"parameters":{"text":"Confirm Deletion","fontSize":{"value":30,"unit":"px"},"textAlignX":"center","marginBottom":{"value":10,"unit":"px"}},"ports":[],"children":[]},{"id":"3f2cd4e2-40c4-aa93-9296-13a66b3eff4e","type":"Text","label":"Message","x":-296,"y":10,"parameters":{"text":"Are you sure you want to delete this item?","marginBottom":{"value":20,"unit":"px"}},"ports":[],"children":[]},{"id":"78b2871e-ac6c-8ab3-9aab-2c844948bfa9","type":"Group","label":"Button Group","x":-296,"y":70,"parameters":{"flexDirection":"row"},"ports":[],"children":[{"id":"7ff68987-b14b-a7cd-41e9-22f3dc419a72","type":"net.noodl.controls.button","label":"Confirm","x":-276,"y":130,"parameters":{"label":"Confirm","backgroundColor":"#269B2B"},"ports":[],"children":[]},{"id":"35c641a6-bd3a-9801-20a3-b88b38e4f1f9","type":"net.noodl.controls.button","label":"Cancel Button","x":-276,"y":190,"parameters":{"label":"Cancel","alignX":"right","backgroundColor":"#F61934"},"ports":[],"children":[]}]}]}]}],"connections":[]}} />
</div>

## Passing data and signals to and from Popups

Great, we have our first Popup. Now we need to do something with it. We need to know whether the user clicked "Confirm" or "Cancel" and of course close our popup. You can do this using the **Close Popup** node. Add one to your Popup Component. Click on it to see its properties.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/close-popup-1.png)

</div>

As you can see it has two sections: **Results** and **Close Actions**.
In the **Results** section you can add any number of inputs to pass data from the **Popup** back to wherever it was opened. And **Close Actions** is used to pass actions (i.e. signals). Whatever you add here, will be added as output signals to the **Show Popup** node that opened the **Popup**. We need to be know whether the user clicked **Confirm** or **Cancel**. The easiest way to pass this information is as signals. Create two **Close Actions** one called `User Confirmed` and one called `User Cancelled`. Connect the two signals to the respective button.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background l">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-6.png)

</div>

Then go back to the main App to use the signals to handle the delete. We simply hook up the **User Confirmed** signal to the **Do** signal of the **Remove Object From Array** node. Easy!

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/list-4.png)

</div>

Nice. Let's also pass some data to the **Popup**, the name of the item we want to delete.

First we need to assign the **Id** we get from the **Repeater** to an **Object**. Create and **Object** node and add two properties, `firstname` and `lastname`. Connect the **Item Id** from the **Repeater** to the **Id** of the **Object**.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/list-5.png)

</div>

Then we need to go into our confirmation Popup and add in a **Component Inputs**. Add two properties, **firstname** and **lastname**. We want to incorporate the first and last name into our message. So also add a [String Format](/nodes/string-manipulation/string-format) node. Enter the following text in the node:

```
Are you sure you want to delete the item "{firstname} {lastname}"?
```

`firstname` and `lastname` will now become inputs on the **String Format** node and you can connect the outputs `firstname` and `lastname` from the **Component Inputs** node. Finally connect the **Formatted** output from the **String Format** node to the text of the "Message" **Text** node.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-7.png)

</div>

The last step is to connect the `firstname` and `lastname` of the **Object** to our two new inputs on the **Show Popup** node, coming from the **Component Inputs** we just added.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/list-6.png)

</div>

## Advanced Styling

Let's make our Popup a little more dynamic by adding some animations to it. We can use the **Did Mount** signal from our root **Group** in the Popup component to trigger a transition when the Popup is opened. We can also use some fancy CSS for our backdrop. Let's start with the latter.

Click on the root node of the Popup Component. Find the attribute **CSS Style**. Set it to `backdrop-filter: blur(5px);`

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/css-style.png)

</div>

This adds an extra blurring effect to the background. Note that this CSS-effect is not supported by old browsers.

Then we want to animate the size of the Popup when the it appears and disappears. Start by adding a [States](/nodes/utilities/logic/states) node. Give it two states: `Gone` and `Here`. Create a value called `scale`. Set it to be 0 in the `Gone` state and 1 in the `Here` state. Make sure the initial state is `Gone`.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/animation-1.png)

</div>

Also set the length of each transition to 100 ms - this transition need to go fairly fast to not be annoying.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/animation-2.png)

</div>

Then make the **States** node go to the `Here` state when **Did Mount** trigger. Connect the `scale` output to the **Scale** value of the **Popup** group.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background l">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/animation-3.png)

</div>

Try it!

To reverse the transition when closing the Popup is a little more complicated because we need to wait for the transition to end before we send our **Close Popup** signals. So we need to add some logic.

First connect **Click** from both buttons to **To Gone** on our **States** node. That will trigger the transition. Then, we need to store which **Button** that was clicked wo we can send the correct signal to **Close Popup**. We do that using a [Switch](/nodes/logic/switch) that's set to either On or Off (true or false) depending on which button that was pressed.
When the animation is over (the **At Gone** signal will be triggered) we evaluate a [Condition Node](/nodes/utilities/logic/condition) to see which close signal we want to trigger.


 <div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/animation-4.png)

</div>

## Building a Wizard-type Popup

As you probably know an App typically contain many types of **Popups**, for example Error Messages, confirmation dialogues and maybe multistep wizards. For that reason we want to refactor our Popup and make parts of it reusable and to make all **Popups** consistent in how they look and behave.

## Making a Re-usable Popup Component

First we want to figure out what parts that all **Popups** should have. In this case we want the generic parts to be
* The background and layout of the **Popup** but not the content inside it (e.g. the text message and the **Buttons**)
* The title text
* The animation behavior

Let's start by duplicating our `Confirm Delete Popup` component.

 <div className="ndl-image-with-background">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/duplicate-1.png)

</div>

Rename it to `Popup Base`. The idea is that all popups should be based on this component going forward.
We want to remove everything that is specific to the previous delete confirmation popup.

Remove the **String Format** node and the properties from the **Component Inputs** (`firstname`, `lastname`). Instead add a new property called `Title`. Connect it to the **Text** property of the Title **Text** node.

We also need to remove the message, the **Buttons** and the logic connected to the **Close Popup**. Instead we are going to use a [Component Children](/nodes/component-utilities/component-children) node, that will give our component the ability to have nodes as children. The children will be inserted exactly where the **Component Children** resides in the tree.

Left to do is to handle the transition when the **Popup** is shown and closed. The showing part can be handled completely in the `Popup Base`, but the closing transition is different, since the **Close Popup** logic will be different for different Popups. The solution is to let the `Popup Base` component handle the close transition and tell when the transition is done. The user of the component also need to be able to tell the `Popup Base` when the transition should start.

So add a [Component Outputs](/nodes/component-utilities/component-outputs) node and add a property `Close Transition Done` to it. Then connect the **Has Reached Gone** signal from the **States** node to it. Add another property on the **Component Input** called **Start Close Transition** and connect it to the `To Gone` input of the **States** node.

All in all the popup base will now look like this:

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-base-1.png)

</div>

### Using the Popup Base in the Confirm Delete Popup

Ok, so let's refactor our `Confirm Delete` popup to use our `Popup Base` component. Open it.
The first thing we will do is of course to add in a `Popup Base` node. This will be our new root once we moved all specific nodes to it.

Start by moving the Message **Text** node and the Button Group **Group** node to become children of our `Popup Base` node. Remember, they will be inserted into the tree according to the position of our **Component Children** node.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-8.png)

</div>

It's a bit of a mess now, because we have two root nodes. We will fix that soon.
Also make sure the **Title** input of our `Popup Base` node is correct by clicking on the node. It should be ok, because the default text came from this component when we did the refactoring.

Actually the only thing we need to hook up now is the logic for the closing of the **Popup**. Remove the **States** node, that one is part of the `Popup Base` component now. Reconnect the **Click** outputs of the buttons to the `Start Close Transition` signal on the `Popup Base`. Then connect the outgoing signal **Close Transition Done** to the **Evaluate** input of the **Condition** node. We can now remove the old node tree and only have the one based on the `Popup Base` node.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background xl">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-visuals-9.png)

</div>

Refactoring done! Look, much cleaner looking tree. Make sure the popup still looks and works as before (it should).

You can import the complete project by clicking the Import button below.

<div className="ndl-image-with-background l">

![](/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-final.png)

<ImportButton zip="/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popups.zip" name="Popup Example" thumb="/docs/guides/navigation/popups/popup-final.png"/>

</div>

If you want to see how to use **Popups** together with **Component Stack** you can continue building on this example in the [Component Stack Guide](/docs/guides/navigation/component-stack).

