react long press event

With hooks in react 16.8 you could rewrite class with functions and hooks.

import { useState, useEffect } from 'react';

export default function useLongPress(callback = () => {}, ms = 300) {
  const [startLongPress, setStartLongPress] = useState(false);

  useEffect(() => {
    let timerId;
    if (startLongPress) {
      timerId = setTimeout(callback, ms);
    } else {
      clearTimeout(timerId);
    }

    return () => {
      clearTimeout(timerId);
    };
  }, [callback, ms, startLongPress]);

  return {
    onMouseDown: () => setStartLongPress(true),
    onMouseUp: () => setStartLongPress(false),
    onMouseLeave: () => setStartLongPress(false),
    onTouchStart: () => setStartLongPress(true),
    onTouchEnd: () => setStartLongPress(false),
  };
}

import useLongPress from './useLongPress';

function MyComponent (props) {
  const backspaceLongPress = useLongPress(props.longPressBackspaceCallback, 500);

  return (
    <Page>
      <Button {...backspaceLongPress}>
        Click me
      </Button>
    </Page>
  );
};

I've created a codesandbox with a hook to handle long press and click. Basically, on mouse down, touch start events, a timer is created with setTimeout. When the provided time elapses, it triggers long press. On mouse up, mouse leave, touchend, etc, the timer is cleared.

useLongPress.js

import { useCallback, useRef, useState } from "react";

const useLongPress = (
    onLongPress,
    onClick,
    { shouldPreventDefault = true, delay = 300 } = {}
    ) => {
    const [longPressTriggered, setLongPressTriggered] = useState(false);
    const timeout = useRef();
    const target = useRef();

    const start = useCallback(
        event => {
            if (shouldPreventDefault && event.target) {
                    event.target.addEventListener("touchend", preventDefault, {
                    passive: false
                });
                target.current = event.target;
            }
            timeout.current = setTimeout(() => {
                onLongPress(event);
                setLongPressTriggered(true);
            }, delay);
        },
        [onLongPress, delay, shouldPreventDefault]
    );

    const clear = useCallback(
        (event, shouldTriggerClick = true) => {
            timeout.current && clearTimeout(timeout.current);
            shouldTriggerClick && !longPressTriggered && onClick();
            setLongPressTriggered(false);
            if (shouldPreventDefault && target.current) {
                target.current.removeEventListener("touchend", preventDefault);
            }
        },
        [shouldPreventDefault, onClick, longPressTriggered]
    );

    return {
        onMouseDown: e => start(e),
        onTouchStart: e => start(e),
        onMouseUp: e => clear(e),
        onMouseLeave: e => clear(e, false),
        onTouchEnd: e => clear(e)
    };
};

const isTouchEvent = event => {
return "touches" in event;
};

const preventDefault = event => {
if (!isTouchEvent(event)) return;

if (event.touches.length < 2 && event.preventDefault) {
    event.preventDefault();
}
};

export default useLongPress;

To use the hook, App.js

import useLongPress from "./useLongPress";

export default function App() {

    const onLongPress = () => {
        console.log('longpress is triggered');
    };

    const onClick = () => {
        console.log('click is triggered')
    }

    const defaultOptions = {
        shouldPreventDefault: true,
        delay: 500,
    };
    const longPressEvent = useLongPress(onLongPress, onClick, defaultOptions);

    return (
        <div className="App">
            <button {...longPressEvent}>use  Loooong  Press</button>
        </div>
    );
}

Older answer for class components:

You can use MouseDown, MouseUp, TouchStart, TouchEnd events to control timers that can act as a long press event. Check out the code below

class App extends Component {
  constructor() {
    super()
    this.handleButtonPress = this.handleButtonPress.bind(this)
    this.handleButtonRelease = this.handleButtonRelease.bind(this)
  }
  handleButtonPress () {
    this.buttonPressTimer = setTimeout(() => alert('long press activated'), 1500);
  }
  
  handleButtonRelease () {
    clearTimeout(this.buttonPressTimer);
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div 
          onTouchStart={this.handleButtonPress} 
          onTouchEnd={this.handleButtonRelease} 
          onMouseDown={this.handleButtonPress} 
          onMouseUp={this.handleButtonRelease} 
          onMouseLeave={this.handleButtonRelease}>
        Button
      </div>
    );
  }
}

Nice hook! But I would like make a small improvement. Using useCallback to wrap event handlers. This ensures these will not changed on every render.

import { useState, useEffect, useCallback } from 'react';

export default function useLongPress(callback = () => {}, ms = 300) {
  const [startLongPress, setStartLongPress] = useState(false);

  useEffect(() => {
    let timerId;
    if (startLongPress) {
      timerId = setTimeout(callback, ms);
    } else {
      clearTimeout(timerId);
    }

    return () => {
      clearTimeout(timerId);
    };
  }, [callback, ms, startLongPress]);

  const start = useCallback(() => {
    setStartLongPress(true);
  }, []);
  const stop = useCallback(() => {
    setStartLongPress(false);
  }, []);

  return {
    onMouseDown: start,
    onMouseUp: stop,
    onMouseLeave: stop,
    onTouchStart: start,
    onTouchEnd: stop,
  };
}