Custom Modal Dialogs

While htmx works great with dialogs built into CSS frameworks (like Bootstrap and UIKit), htmx also makes it easy to build modal dialogs from scratch. Here is a quick example of one way to build them.

Click here to see a demo of the final result:

#High Level Plan

We’re going to make a button that loads remote content from the server, then displays it in a modal dialog. The modal content will be added to the end of the <body> element, in a div named #modal.

In this demo we’ll define some nice animations in CSS, and then use some Hyperscript to remove the modals from the DOM when the user is done. Hyperscript is not required with htmx, but the two were designed to be used together and it is much nicer for writing async & event oriented code than JavaScript, which is why we chose it for this example.

#Main Page HTML

<button hx-get="/modal" hx-target="body" hx-swap="beforeend">Open a Modal</button>

<div id="modal" _="on closeModal add .closing then wait for animationend then remove me">
	<div class="modal-underlay" _="on click trigger closeModal"></div>
	<div class="modal-content">
		<h1>Modal Dialog</h1>
		This is the modal content.
		You can put anything here, like text, or a form, or an image.
		<br>
		<br>
		<button _="on click trigger closeModal">Close</button>
	</div>
</div>

#Custom Stylesheet

/***** MODAL DIALOG ****/
#modal {
	/* Underlay covers entire screen. */
	position: fixed;
	top:0px;
	bottom: 0px;
	left:0px;
	right:0px;
	background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
	z-index:1000;

	/* Flexbox centers the .modal-content vertically and horizontally */
	display:flex;
	flex-direction:column;
	align-items:center;

	/* Animate when opening */
	animation-name: fadeIn;
	animation-duration:150ms;
	animation-timing-function: ease;
}

#modal > .modal-underlay {
	/* underlay takes up the entire viewport. This is only
	required if you want to click to dismiss the popup */
	position: absolute;
	z-index: -1;
	top:0px;
	bottom:0px;
	left: 0px;
	right: 0px;
}

#modal > .modal-content {
	/* Position visible dialog near the top of the window */
	margin-top:10vh;

	/* Sizing for visible dialog */
	width:80%;
	max-width:600px;

	/* Display properties for visible dialog*/
	border:solid 1px #999;
	border-radius:8px;
	box-shadow: 0px 0px 20px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
	background-color:white;
	padding:20px;

	/* Animate when opening */
	animation-name:zoomIn;
	animation-duration:150ms;
	animation-timing-function: ease;
}

#modal.closing {
	/* Animate when closing */
	animation-name: fadeOut;
	animation-duration:150ms;
	animation-timing-function: ease;
}

#modal.closing > .modal-content {
	/* Animate when closing */
	animation-name: zoomOut;
	animation-duration:150ms;
	animation-timing-function: ease;
}

@keyframes fadeIn {
	0% {opacity: 0;}
	100% {opacity: 1;}
} 

@keyframes fadeOut {
	0% {opacity: 1;}
	100% {opacity: 0;}
} 

@keyframes zoomIn {
	0% {transform: scale(0.9);}
	100% {transform: scale(1);}
} 

@keyframes zoomOut {
	0% {transform: scale(1);}
	100% {transform: scale(0.9);}
}