Dynamic RTL Support and Custom Distance Calculation Enhancements

[2.2.1]

Added

• New init config option distanceCalculationMethod that allows switching between edge-based, center-based and corner-based (default) distance calculations.
• Support for a custom distance calculation function via the customDistanceCalculationFunction option, enabling custom logic for determining distances between focusable components. This will override the getSecondaryAxisDistance method.
• Added updateRTL method to update the RTL behavior dynamically. This method allows toggling the Right-to-Left layout at runtime, updating the spatial navigation behavior without requiring reinitialization.

domNodeFocusOptions support

Added

• new init config option domNodeFocusOptions for passing FocusOptions when using shouldFocusDOMNode

RTL support, native events support

Added

• new init config option shouldUseNativeEvents that enables the use of native events for triggering actions, such as clicks or key presses.
• new init config option rtl that changes focus behavior for layouts in right-to-left (RTL) languages such as Arabic and Hebrew.

Console warn on empty ref, support for strings for Key Event names

[2.0.2]

Added

• Console warning when passing an empty ref to useFocusable
• Support for string names for Key Events. Now you can configure the key map with numbers or event names like ArrowRight.

Restoring focus to the parent with `preferredChildFocusKey` set

[2.0.1]

Fixed

• Restoring focus to the parent with preferredChildFocusKey set

Moved global methods, new features for focus restore and boundary directions

Added

• New property for useFocusable - focusBoundaryDirections, array of directions to block when isFocusBoundary is enabled
• New property useFocusable - forceFocus to mark the component to be the target for auto-restore focus logic when focus is lost
• New global method doesFocusableExist to check if the focusable component exists before setting focus on it. Safety feature

Changed

• [BREAKING] Top level exports setFocus, getCurrentFocusKey, navigateByDirection, pause, resume, updateAllLayouts are now exported from SpatialNavigation instead of useFocusable hook.

Fixed

• Context display name is now called FocusContext in React Devtools
• Updating lastFocusedChildKey for newly added parent components

Bugfixes, auto restore focus improvements

• Fixed the issue where component would have kept itself in the array of parentsHavingFocusedChild array after removal
• Further improvements to autoRestoreFocus logic to trigger not only on Lead components, but also on Parents that had focused child when being removed. Edge case, normally children are removed first.

Bugfixes

Fixed

• Fixed a bug where parents were not updating their hasFocusedChild when new child is created and focused right away
• Fixed a bug where lastFocusedChild was updated only on blur, but not on manual focus, resulting in a wrong key being stored

Changed

• Renamed useFocusedContext file to useFocusContext to match the export name

Handling `StrictMode` without custom hook, more debug logs

Added

• Extra debug logs, printing focusable components data in addition to DOM nodes.
• Extra call to set focused state to false on unmount. This is to support "double-mount" in Strict mode in React 18.

Changed

• [Potentially Breaking] Auto restore focus when the item is removed is now happening with a slight debounced delay. This is done to prevent multiple automatic focus restorations when multiple elements are remove one by one. Now it will accumulate all the auto-restore focus calls into one delayed debounced call with the final target parent to get focused.

Removed

• Custom useEffectOnce hook that introduced issues with unmounted components being remained as focusable.

Accessibility support: `.focus()` DOM node when the item is focused

This release includes support for Accessibility. With the new configuration flag shouldFocusDOMNode it is possible to also set a native browser focus on the DOM node when the item is focused by the library. This allows usage of aria tags for screen readers.