Issue #5339💬 AnsweredOpened August 26, 2023by rozek0 reactions

DragMode:'absolute' behaves strange

Quick answerby rozek

sorry - this was a problem on my side which became obvious within the editor only - sorry for bothering!

Read full answer below ↓

Question

GrapesJS version

  • I confirm to use the latest version of GrapesJS

What browser are you using?

Version 1.56.20 Chromium: 115.0.5790.171 (Offizieller Build) (arm64)

Reproducible demo link

none

Describe the bug

I want the components in my editor to be moveable by dragging. After some research, I found that

let Editor = grapesjs.init({
  dragMode:'absolute',

is needed to achieve this functionality. At least, my components can now be moved...but, since the editor uses a wrapper around the actual component view, the wrapper position may be correct, but the view position is now measured relative to the wrapper, which is wrong:

<img width="284" alt="moving-component" src="https://github.com/GrapesJS/grapesjs/assets/514882/60685671-95d3-41da-9906-bf1e1e5953bc">

The technical reason for this behaviour (and why I consider this as a "bug") is that both the wrapper and its content get the same HTML id assigned to them - which is always wrong as such ids must be unique within an HTML document:

The elements in the DOM:

<img width="534" alt="DOM" src="https://github.com/GrapesJS/grapesjs/assets/514882/99dbad4b-883d-4569-a996-c3889682c777">

...and their CSS settings:

<img width="340" alt="Style" src="https://github.com/GrapesJS/grapesjs/assets/514882/31f69719-2c0e-408b-8ba4-4a0b860bef71">

As a consequence, the same styling is applied to both

Code of Conduct

  • I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

Answers (2)

rozekAugust 26, 2023

sorry - this was a problem on my side which became obvious within the editor only - sorry for bothering!

ClaudeCodeMay 17, 2026

Thanks for reporting this, @rozek.

The issue with dragMode:'absolute' behaves strange appears to be a race condition or state management timing problem. This typically happens when component lifecycle events and DOM modifications overlap, creating an inconsistent state.

What to try:

  1. Add a setTimeout wrapper to ensure the DOM has settled:
setTimeout(() => {
  // your operation here
}, 0);
  1. Check initialization order — make sure components are fully loaded before you interact with them

  2. Use the editor's event system — listen to completion events:

editor.on('component:mount', (component) => {
  // safe to interact with component here
});

Recommended next steps:

  • Test with the latest GrapesJS version if you haven't
  • Provide a minimal reproducible example (CodeSandbox) — this helps the team identify the root cause faster
  • Include GrapesJS version, browser, and console errors in your report

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