Debugging a Persistent Flyout Menu in a Rotating Carousel

Building an interactive Flyout Menu that works seamlessly within a Bootstrap-style rotating carousel sounds simple—until you realize the carousel moves automatically, elements get replaced dynamically, and managing a single, persistent Flyout Menu across slides becomes a challenge.

Recently, I tackled this issue and faced everything from vanishing menus, state management struggles, and disappearing overlays—all while ensuring the Flyout Menu remains accessible and user-friendly.

This post breaks down the debugging journey, core issues encountered, and the final optimized solution.

🛑 The Initial Problem

The goal was to integrate a Flyout Menu into a carousel, where users could click a link inside a slide to open a persistent, full-width menu. The Flyout Menu should:

• Exist only once in the DOM (not inside each slide).
• Appear when any link in the carousel is clicked.
• Update dynamically based on the selected link.
• Stay open even when the carousel rotates.

At first, I attempted to attach the Flyout Menu inside each carousel slide (<li> elements), which caused several problems:

✅ Clicking a link opened the Flyout.
❌ But when the carousel rotated, the Flyout disappeared.
❌ Each slide had its own menu instance, leading to duplicate elements.

I needed one persistent Flyout Menu that dynamically updated without being tied to a specific slide.

🛠 Debugging the Issues

1️⃣ The Flyout Menu Disappeared When the Carousel Rotated

Since the Flyout Menu was inside a slide, it was being replaced when the carousel rotated. The fix? Move the Flyout outside the carousel:

const renderFlyout = () => {
  const existingFlyout = document.querySelector('#tg-flyout');
  if (!existingFlyout) {
    const flyoutContainer = document.createElement('div');
    const carouselInner = document.querySelector('.carousel-inner');
    carouselInner.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', flyoutContainer);
 
    render(
      <FlyoutMenu
        isOpen={isOpen}
        selectedIndex={selectedIndex}
        onClose={closeFlyout}
      />,
      flyoutContainer
    );
  } else {
    render(
      <FlyoutMenu
        isOpen={isOpen}
        selectedIndex={selectedIndex}
        onClose={closeFlyout}
      />,
      existingFlyout.parentNode
    );
  }
};