react-native-snap-carousel

Swiper component for React Native with previews, snapping effect and RTL support. Compatible with Android & iOS. Pull requests are very welcome!

Table of contents

1. Showcase
2. Breaking change
3. Usage
4. Props
5. Methods
6. Properties
7. Example
8. Tips and tricks
9. RTL support
10. ScrollView's limitations
11. TODO
12. Credits

Showcase

You can try these examples live in Archriss' showcase app on Android and iOS.

Since it has been asked multiple times, please note that we do not plan on Open-Sourcing the code of our showcase app. Still, we've put together an example for you to play with, and you can find some insight about our map implementation in this comment.

App currently uses version 1.4.0 of the plugin. Especially, this means that you should expect slider's layout to break with RTL devices (see #38) since support was added in version 2.1.0.

Breaking change

Since version 2.0.0, items are now direct children of the component. As a result, props items and renderItem have been removed.

Usage

$ npm install --save react-native-snap-carousel

import Carousel from 'react-native-snap-carousel';

    // Example with different children
    render () {
        return (
            <Carousel
              ref={(carousel) => { this._carousel = carousel; }}
              sliderWidth={sliderWidth}
              itemWidth={itemWidth}
            >
                <View style={styles.slide1} />
                <Text style={styles.slide2} />
                <Image style={styles.slide3} />
            </Carousel>
        );
    }

    // Example of appending the same component multiple times while looping through an array of data
    render () {
        const slides = this.state.entries.map((entry, index) => {
            return (
                <View key={`entry-${index}`} style={styles.slide}>
                    <Text style={styles.title}>{ entry.title }</Text>
                </View>
            );
        });

        return (
            <Carousel
              ref={(carousel) => { this._carousel = carousel; }}
              sliderWidth={sliderWidth}
              itemWidth={itemWidth}
            >
                { slides }
            </Carousel>
        );
    }

Props

Required

Prop	Description	Type	Default
itemWidth	Width in pixels of carousel's items, must be the same for all of them	Number	Required with horizontal carousel
itemHeight	Height in pixels of carousel's items, must be the same for all of them	Number	Required with vertical carousel
sliderWidth	Width in pixels of the carousel itself	Number	Required with horizontal carousel
sliderHeight	Height in pixels of the carousel itself	Number	Required with vertical carousel

Behavior

Prop	Description	Type	Default
activeSlideOffset	From slider's center, minimum slide distance to be scrolled before being set to active	Number	25
enableMomentum	See momentum. Warning: this prop can't be changed dynamically.	Boolean	false
enableSnap	If enabled, releasing the touch will scroll to the center of the nearest/active item. Warning: this prop can't be changed dynamically.	Number	true
firstItem	Index of the first item to display	Number	0
scrollEndDragThrottleValue	When momentum is disabled, this throttle helps smoothing slides' snapping by providing a bit of inertia when touch is released. Note that this will delay callback's execution.	Number	50 for iOS, 150 for Android
shouldOptimizeUpdates	Whether to implement a shouldComponentUpdate strategy to minimize updates	Boolean	true
snapCallbackDebounceValue	This defines the timeframe during which multiple callback calls should be "grouped" into a single one. Note that this will delay callback's execution.	Number	250
snapOnAndroid	Snapping on android is kinda choppy, especially when swiping quickly so you can disable it. Warning: this prop can't be changed dynamically.	Boolean	true
swipeThreshold	Delta x when swiping to trigger the snap	Number	20
vertical	Layout slides vertically instead of horizontally	Boolean	false

Autoplay

Prop	Description	Type	Default
autoplay	Trigger autoplay on mount. Warning: this prop can't be changed dynamically.	Boolean	false
autoplayDelay	Delay before enabling autoplay on startup & after releasing the touch	Number	5000
autoplayInterval	Delay in ms until navigating to the next item	Number	3000

Style and animation

Prop	Description	Type	Default
animationFunc	Animated animation to use. Provide the name of the method	String	timing
animationOptions	Animation options to be merged with the default ones. Can be used w/ animationFunc	Object	{ easing: Easing.elastic(1) }
carouselHorizontalPadding	Override container's inner horizontal padding (needed for slides's centering in a horizontal carousel). Warning: be aware that overriding the default value can mess with carousel's behavior.	Number	(sliderWidth - itemWidth) / 2
carouselVerticalPadding	Override container's inner vertical padding (needed for slides's centering in a vertical carousel). Warning: be aware that overriding the default value can mess with carousel's behavior.	Number	(sliderHeight - itemHeight) / 2
containerCustomStyle	Optional styles for Scrollview's global wrapper	ScrollView Style Object	{}
contentContainerCustomStyle	Optional styles for Scrollview's items container	ScrollView Style Object	{}
inactiveSlideOpacity	Value of the opacity effect applied to inactive slides	Number	1
inactiveSlideScale	Value of the 'scale' transform applied to inactive slides	Number	0.9
slideStyle	Optional style for each item's container (the one whose scale and opacity are animated)	Animated View Style Object	{}

Callbacks

Prop	Description	Type	Default
onLayout(event)	Exposed View callback; invoked on mount and layout changes	Function	undefined
onScroll(event)	Exposed ScrollView callback; fired while scrolling	Function	undefined
onScrollViewScroll(event)	Callback fired while scrolling (deprecated: use onScroll instead)	Function	undefined
onSnapToItem(slideIndex)	Callback fired when navigating to an item	Function	undefined

ScrollView

In addition to these props, you can use any prop from the ScrollView component.

Here are a few useful ones: removeClippedSubviews, showsHorizontalScrollIndicator, overScrollMode (android), bounces (ios), decelerationRate (ios), scrollEventThrottle (ios).

Methods

Reference to the component

In order to use the following methods, you need to create a reference to the carousel's instance. There are two ways of doing it.

ref as a callback attribute (recommended)

<Carousel
  // other props
  ref={(carousel) => { this._carousel = carousel; }}
/>

// methods can then be called this way
onPress={() => { this._carousel.snapToNext(); }}

ref as a string attribute (legacy)

<Carousel
  // other props
  ref={'carousel'}
/>

// methods can then be called this way
onPress={() => { this.refs.carousel.snapToNext(); }}

Available methods

• startAutoplay (instantly = false) Start the autoplay manually
• stopAutoplay () Stop the autoplay manually
• snapToItem (index, animated = true) Snap to an item manually
• snapToNext (animated = true) Snap to next item manually
• snapToPrev (animated = true) Snap to previous item manually

Properties

You need a reference to the carousel's instance (see above if needed).

• currentIndex Current active item (int, starts at 0)

Example

You can find the following example in the /example folder.

Tips and tricks

Momentum

Since 1.5.0, the snapping effect can now be based on momentum instead of when you're releasing your finger. It means that the component will wait until the ScrollView isn't moving anymore to snap. By default, the inertia isn't too high on Android. However, we had to tweak the default iOS value a bit to make sure the snapping isn't delayed for too long. You can adjust this value to your needs thanks to this prop.

Make also sure to play with the props scrollEndDragThrottleValue and snapCallbackDebounceValue; they can help achieving a better snap feeling, especially when momentum is disabled.

As a rule of thumb, we recommend setting enableMomentum to false (default) and decelerationRate to 'fast' when you are displaying only one main slide (as in the showcase above), and to use true and 0.9 otherwise.

Margin between slides

If you need some extra horizontal margin between slides (besides the one resulting from the scale effect), you should add it as paddingHorizontal on slide's container. Make sure to take this into account when calculating item's width.

const horizontalMargin = 20;
const slideWidth = 280;

const sliderWidth = Dimensions.get('window').width;
const itemWidth = slideWidth + horizontalMargin * 2;
const itemHeight = 200;

const styles = Stylesheet.create({
    slide: {
        width: itemWidth,
        height: itemHeight
        // other styles for your item's container
    }
};

return (
    <Carousel
      sliderWidth={sliderWidth}
      itemWidth={itemWidth}
    >
        <View style={styles.slide} />
        <View style={styles.slide} />
        <View style={styles.slide} />
    </Carousel>
);

Understanding styles

Here is a screenshot that should help you understand how each of the above variables is used.

Handling device rotation

Since version 2.2.0, slides will re-center properly if you update slider and/or items's dimensions when onLayout is fired.

Here is an example of a working implementation (thanks @andrewpope):

constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {
        viewport: {
            width: Dimensions.get('window').width,
            height: Dimensions.get('window').height
        }
    };
}

render() {
    return (
        <View
            onLayout={() => {
                this.setState({
                    viewport: {
                        width: Dimensions.get('window').width,
                        height: Dimensions.get('window').height
                    }
                });
            }}
        >
            <Carousel
                ref={carousel => { this.carousel = carousel; } }
                sliderWidth={this.state.viewport.width}
                itemWidth={this.state.viewport.width}
                ...
            >
            </Carousel>
        </View>
    );
}

Fullscreen slides

While the plugin hasn't been designed with this use case in mind, you can easily implement fullscreen slides. The following code should serve as a good starting point.

const { width: viewportWidth, height: viewportHeight } = Dimensions.get('window');

return (
    <Carousel
      sliderWidth={viewportWidth}
      itemWidth={viewportWidth}
      slideStyle={{ width: viewportWidth }}
      inactiveSlideOpacity={1}
      inactiveSlideScale={1}
    >
        <View style={{ height: viewportHeight }} /> // or { flex: 1 } for responsive height
        <View style={{ height: viewportHeight }} /> // or { flex: 1 } for responsive height
        <View style={{ height: viewportHeight }} /> // or { flex: 1 } for responsive height
    </Carousel>
);

Error with Jest

You might encounter the following error when using the plugin in conjonction with Jest: TypeError: Cannot read property 'style' of undefined at Object.<anonymous>.

As you can see here, this is because React Native mocks ScrollView for you when you write unit tests with Jest.

The easiest workaround is to add jest.unmock('ScrollView') before importing the component in your test file (thanks @hoangnm for the tip!).

RTL support

Experimental feature

Since version 2.1.0, the plugin is compatible with RTL layouts. Our implementation relies on miscellaneous hacks that work around a React Native bug with horizontal ScrollView.

As such, this feature should be considered experimental since it might break with newer versions of React Native.

Known issue

There is one kown issue with RTL layouts: during init, the last slide will shortly be seen. You can work around this by delaying slider's visibility with a small timer (FYI, version 0.43.0 of React Native introduced a display style prop that could either be set to flex or none).

ScrollView's limitations

Note that this plugin is built on top of React Native's ScrollView. Unfortunately, its implementation shows flaws that affect the plugin, the main ones being the following:

• there is no onScrollEnd event
• scrollTo method doesn't accept any callback
• Android's scrollTo animation is quite brutal.

We're trying to work around these issues, but the result is not always as smooth as we'd want it to be. Keep that in mind and go spam React Native's Feature Request ;-)

TODO

• Implement 'loop' mode
• Implement 'preload' mode
• Handle changing props on-the-fly
• Handle autoplay properly when updating children's length
• Add vertical implementation
• Handle device orientation event (see [this note] (https://github.com/archriss/react-native-snap-carousel#handling-device-rotation))
• Add RTL support
• Improve momemtum handling
• Improve snap on Android
• Handle passing 1 item only
• Fix centering

Credits

Written by Maxime Bertonnier and Benoît Delmaire at Archriss.