react-animate-height

What is react-animate-height?

The react-animate-height package is a React component that allows you to animate the height of an element. This can be useful for creating smooth transitions when showing or hiding content, such as expanding or collapsing sections.

What are react-animate-height's main functionalities?

Basic Height Animation

This example demonstrates a basic height animation where the height of a div toggles between 0 and 'auto' when a button is clicked. The animation duration is set to 500 milliseconds.

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import AnimateHeight from 'react-animate-height';

const Example = () => {
  const [height, setHeight] = useState(0);

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => setHeight(height === 0 ? 'auto' : 0)}>
        Toggle Height
      </button>
      <AnimateHeight
        duration={500}
        height={height} // see props documentation below
      >
        <div>
          This content will expand and collapse with animation.
        </div>
      </AnimateHeight>
    </div>
  );
};

export default Example;

Animating to Specific Height

This example shows how to animate the height of a div to specific values (100px and 200px) when a button is clicked. The animation duration is set to 500 milliseconds.

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import AnimateHeight from 'react-animate-height';

const Example = () => {
  const [height, setHeight] = useState(100);

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => setHeight(height === 100 ? 200 : 100)}>
        Toggle Height
      </button>
      <AnimateHeight
        duration={500}
        height={height} // see props documentation below
      >
        <div>
          This content will expand and collapse to specific heights with animation.
        </div>
      </AnimateHeight>
    </div>
  );
};

export default Example;

Animating with Easing

This example demonstrates how to use easing functions with the height animation. The easing function 'ease-in-out' is applied to the animation, making the transition smoother.

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import AnimateHeight from 'react-animate-height';

const Example = () => {
  const [height, setHeight] = useState(0);

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => setHeight(height === 0 ? 'auto' : 0)}>
        Toggle Height
      </button>
      <AnimateHeight
        duration={500}
        height={height} // see props documentation below
        easing="ease-in-out"
      >
        <div>
          This content will expand and collapse with easing animation.
        </div>
      </AnimateHeight>
    </div>
  );
};

export default Example;

Other packages similar to react-animate-height

react-collapse

react-collapse is a React component for animating the height of an element. It provides similar functionality to react-animate-height but focuses more on collapsing and expanding content. It offers a simple API and is easy to integrate into existing projects.

react-spring

react-spring is a spring-physics-based animation library for React applications. It provides more advanced and flexible animation capabilities compared to react-animate-height, including support for animating various properties, not just height. It is suitable for more complex animation needs.

framer-motion

framer-motion is a powerful animation library for React that allows for complex animations and gestures. It offers more features and flexibility compared to react-animate-height, including support for keyframes, layout animations, and drag gestures. It is ideal for creating highly interactive and animated user interfaces.

README

React Animate Height

No dependencies React component for animating height using CSS transitions. Slide an element up and down or animate it to any specific height. Content's opacity can be optionally animated as well (check animateOpacity prop bellow).

CSS classes are applied in specific animation states, check animationStateClasses prop.

Changelog

Version 3

This is version 3.x branch, rewritten to hooks, which means you'll need React version 16.8 or newer.

For version 2.x, check v2 branch

Breaking changes:

• Callback names changed (to avoid clashing with the native ones):
  • onAnimationStart -> onHeightAnimationStart
  • onAnimationEnd -> onHeightAnimationEnd

Demo

Live demo: muffinman.io/react-animate-height

Because multiple people asked how to animate list items, I created this simple example for that as well.

To build the examples locally, run:

npm install
npm start

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in your browser of choice browser.

Or play with this sandbox.

Quick start

Get it from npm

$ npm install --save react-animate-height

Import and use it in your React app.

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import AnimateHeight from 'react-animate-height';

const Example = () => {
  const [height, setHeight] = useState(0);

  return (
    <div>
      <button
        aria-expanded={height !== 0}
        aria-controls="example-panel"
        onClick={() => setHeight(height === 0 ? 'auto' : 0)}
      >
        {height === 0 ? 'Open' : 'Close'}
      </button>

      <AnimateHeight
        id="example-panel"
        duration={500}
        height={height} // see props documentation below
      >
        <h1>Your content goes here</h1>
        <p>Put as many React or HTML components here.</p>
      </AnimateHeight>
    </div>
  );
};

Props

• height: numeric or percentage value (ie. '50%') or 'auto', required

  When changed, element height will be animated to that height.
  To slide up use 0, for slide down use 'auto'

• duration: integer, default: 500

  Duration of the animation in milliseconds

• delay: integer, default: 0

  Animation delay in milliseconds

• easing: string, default: 'ease'

  CSS easing function to be applied to the animation

• id: string

  HTML id attribute.

• className: string

  CSS class to be applied to the element

  Please note that you shouldn't apply properties that are messing with the layout (like display, height...), as these might break height calculations

• ref: React.MutableRefObject<HTMLDivElement | null>

  Reference to the main div element.

    const wrapperDiv = useRef<HTMLDivElement | null>(null);
  
    <AnimateHeight ref={wrapperDiv}>
  

• contentRef: React.MutableRefObject<HTMLDivElement | null>

  Reference to the content div element.

    const contentDiv = useRef<HTMLDivElement | null>(null);
  
    <AnimateHeight contentRef={contentDiv}>
  

• style: object

  CSS style object, it will be merged with inline styles of the component

  Please note that you shouldn't apply properties that are messing with the layout (display, height are omitted from the type already), as these might break height calculations

• contentClassName: string

  CSS class to be applied to content wrapper element

  Please note that you shouldn't apply properties that are messing with the layout (like display, height...), as these might break height calculations

• animationStateClasses: object

  Object containing CSS class names for animation states, default:

  {
    animating:                  'rah-animating',
    animatingUp:                'rah-animating--up',
    animatingDown:              'rah-animating--down',
    static:                     'rah-static',
    animatingToHeightZero:      'rah-animating--to-height-zero',
    animatingToHeightAuto:      'rah-animating--to-height-auto',
    animatingToHeightSpecific:  'rah-animating--to-height-specific',
    staticHeightZero:           'rah-static--height-zero',
    staticHeightAuto:           'rah-static--height-auto',
    staticHeightSpecific:       'rah-static--height-specific',
  }
  

  Please note that this one will be merged with the default object and cached when component is created, so changing it afterwards will have no effect.

• onHeightAnimationStart: function

  Callback which will be called when animation starts.

  This first argument passed to this callback is an object containing newHeight, the pixel value of the height at which the animation will end.

• onHeightAnimationEnd: function

  Callback which will be called when animation ends.

  This first argument passed to this callback is an object containing newHeight, the pixel value of the height at which the animation ended.

• applyInlineTransitions: boolean, default: true

  If this flag is set to false only CSS classes will be applied to the element and inline transition styles will not be present.

• animateOpacity: boolean, default: false

  If set to true content will fade-in (and fade-out) while height is animated.

• aria-hidden: boolean

  By default, library will set aria-hidden to true when height is zero. If you wish to override it, you can pass the prop yourself.

• disableDisplayNone: boolean, default: false

  By default, library will set display: none when height is zero. This prop allows you to disable that behavior and handle it yourself. It is useful when using auto height, check this issue for more info. Please be careful not to break accessibility when using this prop.

Additional props will be passed to the wrapper div, to make adding attrs like aria-* easier.

Accessibility

Library will hide the content using display: hidden when height props is 0. It will also apply aria-hidden="true" in the same case, but you can override it by passing aria-hidden prop yourself.

When using a button to toggle height, make sure you add aria-expanded and aria-controls to make everything accessible. Here's an example:

<button
  aria-expanded={ height !== 0 }
  aria-controls="example-panel" // it has to match the id passed to AnimateHeight
  onClick={ toggleHeight } // your click handler that toggles height
  // ... all other props
>
  Toggle
</button>

<AnimateHeight id="example-panel">
  Content
</AnimateHeight>

Reduced motion

Component checks for prefers-reduced-motion on start and disables animations if it is set to true. Please note that component doesn't listen for potential changes of prefers-reduced-motion option.

Animate height on content change

It is not built in, but you can use AnimateHeight and ResizeObserver to automatically animate height on content change. I created a small example for you here:

• Source code
• Demo

Gotchas

Collapsing margins

While it is animating, component has overflow: hidden. When the animation is finished and height is set to "auto", overflow: hidden is removed. At that moment, any margins you have on the content inside AnimateHeight will collapse, causing content to "jump". To avoid this, just use padding inside the AnimateHeight instead of margins.

Bounded flexboxes

If AnimateHeight is a flex child and it's parent has a fixed height, animation won't work. To fix this, you just need to add the following CSS rule to the AnimateHeight instance.

flex-shrink: 0;

You can do it by passing a className or directly in the style prop

<AnimateHeight style={{flexShrink: 0}}>

Check the issue #89 for the example and more details.

License

MIT

Changelog

v3.2.3

10.11.2023.

Added

• Added prop to disable display: none when height is set to zero #16.

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