react-native-linear-gradient

What is react-native-linear-gradient?

The react-native-linear-gradient package allows you to create linear gradients in your React Native applications. It provides a simple and flexible way to add gradient backgrounds to your components, enhancing the visual appeal of your app.

What are react-native-linear-gradient's main functionalities?

Basic Linear Gradient

This feature allows you to create a basic linear gradient with multiple colors. The colors array specifies the gradient colors, and the style prop is used to position and style the gradient.

import LinearGradient from 'react-native-linear-gradient';
import { View, Text } from 'react-native';

const App = () => (
  <LinearGradient
    colors={['#4c669f', '#3b5998', '#192f6a']}
    style={{ flex: 1, justifyContent: 'center', alignItems: 'center' }}
  >
    <Text style={{ color: 'white' }}>Basic Linear Gradient</Text>
  </LinearGradient>
);

Gradient with Custom Start and End Points

This feature allows you to customize the start and end points of the gradient. The start and end props take objects with x and y coordinates, giving you control over the gradient direction.

import LinearGradient from 'react-native-linear-gradient';
import { View, Text } from 'react-native';

const App = () => (
  <LinearGradient
    colors={['#ff7e5f', '#feb47b']}
    start={{ x: 0, y: 0 }}
    end={{ x: 1, y: 1 }}
    style={{ flex: 1, justifyContent: 'center', alignItems: 'center' }}
  >
    <Text style={{ color: 'white' }}>Custom Start and End Points</Text>
  </LinearGradient>
);

Gradient with Locations

This feature allows you to specify the locations of the gradient colors. The locations array should have the same length as the colors array, and it defines where each color should be placed along the gradient.

import LinearGradient from 'react-native-linear-gradient';
import { View, Text } from 'react-native';

const App = () => (
  <LinearGradient
    colors={['#e96443', '#904e95']}
    locations={[0.3, 0.7]}
    style={{ flex: 1, justifyContent: 'center', alignItems: 'center' }}
  >
    <Text style={{ color: 'white' }}>Gradient with Locations</Text>
  </LinearGradient>
);

Other packages similar to react-native-linear-gradient

react-native-svg

The react-native-svg package provides SVG support for React Native, allowing you to create complex vector graphics, including gradients. It offers more flexibility and control over the shapes and paths, but it can be more complex to use compared to react-native-linear-gradient.

react-native-linear-gradient-text

The react-native-linear-gradient-text package allows you to apply linear gradients specifically to text components in React Native. While it is more specialized than react-native-linear-gradient, it can be useful if you only need gradient text and not full background gradients.

README

react-native-linear-gradient

A <LinearGradient> element for React Native

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage and Examples
• Props
• Example App
• Troubleshooting
• Other Platforms

Installation

yarn add react-native-linear-gradient

Or, using npm: npm install react-native-linear-gradient

Examples

react-native-login is a legacy component which showcases the use of <LinearGradient>.

Simple

The following code will produce something like this:

import LinearGradient from 'react-native-linear-gradient';

// Within your render function
<LinearGradient colors={['#4c669f', '#3b5998', '#192f6a']} style={styles.linearGradient}>
  <Text style={styles.buttonText}>
    Sign in with Facebook
  </Text>
</LinearGradient>

// Later on in your styles..
var styles = StyleSheet.create({
  linearGradient: {
    flex: 1,
    paddingLeft: 15,
    paddingRight: 15,
    borderRadius: 5
  },
  buttonText: {
    fontSize: 18,
    fontFamily: 'Gill Sans',
    textAlign: 'center',
    margin: 10,
    color: '#ffffff',
    backgroundColor: 'transparent',
  },
});

Horizontal gradient

Using the styles from above, set start and end like this to make the gradient go from left to right, instead of from top to bottom:

<LinearGradient start={{x: 0, y: 0}} end={{x: 1, y: 0}} colors={['#4c669f', '#3b5998', '#192f6a']} style={styles.linearGradient}>
  <Text style={styles.buttonText}>
    Sign in with Facebook
  </Text>
</LinearGradient>

Text gradient (iOS)

On iOS you can use the MaskedViewIOS to display text with a gradient. The trick here is to render the text twice; once for the mask, and once to let the gradient have the correct size (hence the opacity: 0):

<MaskedViewIOS maskElement={<Text style={styles.text} />}>
  <LinearGradient colors={['#f00', '#0f0']} start={{ x: 0, y: 0 }} end={{ x: 1, y: 0 }}>
    <Text style={[styles.text, { opacity: 0 }]} />
  </LinearGradient>
</MaskedViewIOS>

Animated Gradient

Check out the example app (git clone this project, cd into it, npm install, open in Xcode and run) to see how this is done:

This gif was created using licecap - a great piece of free OSS

Transparent Gradient

The use of transparent color will most likely not lead to the expected result. transparent is actually a transparent black color (rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)). If you need a gradient in which the color is "fading", you need to have the same color with changing alpha channel. Example:

// RGBA

<LinearGradient colors={['rgba(255, 255, 255, 0)', 'rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)']} {...otherGradientProps} />

// Hex

<LinearGradient colors={['#FFFFFF00', '#FFFFFF']} {...otherGradientProps} />

Props

In addition to regular View props, you can also provide additional props to customize your gradient look:

colors

An array of at least two color values that represent gradient colors. Example: ['red', 'blue'] sets gradient from red to blue.

start

An optional object of the following type: { x: number, y: number }. Coordinates declare the position that the gradient starts at, as a fraction of the overall size of the gradient, starting from the top left corner. Example: { x: 0.1, y: 0.1 } means that the gradient will start 10% from the top and 10% from the left.

end

Same as start, but for the end of the gradient.

locations

An optional array of numbers defining the location of each gradient color stop, mapping to the color with the same index in colors prop. Example: [0.1, 0.75, 1] means that first color will take 0% - 10%, second color will take 10% - 75% and finally third color will occupy 75% - 100%.

<LinearGradient
  start={{x: 0.0, y: 0.25}} end={{x: 0.5, y: 1.0}}
  locations={[0,0.5,0.6]}
  colors={['#4c669f', '#3b5998', '#192f6a']}
  style={styles.linearGradient}>
  <Text style={styles.buttonText}>
    Sign in with Facebook
  </Text>
</LinearGradient>

useAngle / angle / angleCenter

You may want to achieve an angled gradient effect, similar to those in image editors like Photoshop. One issue is that you have to calculate the angle based on the view's size, which only happens asynchronously and will cause unwanted flickr.

In order to do that correctly you can set useAngle={true} angle={45} angleCenter={{x:0.5,y:0.5}}, to achieve a gradient with a 45 degrees angle, with its center positioned in the view's exact center.

useAngle is used to turn on/off angle based calculation (as opposed to start/end). angle is the angle in degrees. angleCenter is the center point of the angle (will control the weight and stretch of the gradient like it does in photoshop.

An example app

You can see this component in action in brentvatne/react-native-login.

Troubleshooting

iOS build fails: library not found, "BVLinearGradient" was not found in the UIManager

1. Ensure to run pod install before running the app on iOS
2. Ensure you use ios/**.xcworkspace file instead of ios./**.xcodeproj

Other

Clearing build caches and reinstalling dependencies sometimes solve some issues. Try next steps:

1. Reinstalling node_modules with rm -rf node_modules && yarn
2. Clearing Android Gradle cache with (cd android && ./gradlew clean)
3. Reinstalling iOS CocoaPods with (cd ios && rm -rf ./ios/Pods/**) && npx pod-install
4. Clearing Xcode Build cache (open Xcode and go to Product -> Clean Build Folder)

For other troubleshooting issues, go to React Native Troubleshooting

Other platforms

• Web: react-native-web-community/react-native-web-linear-gradient

License

MIT

Changelog

2.8.3 - 2023-09-06

• Modernize BVLinearGradientLayer to use UIGraphicsImageRenderer