react-responsive

What is react-responsive?

The react-responsive package is a utility for managing media queries in React applications. It allows developers to create responsive components that adapt to different screen sizes and orientations.

What are react-responsive's main functionalities?

Media Query Component

This feature allows you to use media queries directly within your React components. The useMediaQuery hook can be used to conditionally render content based on the screen size, orientation, and resolution.

import { useMediaQuery } from 'react-responsive';

const Example = () => {
  const isDesktopOrLaptop = useMediaQuery({ minWidth: 1224 });
  const isBigScreen = useMediaQuery({ minWidth: 1824 });
  const isTabletOrMobile = useMediaQuery({ maxWidth: 1224 });
  const isPortrait = useMediaQuery({ orientation: 'portrait' });
  const isRetina = useMediaQuery({ minResolution: '2dppx' });

  return (
    <div>
      {isDesktopOrLaptop && <p>You are a desktop or laptop</p>}
      {isBigScreen && <p>You have a huge screen</p>}
      {isTabletOrMobile && <p>You are a tablet or mobile phone</p>}
      {isPortrait && <p>You are in portrait orientation</p>}
      {isRetina && <p>You are retina</p>}
    </div>
  );
};

Media Query Component with Children

This feature allows you to use the MediaQuery component to wrap children elements that should only be rendered if the media query matches. This is useful for conditionally rendering parts of your component tree based on media queries.

import { MediaQuery } from 'react-responsive';

const Example = () => (
  <div>
    <MediaQuery minWidth={1224}>
      <p>You are a desktop or laptop</p>
    </MediaQuery>
    <MediaQuery minWidth={1824}>
      <p>You have a huge screen</p>
    </MediaQuery>
    <MediaQuery maxWidth={1224}>
      <p>You are a tablet or mobile phone</p>
    </MediaQuery>
    <MediaQuery orientation="portrait">
      <p>You are in portrait orientation</p>
    </MediaQuery>
    <MediaQuery minResolution="2dppx">
      <p>You are retina</p>
    </MediaQuery>
  </div>
);

Other packages similar to react-responsive

react-media

react-media is a similar package that provides a declarative way to use media queries in React. It offers a Media component that can be used to conditionally render content based on media queries. Compared to react-responsive, react-media is more focused on providing a simple and declarative API for media queries.

react-responsive-mixin

react-responsive-mixin is a mixin for React components that allows them to respond to media query changes. It is less commonly used in modern React applications due to the shift away from mixins in favor of hooks and higher-order components. However, it can still be useful for legacy codebases that rely on mixins.

react-socks

react-socks is another package for handling media queries in React. It provides a set of components and hooks for responsive design. Compared to react-responsive, react-socks offers a more modern API with hooks and context, making it a good alternative for developers looking for a more contemporary solution.

README

react-responsive

Information

Package	react-responsive
Description	Media queries in react for responsive design
Browser Version	>= IE6*
Demo

The best supported, easiest to use react media query module.

Install

$ npm install react-responsive --save

Example Usage

With Hooks

Hooks is a new feature available in 8.0.0!

import React from 'react'
import { useMediaQuery } from 'react-responsive'

const Example = () => {
  const isDesktopOrLaptop = useMediaQuery({
    query: '(min-width: 1224px)'
  })
  const isBigScreen = useMediaQuery({ query: '(min-width: 1824px)' })
  const isTabletOrMobile = useMediaQuery({ query: '(max-width: 1224px)' })
  const isPortrait = useMediaQuery({ query: '(orientation: portrait)' })
  const isRetina = useMediaQuery({ query: '(min-resolution: 2dppx)' })

  return <div>
    <h1>Device Test!</h1>
    {isDesktopOrLaptop && <p>You are a desktop or laptop</p>}
    {isBigScreen && <p>You  have a huge screen</p>}
    {isTabletOrMobile && <p>You are a tablet or mobile phone</p>}
    <p>Your are in {isPortrait ? 'portrait' : 'landscape'} orientation</p>
    {isRetina && <p>You are retina</p>}
  </div>
}

With Components

import MediaQuery from 'react-responsive'

const Example = () => (
  <div>
    <h1>Device Test!</h1>
    <MediaQuery minWidth={1224}>
      <p>You are a desktop or laptop</p>
      <MediaQuery minWidth={1824}>
        <p>You also have a huge screen</p>
      </MediaQuery>
    </MediaQuery>
    <MediaQuery minResolution="2dppx">
      {/* You can also use a function (render prop) as a child */}
      {(matches) =>
        matches
          ? <p>You are retina</p>
          : <p>You are not retina</p>
      }
    </MediaQuery>
  </div>
)

API

Using Properties

To make things more idiomatic to react, you can use camel-cased shorthands to construct media queries.

For a list of all possible shorthands and value types see https://github.com/contra/react-responsive/blob/master/src/mediaQuery.js#L9.

Any numbers given as shorthand will be expanded to px (1234 will become '1234px').

The CSS media queries in the example above could be constructed like this:

import React from 'react'
import { useMediaQuery } from 'react-responsive'

const Example = () => {
  const isDesktopOrLaptop = useMediaQuery({ minWidth: 1224 })
  const isBigScreen = useMediaQuery({ minWidth: 1824 })
  const isTabletOrMobile = useMediaQuery({ maxWidth: 1224 })
  const isPortrait = useMediaQuery({ orientation: 'portrait' })
  const isRetina = useMediaQuery({ minResolution: '2dppx' })

  return (
    <div>
      ...
    </div>
  )
}

Forcing a device with the device prop

At times you may need to render components with different device settings than what gets automatically detected. This is especially useful in a Node environment where these settings can't be detected (SSR) or for testing.

Possible Keys

orientation, scan, aspectRatio, deviceAspectRatio, height, deviceHeight, width, deviceWidth, color, colorIndex, monochrome, resolution and type

Possible Types

type can be one of: all, grid, aural, braille, handheld, print, projection, screen, tty, tv or embossed

Note: The device property always applies, even when it can be detected (where window.matchMedia exists).

import { useMediaQuery } from 'react-responsive'

const Example = () => {
  const isDesktopOrLaptop = useMediaQuery(
     { minDeviceWidth: 1224 },
     { deviceWidth: 1600 } // `device` prop
  )

  return (
    <div>
      {isDesktopOrLaptop &&
        <p>
          this will always get rendered even if device is shorter than 1224px,
          that's because we overrode device settings with 'deviceWidth: 1600'.
        </p>
      }
    </div>
  )
}

Supplying through Context

You can also pass device to every useMediaQuery hook in the components tree through a React Context. This should ease up server-side-rendering and testing in a Node environment, e.g:

Server-Side Rendering

import { Context as ResponsiveContext } from 'react-responsive'
import { renderToString } from 'react-dom/server'
import App from './App'

...
  // Context is just a regular React Context component, it accepts a `value` prop to be passed to consuming components
  const mobileApp = renderToString(
    <ResponsiveContext.Provider value={{ width: 500 }}>
      <App />
    </ResponsiveContext.Provider>
  )
...

Testing

import { Context as ResponsiveContext } from 'react-responsive'
import { render } from '@testing-library/react'
import ProductsListing from './ProductsListing'

describe('ProductsListing', () => {
  test('matches the snapshot', () => {
    const { container: mobile } = render(
      <ResponsiveContext.Provider value={{ width: 300 }}>
        <ProductsListing />
      </ResponsiveContext.Provider>
    )
    expect(mobile).toMatchSnapshot()

    const { container: desktop } = render(
      <ResponsiveContext.Provider value={{ width: 1000 }}>
        <ProductsListing />
      </ResponsiveContext.Provider>
    )
    expect(desktop).toMatchSnapshot()
  })
})

Note that if anything has a device prop passed in it will take precedence over the one from context.

onChange

You can use the onChange callback to specify a change handler that will be called when the media query's value changes.

import React from 'react'
import { useMediaQuery } from 'react-responsive'

const Example = () => {

  const handleMediaQueryChange = (matches) => {
    // matches will be true or false based on the value for the media query
  }
  const isDesktopOrLaptop = useMediaQuery(
    { minWidth: 1224 }, undefined,  handleMediaQueryChange
  );

  return (
    <div>
      ...
    </div>
  )
}

import React from 'react'
import MediaQuery from 'react-responsive'

const Example = () => {

  const handleMediaQueryChange = (matches) => {
    // matches will be true or false based on the value for the media query
  }

  return (
    <MediaQuery minWidth={1224} onChange={handleMediaQueryChange}>
      ...
    </MediaQuery>
  )
}

Easy Mode

That's it! Now you can create your application specific breakpoints and reuse them easily. Here is an example:

import { useMediaQuery } from 'react-responsive'

const Desktop = ({ children }) => {
  const isDesktop = useMediaQuery({ minWidth: 992 })
  return isDesktop ? children : null
}
const Tablet = ({ children }) => {
  const isTablet = useMediaQuery({ minWidth: 768, maxWidth: 991 })
  return isTablet ? children : null
}
const Mobile = ({ children }) => {
  const isMobile = useMediaQuery({ maxWidth: 767 })
  return isMobile ? children : null
}
const Default = ({ children }) => {
  const isNotMobile = useMediaQuery({ minWidth: 768 })
  return isNotMobile ? children : null
}

const Example = () => (
  <div>
    <Desktop>Desktop or laptop</Desktop>
    <Tablet>Tablet</Tablet>
    <Mobile>Mobile</Mobile>
    <Default>Not mobile (desktop or laptop or tablet)</Default>
  </div>
)

export default Example

And if you want a combo (the DRY way):

import { useMediaQuery } from "react-responsive"

const useDesktopMediaQuery = () =>
  useMediaQuery({ query: "(min-width: 1280px)" })

const useTabletAndBelowMediaQuery = () =>
  useMediaQuery({ query: "(max-width: 1279px)" })

const Desktop = ({ children }) => {
  const isDesktop = useDesktopMediaQuery()

  return isDesktop ? children : null
}

const TabletAndBelow = ({ children }) => {
  const isTabletAndBelow = useTabletAndBelowMediaQuery()

  return isTabletAndBelow ? children : null
}

Browser Support

Out of the box

Chrome	9
Firefox (Gecko)	6
MS Edge	All
Internet Explorer	10
Opera	12.1
Safari	5.1

With Polyfills

Pretty much everything. Check out these polyfills:

• matchMedia.js by Paul Irish
• media-match (faster, but larger and lacking some features)