react-spring

What is react-spring?

react-spring is a spring-physics-based animation library for React applications. It allows developers to create fluid and natural animations with ease, leveraging the power of physics to create realistic motion. The library is highly flexible and can be used for a variety of animation needs, from simple transitions to complex interactive animations.

What are react-spring's main functionalities?

Basic Animations

This feature allows you to create basic animations such as fading in and out. The `useSpring` hook is used to define the animation properties, and the `animated` component is used to apply these properties to a React element.

```jsx
import React from 'react';
import { useSpring, animated } from 'react-spring';

function BasicAnimation() {
  const props = useSpring({
    to: { opacity: 1 },
    from: { opacity: 0 },
  });

  return <animated.div style={props}>I will fade in</animated.div>;
}

export default BasicAnimation;
```

Keyframe Animations

This feature allows you to create keyframe animations, where an element transitions through multiple states. The `to` property can be an async function that defines a sequence of animations.

```jsx
import React from 'react';
import { useSpring, animated } from 'react-spring';

function KeyframeAnimation() {
  const props = useSpring({
    from: { transform: 'translate3d(0,0,0)' },
    to: async (next) => {
      await next({ transform: 'translate3d(100px,0,0)' });
      await next({ transform: 'translate3d(0,0,0)' });
    },
  });

  return <animated.div style={props}>I will move</animated.div>;
}

export default KeyframeAnimation;
```

Gesture-based Animations

This feature allows you to create gesture-based animations, such as dragging. The `useDrag` hook from `react-use-gesture` is used in combination with `useSpring` to create a draggable element.

```jsx
import React from 'react';
import { useSpring, animated } from 'react-spring';
import { useDrag } from 'react-use-gesture';

function Draggable() {
  const [props, set] = useSpring(() => ({ x: 0, y: 0 }));
  const bind = useDrag(({ offset: [x, y] }) => set({ x, y }));

  return <animated.div {...bind()} style={{ ...props, width: 100, height: 100, background: 'lightblue' }} />;
}

export default Draggable;
```

Other packages similar to react-spring

framer-motion

Framer Motion is a popular animation library for React that provides a simple API for creating animations and gestures. It is known for its ease of use and powerful features, such as layout animations and shared element transitions. Compared to react-spring, Framer Motion is more focused on providing a high-level API for common animation tasks, while react-spring offers more flexibility and control over the animation physics.

react-transition-group

React Transition Group is a low-level animation library for React that provides more control over the transition states of components. It is often used for simple animations like fading, sliding, and collapsing. Compared to react-spring, React Transition Group is more focused on managing the lifecycle of animations and transitions, while react-spring provides more advanced physics-based animations.

react-move

React Move is an animation library for React that allows you to create complex animations using a declarative syntax. It is designed to work well with data-driven animations and provides a flexible API for creating custom animations. Compared to react-spring, React Move is more focused on data-driven animations and provides a different approach to defining animations using a declarative syntax.

README

react-spring is a spring-physics based animation library that should cover most of your UI related animation needs. It gives you tools flexible enough to confidently cast your ideas into moving interfaces.

This library represents a modern approach to animation. It is very much inspired by Christopher Chedeau's animated and Cheng Lou's react-motion. It inherits animated's powerful interpolations and performance, as well as react-motion's ease of use. But while animated is mostly imperative and react-motion mostly declarative, react-spring bridges both. You will be surprised how easy static data is cast into motion with small, explicit utility functions that don't necessarily affect how you form your views.

Installation

npm install react-spring

Documentation and Examples

More info about the project can be found here.

Examples and tutorials can be found here.

---

Why springs and not durations

The principle you will be working with is called a spring, it does not have a defined curve or a set duration. In that it differs greatly from the animation you are probably used to. We think of animation in terms of time and curves, but that in itself causes most of the struggle we face when trying to make elements on the screen move naturally, because nothing in the real world moves like that.

We are so used to time-based animation that we believe that struggle is normal, dealing with arbitrary curves, easings, time waterfalls, not to mention getting this all in sync. As Andy Matuschak (ex Apple UI-Kit developer) expressed it once: Animation APIs parameterized by duration and curve are fundamentally opposed to continuous, fluid interactivity.

Springs change that, animation becomes easy and approachable, everything you do looks and feels natural by default. For a detailed explanation watch this video.

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Funding

If you like this project, please consider helping out. All contributions are welcome as well as donations to Opencollective, or in crypto:

BTC: 36fuguTPxGCNnYZSRdgdh6Ea94brCAjMbH

ETH: 0x6E3f79Ea1d0dcedeb33D3fC6c34d2B1f156F2682

You can also support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website.

Gold sponsors

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Backers

Thank you to all our backers! 🙏

Contributors

This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute.