Unlock the Power of Action Sheets in React Native
When building an email client, it’s essential to provide users with a seamless way to manage their drafts. A custom context menu with a list of options can be a great solution, but what about accessibility on smaller screens? This is where action sheets come in – a UI element that renders a context menu at the bottom of the screen, optimized for various screen sizes and supporting robust icons.
What are Action Sheets?
Action sheets are a vital component in mobile app development, allowing users to interact with your app in a more intuitive way. By using the react-native-action-sheet module, we can create an iOS-like action sheet in React Native that’s both customizable and user-friendly.
Getting Started with Expo
To begin, let’s initialize our project using Expo. Run the following terminal command and choose the “minimal” option. Then, install the react-native-action-sheet package using npm or yarn.
Building a Basic Action Sheet
Create a new file called ActionButton.js and add the following code to render a simple Button component. Replace the code in App.js with the ActionButton module, and wrap your components within ActionSheetProvider tags. This tells React that our app will consist of an action sheet.
Connecting to the Action Sheet API
To connect React Native’s action sheet API with our project, append the following code snippet in ActionSheet.js. This code might seem complex, but it’s easy to understand:
- Import the useActionSheet Hook to render an action sheet according to our config
- Declare an options array that holds the user’s available choices
- Pass our config into the showSheetButtonWithOptions function to display our custom-built action sheet
- Use a callback function to run when the client clicks on an option
Customizing Your Action Sheets
Want to take your action sheets to the next level? Learn how to alter the look and feel of your action sheet by:
- Displaying icons using the icons property
- Adding images instead of icons
- Using the title and message arguments to display a title or message within your menu
- Applying custom CSS styles using textStyle, titleTextStyle, containerStyle, and seperatorStyle
Conclusion
In this guide, we’ve learned how to use and customize action sheets using the react-native-action-sheet module. With its clear and concise documentation, working with action sheets is a breeze. Try out the associated Expo Snack for this project and start building your own action sheets today!