Unlock the Power of Collapsible Components in Your React App
What Are Collapsible Components?
Modern React web applications are built from various components, including tabs, progress bars, charts, and more. One essential component is the collapsible component, which has two states: collapsed and expanded. When collapsed, it doesn’t show its full content, but users can expand it with a mouse click or screen tap to reveal the full content.
The Benefits of Collapsible Components
Frontend developers use collapsible components to create action flows, editable forms, and preferences sections. The collapsible design helps hide content that’s not immediately relevant, making it easier for users to focus on what matters.
Introducing react-collapsed: A Game-Changer for Collapsible Components
In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to create collapsible components using the react-collapsed library. This library offers a unique approach, providing only the required props and allowing you to implement your own UI. With react-collapsed, you can turn any React component into a collapsible component with minimal effort.
Key Features of react-collapsed
- Freedom to customize styles: Unlike other UI toolkits, react-collapsed doesn’t come with hard-to-customize styles and inner elements. You have the freedom to design your own UI.
- Simple, CSS-based animations: react-collapsed uses native CSS-based animations, giving you the flexibility to build and use custom animations with cubic-bezier.
- Easy setup and flexibility: You can turn or extend any React component into a collapsible component with minimal effort. react-collapsed exposes every customization option you need.
Creating a Basic Collapsible Component
To get started, create a new React project or open your existing React project. Add the react-collapsed library to your project and define the Collapsible component using the react-collapsed props. Append the required props to the clickable area and collapsed panel using the getToggleProps and getCollapseProps functions.
Customizing Animation Type and Speed
react-collapsed is a flexible library that accepts various configuration parameters via the useCollapse Hook. You can change the animation speed and type by updating the configuration object. For example, you can make the animation slow or use a custom CSS animation built with cubic-bezier.
Expanding the Component by Default
In some scenarios, you may want to show the hidden content by default and let users collapse it if they want to. You can achieve this by setting the defaultExpanded option to true.
Nested Collapsible Components
It’s possible to add a collapsible component inside another collapsible component. Update your React application to see nested collapsible components in action. The child component automatically saves the collapsible state when the parent component is collapsed.
Setting Up Event Handlers for Animations
react-collapsed provides event handlers support for the animation. You can bind callbacks to the start expanding, end expanding, start collapsing, and end collapsing steps.
Applying Styles During Expanding and Collapsing
If you need to apply some styles to the collapsible panel during the animation, you can send some CSS via the configuration object.
Advanced Example: Creating a Preferences Section
Let’s implement a preferences page with several collapsible components. We’ll create a reusable collapsible component called Section, which accepts three key props: defaultExpanded, collapsedHeight, and title. The component header displays a Font Awesome icon based on the current component state.
Comparison with Other Libraries
Every popular web UI library offers collapsible components, but none of them provides a flexible way to make our own React components collapsible. react-collapsed gives us a React Hook that we can use inside any component, allowing us to design the UI as we wish.
Get Started with react-collapsed Today
In this tutorial, we’ve explored the power of react-collapsed and how it can help you create custom collapsible components in your React app. With its flexibility and ease of use, react-collapsed is the perfect solution for building collapsible components that meet your specific design needs.