React with Animation

A Component and a Higher-Order-Component (HOC) to manage short-lived CSS animations in React.

Working example: here or take a quick squiz at the code example further down the readme.

Concept

Let's say you want to temporarily add a CSS class to a React component to play a little animation, and when the animation's finished, remove the class. Sounds like a simple enough thing to do, right? We've been doing that for years in jQuery:

$('#myThing').addClass('animateMe').delay(3000).removeClass('animateMe');

In React, the $('#myThing')selector part is a bit different. Because React is declarative in nature, we need a component that can handle imperatively telling React which component we want to add (and remove) the CSS classes to. That's what this react-with-animation does - it 'wraps' your component so that it always knows where it is in the React DOM, and can apply and remove the animation when it's done.

import { WithAnimationContainer } from 'react-with-animation';

render() {
   return (
      <WithAnimationContainer animationClasses="animateMe" animationDuration={3000}>
         <MyComponent />
      </WithAnimationContainer>
   );
}

There are plenty of ways to do this, but this project offers a simple, unified way to integrate such animations into your already-existing components, without needing to add change them or add all the boilerplate code each time.

Installation

npm i react-with-animation --save

Example

Check out a working example here or take a quick squiz at the code example below.

1. Set up your CSS Animation

.animateMe {
   animation-name: slideAndFadeIn; 
}

@keyframes slideAndFadeIn {
   0% {
      transform: translateX(-10px);
      opacity: 0;
   }
   100% {
      transform: translateX(0);
      opacity: 1;
   }   
}

2. Then in React,

import { WithAnimationContainer } from 'react-with-animation';

render() {
   return (
      <WithAnimationContainer animationClasses="animateMe" animationDuration={3000}>
         <MyComponent />
      </WithAnimationContainer>
   );
}

3. On render, <MyComponent /> will be wrapped with an element that has the CSS class animateMe for 3000ms, then once the animation is completed, the class will be removed!

Alternative (HOC) usage

import { withAnimation } from 'react-with-animation';

const MyComponent = ({ className, style }) => <div className={className} style={style}>Yay</div>;
const AnimateMyComponent = withAnimation(MyComponent);
render() {
   return <AnimateMyComponent animationClasses="animateMe" animationDuration={3000} animateOnFirstRender={true} />
}

3. On render, <MyComponent /> will have the CSS class animateMe for 3000ms, then once the animation is completed, the class will be removed!

API / Props

Both <WithAnimationContainer> and the Component passed to the withAnimation HOC take the following props. These are considered to be the basic configuration

Prop	Type	Optional?	Default
animationClasses	string	no	''
animateOnFirstRender	boolean	yes	false
animationDuration	number(ms)	yes	3000

When using the HOC, it is important to note that the wrappee (ie the component that will have the animation applied to it) must pass these props:

Prop	What is applied
className	animationClasses + any other classes you place on the component
style	animationDuration + any other styles you place on the component

Methods

When using the HOC, you can call startAnimation() and it will will 'play' the animation again. You will need to set a ref and you can call ref.startAnimation();

import { withAnimation } from 'react-with-animation';

const MyComponent = ({ className, style }) => <div className={className} style={style}>Yay</div>;
const AnimateMyComponent = withAnimation(MyComponent);

class Animated extends React.Component {
   start = () => {
      this.animatedComponentRef.startAnimation();
   };
   render() {
      return (
         <div>
            <AnimateMyComponent animationClasses="animateMe" ref={el => this.animatedComponentRef = el } />

            // Click the button and call the start() method of this class
            <Button onClick={this.start}>Play</Button>
         </div>
      );
   }
}

Should I use the or the HOC?

The choice is yours - however one caveat with your CSS animations relates to which CSS properties you animate.

For example, if you want to animate the CSS properties which affect all of an element's children (like transform, position etc), use the <WithAnimationContainer>. Although the animation will be applied to our WithAnimationContainer wrapper element, luckily all the children will follow suit :)

If your animation needs to animate specific properties of the element (background-color, border-color) for instance, then you can use the HOC so that the animation is placed directly on the element which has the background, border etc. One example of this is if you have a "Card" style component whose border colour might flash if it's just been created.

Gotchas

1. You should not set animation-duration in CSS - this is handled via the animationDuration prop set in your wrapped component.

License

Released under the MIT license.

Contribute

Please let me know if you have any feedback. Fork the repo, create Pull Requests and Issues. Have a look into how to contribute.