react-arrow-navigation

A react library for managing navigation with arrow keys

Install

npm install --save react-arrow-navigation

Usage

Mount ArrowNavigation in your app, and register components that receive navigation state with the useArrowNavigation hook. It takes two arguments: an x and y navigation index.

import React from 'react'
import { ArrowNavigation, useArrowNavigation } from 'react-arrow-navigation'
 
const NavigationChild = ({ xIndex, yIndex }) => {
    const { selected, active } = useArrowNavigation(xIndex, yIndex)
    return (
        <div className={selected && active ? 'child selected' : 'child'}>
            {`Index [${xIndex}, ${yIndex}]`}
        </div>
    )
}
 
const MyApp = () => (
    <ArrowNavigation className="nav">
        <NavigationChild xIndex={0} yIndex={0} />
        <NavigationChild xIndex={0} yIndex={1} />
        <NavigationChild xIndex={0} yIndex={2} />
    </ArrowNavigation>
)

Live example here

useArrowNavigation returns two values that represent the navigation state:

• selected: whether this index is currently selected
• active: whether this ArrowNavigation component is currently focused

This gives you flexibilty when implementing navigable components. For example:

• A button group: you might want the button to stay in a selected state even when the button group is not focused
• A drop down menu: the menu items would only need to be in a selected state when the dropdown is focused/open

The select callback

You may also want to be able to update the navigation state when a component is clicked. For example:

1. A user navigates through a button group with the arrow keys
2. Then they click on a button in the group
3. Then they continue navigating with the arrow keys

When this happens you want the navigation index to be updated on click, so when they use the arrow keys again the index is correct.

To achieve this we can use the select callback provided by useArrowNavigation:

const ButtonGroupButton = ({ xIndex }) => {
    const { selected, select } = useArrowNavigation(xIndex, 0)
    return (
        <div
            className={selected ? 'bg-button selected' : 'bg-button'}
            onClick={() => {
                // Click handler logic goes here
                select() // Then call the `select` callback
            }}
        >
            {`Option ${xIndex + 1}`}
        </div>
    )
}

Live example here

ArrowNavigation focus state

To toggle the active state, ArrowNavigation returns a containing <div>, and listens to the onFocus, and onBlur events. It updates active to be true when the <div> is focused, and false when it is not. It also switches active to false when the Escape key is pressed.

Additional props passed to ArrowNavigation are spread on to the <div>. This includes support for a ref prop, implemented with React.forwardRef.

If you want to opt-out and manage the active state yourself, use BaseArrowNavigation. Its active state is determined by its active prop. It does not insert a containing <div>.

Managing the focus state of navigable components

Sometimes you will want navigable components to be focused when they are selected. There are behaviors built into browsers you might want to leverage (onClick being fired when the user hits the Enter key), and it's also good for acessibility: screen readers rely on the focus state.

To enable this there is a hook: useArrowNavigationWithFocusState. It returns an additional value: focusProps, which is spread onto the navigable component. focusProps is comprised of tabIndex, onClick, and ref. In more complex cases you may want to access these props directly: e.g. you need to do something else in the click handler.

Here is a dropdown menu implemented with it:

import React, { useState, useRef, useEffect } from 'react'
import { ArrowNavigation, useArrowNavigationWithFocusState } from 'react-arrow-navigation'
 
const DropdownMenuItem = ({ index, label, closeMenu }) => {
    const {
        focusProps: { ref, tabIndex, onClick },
    } = useArrowNavigationWithFocusState(0, index)
 
    return (
        <button
            className="menu-item"
            ref={ref}
            tabIndex={tabIndex}
            onClick={() => {
                onClick()
                alert(`Clicked: "${label}"`)
                closeMenu()
            }}
        >
            {label}
        </button>
    )
}
 
const DropdownMenu = ({ label, itemLabels }) => {
    const [open, setOpen] = useState(false)
    const navRef = useRef()
 
    useEffect(() => {
        if (open) {
            navRef.current && navRef.current.focus()
        }
    }, [open])
 
    return (
        <div>
            <button
                className="dropdown-button"
                onClick={() => {
                    setOpen(!open)
                    navRef.current && navRef.current.focus()
                }}
            >
                {open ? 'Close the menu' : 'Open the menu'}
            </button>
            {open && (
                <ArrowNavigation className="menu" ref={navRef} initialIndex={[0, 0]}>
                    {itemLabels.map((itemLabel, index) => (
                        <DropdownMenuItem
                            index={index}
                            label={itemLabel}
                            closeMenu={() => setOpen(false)}
                            key={index}
                        />
                    ))}
                </ArrowNavigation>
            )}
        </div>
    )
}
 
const MyApp = () => (
    <DropdownMenu itemLabels={['Navigate through', 'The menu items', 'With arrow keys']} />
)

Live example here

useArrowNavigationWithFocusState has to interact with the focus state of ArrowNavigation, so it is not compatible with BaseArrowNavigation.

Other things to be aware of

• useArrowNavigation retrieves the navigation state from ArrowNavigation using the context API, so navigable components can be arbitrarly nested
• The navigation indexes can have holes. For example: if the y index for each navigable component is 0, and the x indexes are 0, 2, 3, and 4, it will navigate from 0 to 2 when you hit the right arrow key. This can be useful when you need to dynamically pull a navigable component from the navigation index, e.g. a menu item that is currently disabled.

API

ArrowNavigation

ArrowNavigation manages the selection state of the navigation indexes, and its active state based on if it is focused.

Props:

• children: React.Node

• initialIndex: [number, number] (optional)

  An index to be selected when ArrowNavigation is first focused

• mode: 'roundTheWorld' | 'continuous' | 'bounded' (optional)

  The edge mode of the navigation: what happens when a user goes over the edges of the x and y indexes. The options are:

  1. 'roundTheWorld' (this is the default)

     

  2. 'continuous'

     

  3. 'bounded'

     

• reInitOnDeactivate: true | false (optional)

  Resets the indexes when ArrowNavigation deactivates

• ...divProps

  All other props passed to ArrowNavigation are passed onto the div it returns. This includes support for the ref prop.

useArrowNavigation(x: number, y: number)

The useArrowNavigation hook takes two arguments: an x and y navigation index.

Returned values:

• selected: true | false

  Whether this index is currently selected

• active: true | false

  Whether the navigation component (ArrowNavigation or BaseArrowNavigation) is active. Active means it is responding to keypresses.

• select: () => void

  A callback that updates the selected index to this one

useArrowNavigationWithFocusState(x: number, y: number)

The useArrowNavigation hook takes two arguments: an x and y navigation index. It is not compatible with BaseArrowNavigation.

Returned values:

• selected, active, and select are the same as for useArrowNavigation

• focusProps: { ref, tabIndex, onClick }

  focusProps should be spread onto the navigable component. They will:

  • Set the tabIndex to 0 if it is selected and -1 otherwise
  • Focus the component when its index is selected, and active is true
  • Set the selected index to this one on click

  In complex cases you may want to access these props directly, e.g. if you need to do another thing in the component's click handler:

      onClick={() => {
          // Click handler logic goes here
          onClick() // Then call the onClick callback from `focusProps`
      }}

BaseArrowNavigation

BaseArrowNavigation works in a similar way to ArrowNavigation, except it does not return a containing div, and does not manage it's active state. This is now passed in with a prop.

Props:

• children, initialIndex, mode, and reInitOnDeactivate are the same as for ArrowNavigation

• active: true | false

  Whether the component should update the selected index in response to keypresses

License

MIT © Jack Aldridge