Make Your React App Come Alive With Animations

Animations can be a great way to improve the user experience of your React application. They can help make interactions feel smoother, and can also provide visual feedback or draw attention to a particular element.

There are many ways you can work with CSS animations using React, from a native solution to third-party libraries.

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Why Use Animations in React?

There are many reasons why you might want to use animations in your React application. Some of the most common reasons include:

There are several ways to add animations to React components. The three you’ll learn about using here are inline style animations, the react-animations library, and the react-simple-animate library.

macbook with a website on screen

Get started bycreating a basic react app, then follow the method of your choice.

Method 1: Using Inline Style Animations

For example, let’s say you want to animate a component so that it fades in when you click a button. You can do this with the following code:

In this example, a style object has opacity and transition properties. The opacity is 0 when the component is not visible, and 1 when it is. The transition property is “opacity 2s”, which will cause the opacity to transition over two seconds when it changes.

react app with hello world text and button on screen

The button toggles the visibility of the component. When someone clicks on the button, the isVisible state variable updates and the component will fade in or out depending on its current state.

Method 2: Using the react-animations Library

Another way to add animations to React components is to use a library such as react-animations. This library provides a set of pre-defined animations that you can use in your React components.

To use react-animations, you’ll first need to install the library:

react page with animated hello world text

You also need to install aphrodite, which is a dependency of react-animations:

Once you’ve installed the libraries, you’re able to import the animations you want to use:

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Then, you can use the animations in your components:

This example starts by importing the fadeIn and fadeOut animations from the react-animations library. It then defines a styles object with the fadeIn and fadeOut animations, and animationDuration set to two seconds.

The button will toggle the visibility of the component. When somebody clicks it, the isVisible state variable will update, and the component will fade in or out depending on its current state.

Method 3: Using the react-simple-animate Library

The react-simple-animate library provides a simple way to add animations to React components. It offers a declarative API which makes it easy to define complex animations.

To use the library, you need to install it first:

Then, you can use it in your components:

TheAnimatecomponent fades in a div element. It starts with an opacity of 0 and ends with an opacity of 1. The play prop is set to true, which will cause the animation to play automatically when the component mounts.

TheAnimateKeyframescomponent animates a div element over two seconds. The keyframes array specifies the start and end states of the animation. The first keyframe has an opacity of 0 and a translateX value of -100px. The second keyframe has an opacity of 1 and a translateX value of 0px.

Increase User Engagement With Animations

Now you know some of the ways that you can use animations in your React application. You can use animations to increase user engagement with your application.

For example, you might want to use animation to reward the user for completing a task. This could be something as simple as a short “spinner” animation or a more complex animation that plays when the user completes a level in a game.

you could also deploy your React application on the web for free with services like Github pages or Heroku.

Learn how to deploy a routed React app to GitHub Pages in a few simple steps.

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