In this article, we’ll create an iOS-inspired toggle React component. This will be a small, self-contained component that you can reuse in future projects. As we go, we’ll also build a simple demo React app that uses our custom toggle switch component.
Although we could use third-party libraries for this, building the component from scratch allows us to better understand how our code works and allows us to customize our component completely. Push Button Switches
The checkbox is traditionally used for collecting binary data, such as yes or no, true or false, enable or disable, on or off, etc. Although some modern interface designs avoid form fields when creating toggle switches, I’ll stick with them here due to their greater accessibility.
Here’s a screenshot of the component we’ll be building:
Let’s use Create React App to quickly get a toggle switch React component up and running. If you’re unfamiliar with Create React App, check out our getting started guide.
Once everything has been installed, change into the newly created directory and start the server with yarn start (or npm start if you prefer). This will start the development server at http://localhost:3000.
Next, create a ToggleSwitch directory in the src directory. This is where we will make our component:
In this directory, make two files: ToggleSwitch.js and ToggleSwitch.scss:
Finally, alter App.js as follows:
We can start by setting up a basic HTML checkbox input form element for our toggle React component with its necessary properties.
Then, add an enclosing <div> tag around it and a <label> tag right below the <input> tag to create a label saying, Toggle Me!
Adding everything, you should get something like this:
We can also get rid of the label text and use the <label> tag itself to check or uncheck the checkbox input control. For that, add two <span> tags inside the <label> tag to construct the switch holder and the toggling switch:
Now that we know what needs to go into the HTML, all we need to do is convert the HTML into a React component. Let’s start with a basic component here. We’ll make this a class component, and then we’ll convert it into hooks, as it’s easier for new developers to follow state than useState when building a React switch button.
Add the following to src/ToggleSwitch/ToggleSwitch.js file we created in the step 1.
At this point, it’s not possible to have multiple toggle switch sliders on the same view or page due to the repetition of ids. Although we could leverage React’s way of componentization here, we’ll be using props to dynamically populate the values:
The this.props.Name will populate the values of id, name and for (note that it is htmlFor in React JS) dynamically, so that you can pass different values to the component and have multiple instances on the same page.
If you noticed, the <span> tag doesn’t have an ending </span> tag. Instead, it’s closed in the starting tag like <span />, which is completely fine in JSX.
You can test this component by updating the App.js with the below code.
Inspect the output at http://localhost:3000/ (possibly using your browser’s dev tools) and ensure everything is working correctly.
I recently wrote about styling React Components, where I compared the various ways this was possible. In that article, I concluded that SCSS is the best method, and that’s what we’ll use here.
For SCSS to work with Create React App, you’ll need to install the sass package.
Note: Previously, many developers used node-sass for this. But, node-sass library has now been deprecated and it is recommended to use sass or sass-embedded.
We’ll also need to import the correct file into our component:
Now for the styling. This is a rough outline of what we’re after for the styling of our React switch button.
And this is what that looks like in SCSS. Add the following to src/ToggleSwitch/ToggleSwitch.scss:
Now, run the server again at http://localhost:3000/, and you’ll see four nicely styled toggle switches. Try toggling them; they should all work.
Also, take a while to go through the code above. If there’s anything you’re unsure about, you can consult the Sass documentation, or ask a question at the SitePoint Forums.
Currently, the toggle options are hard coded:
To make the component more flexible, we can grab these dynamically from the control using HTML5 data-attributes:
We’ll hardcode the data attributes for testing but will make this more flexible in the final version:
If you run the application, you should see something like this:
Also, using a smaller version of the switch component React without the text for smaller screens would be a great idea. So let’s add the styling for it with some minimal sizes and remove the text:
With respect to responsiveness, we should be changing the complete size, so let’s use the CSS scale function. Here we’ve covered all the Bootstrap-based responsive widths of devices.
You can test these changes out by adding the small-switch class to the parent <div> element in ToggleSwitch.js:
Head back to the dev server and test your changes. If you’d like to check what you have against the finished SCSS file, you can find that here.
Since we can use variables in SCSS, it is easier to add support for multiple color themes. You can read more about this in “Sass Theming: The Never Ending Story”. We’ll use some color themes here and change all the raw colors to variables. The first three lines are a configurable set of colors, which helps us theme our little control:
And that’s it with the styling. Now let’s add some interactivity.
Please note that the following section only contains demo code to explain the concepts. You should not be updating your actual ToggleSwitch component in this section.
Our basic component will be a dumb component (or presentation component) whose state will be controlled by a parent component or container, such as a form. What do we mean by controlled? Well, let’s look at an uncontrolled version first:
When users interact with the above checkbox input, it will toggle between a checked and unchecked state of its own accord without us having to write any JavaScript. HTML input elements can manage their own internal state by updating the DOM directly.
However, in React, it’s recommended we use controlled components, as shown in the following example:
Here, React is controlling the state of the checkbox input. All interactions with this input have to go through the virtual DOM. If you try to interact with the component as it is, nothing will happen, as we haven’t defined any JavaScript code that can change the value of the checked prop we’re passing in.
To fix this, we can pass in an onChange prop — a function to be called whenever the checkbox is clicked:
Now, the checkbox input is interactive. Users can toggle the component “on” and “off” just like before. The only difference here is that the state is controlled by React, as opposed to the earlier uncontrolled version. This allows us to easily access the state of our component at any given time via JavaScript. We can also easily define the initial value when declaring the component.
Now, let’s look at how we can use this in the ToggleSwitch component. Below is a simplified class-based example:
Now let’s convert the class-based component into a functional component using hooks:
As you can see, we drastically reduced the number of lines using functional components and the hooks creation method.
If React Hooks are new to you, “React Hooks: How to Get Started & Build Your Own”.
Now, let’s get back to our ToggleSwitch component. We’ll need the following props:
When the small version is not used, the following optionLabels text will be used as default:
Since most of the props have to be set by the user, and we can’t use arbitrary values, it’s always better to stop rendering if the required props aren’t passed in. This can be done using a simple JavaScript if statement or a ternary operator using ? : or a short-circuited &&:
As our app grows, we can catch many bugs by type-checking. React has some built-in type-checking abilities. To run type checking on the props for a component, you can assign the special propTypes property. We can enforce the above list of props using React’s PropType library, a separate library that exports a range of validators that can be used to ensure the data you receive is valid.
You can install it like so:
Then, import the PropTypes library using:
We’ll define the PropTypes in the following way:
Now, we can carry on with the ToggleSwitch component. Replace the contents of src/ToggleSwitch/ToggleSwitch.js with the following:
Finally, to test the component, update the App.js with the below code:
Now, when you head to http://localhost:3000/, you should see the working toggle.
The final step is to make our component keyboard accessible. To do this, first, alter the label like below:
As you can see, we’ve added a tabIndex property, which we’re setting to 1 (focusable) or -1 (not focusable), depending on whether the component is currently disabled.
We’ve also declared a handleKeyPress function to deal with it receiving keyboard input:
This checks if the key pressed is the space bar. If so, it prevents the browser’s default action (scroll the page in this case) and toggles the component’s state.
And that’s essentially all you need. The component is now keyboard accessible.
However, there’s a slight problem. If you click the ToggleSwitch component, you will get an outline of the entire component, which is probably not desired. To combat this, we can alter things slightly to make sure it receives an outline when it’s focused on the keyboard, but not when it’s clicked:
Here, we’ve added a tabIndex property to both inner <span> elements to ensure they can’t receive focus.
Then, update the ToggleSwitch.scss file with the below code to apply a style to the ToggleSwitch’s inner <span> element when it’s focused on the keyboard but not when it’s clicked.
You can read more about this technique here. It’s slightly hacky and should be dropped in favor of using :focus-visible, as soon as that gains wide enough browser support.
When you run the application, you should be able to toggle the component using the space bar.
To finish off, I’d like to demonstrate a more complete example of using the ToggleSwitch component in the following CodeSandbox.
This demo uses multiple ToggleSwitch components on the same page. The state of the last three toggles depends on the state of the first. That is, you need to accept marketing emails before you can refine your choice of which ones to receive.
In this article, I’ve shown how to create a reusable, iOS-inspired React toggle component using React. We looked at styling the component with SCSS, making it a controlled component, customizing it by passing it props, and making it keyboard accessible.
You can find the complete code for the React toggle component on our GitHub repo.
Customizing the appearance of your React toggle switch is quite straightforward. You can modify the CSS properties to suit your design needs. For instance, you can change the switch’s background color, border color, size, and shape. You can also add animations or transitions for a more interactive user experience. Remember to keep your changes consistent with your overall application design for a seamless user experience.
Yes, you can use the React toggle switch with functional components. The process is similar to using it with class components. You just need to import and use the switch component in your functional component. You can also use hooks like useState to manage the state of the switch.
Accessibility is a crucial aspect of web development. To make your React toggle switch accessible, you can use ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes. For instance, you can use the “aria-checked” attribute to indicate the state of the switch. You can also add keyboard support to allow users to toggle the switch using the keyboard.
Testing is an essential part of the development process. You can use testing libraries like Jest and React Testing Library to test your react switch component. You can write tests to check if the switch toggles and renders correctly when clicked and handles props correctly.
Yes, you can use the React toggle switch with Redux. You can manage the state of the switch using Redux actions and reducers. This can be particularly useful if the state of the switch needs to be shared across multiple components or if it affects the global state of your application.
Adding a label to your React toggle switch can improve its usability. You can add a label by wrapping the react switch component in a “label” element. You can also use the “htmlFor” attribute to associate the label with the switch.
Error handling is an important part of any component. In your React toggle switch component, you can use try-catch blocks to handle errors. You can also use error boundaries, a React feature that catches and handles errors in components.
Yes, you can use the React toggle switch in a form. You can handle the state of the switch in the form’s state. You can also handle the form submission and use the state of the switch to perform certain actions.
Animating your React toggle switch can enhance the user experience. You can use CSS transitions or animations to animate the switch, or you can use libraries like React Spring for more complex animations.
Yes, you can use the React toggle switch with TypeScript. You just need to define the props’ types and the switch’s state. This can help you catch errors during development and make your code more robust and maintainable.
You can optimize the performance of your React toggle switch by using React’s memo function to prevent unnecessary re-renders.
You can manage the state of multiple toggle switches in a single form by using an object to store each switch’s state. This allows you to easily update and access the state of each switch, making your form handling more efficient.
Praveen is a software and web developer, cloud computing consultant, full-stack developer, UX architect, a CEO, and even … a cook. You can find him at praveen.science.
Push Button With Connector I write clean, readable and modular code. I love learning new technologies that bring efficiencies and increased productivity to my workflow.