How to Create A Draggable Items List in React Native

Published On: 2023-12-20

Posted By: Harish

React Native flatlist does not have default drag and rearrange capabilities. So in this post we will be using an npm package react-native-draggable-flatlist to make our list items draggable.

RNDF package depends on react-native-animated and react-native-gesture-handler packages.

First we will create a new react-native project and install required dependencies.

Create A New Project

Create a new react-native project by using npx. Check documentation for creating a new react native project.

npx react-native@latest init ReactNativeDraggableFlatlistExample

Install react-native-reanimated package

Go to the project folder and install react-native-reanimated npm package using yarn or npm.

npm install react-native-reanimated
#or
yarn add react-native-reanimated

And add 'react-native-reanimated/plugin' to babel.config.js plugins array. If you don't find a plugin's array, add it.

//babel.config.js
module.exports = {
  presets: ['module:@react-native/babel-preset'],
  plugins: [
    ...
    'react-native-reanimated/plugin', //Have to be at last of the array
  ],
};

Install react-native-gesture-handler package

Install react-native-gesture-handler package using yarn or npm.

npm install --save react-native-gesture-handler
#or
yarn add react-native-gesture-handler

After installation, wrap the entry point with <GestureHandlerRootView>. As the name suggests, it has to be the root Higher Order Component (HOC). For newly created projects, its app.tsx.

//app.tsx
import { GestureHandlerRootView } from 'react-native-gesture-handler';

export default function App() {
  return (
    <GestureHandlerRootView style={{ flex: 1 }}>
    ...other content like navigation stack etc...
    </GestureHandlerRootView>
  );
}

You can check the installation process here.

Install react-native-drraggable-flatlist package

Now its time to install the main package, react-native-draggable-flatlist.

npm install --save react-native-draggable-flatlist
#or
yarn add react-native-draggable-flatlist

Don't forget to pod install for iOS.

Creating a list

For draggable list, we have to pass list data to <DraggableFlatList> component and update the same list on rearranging. Each item component will be wrapped in <TouchableOpacity> to get press events. Here, we will use the onLongPress event.

Initialize data

We will initialize example data.

//app.tsx
type Item = {
  label: string;
  key: string;
  backgroundColor: string;
};

const initialData: Item[] = [
  {
    label: '🍎 Apple',
    key: 'apple',
    backgroundColor: 'indianred'
  },
  {
    label: '🍊 Orange',
    key: 'orange',
    backgroundColor: 'orange'
  },
  {
    label: '🍌 Banana',
    key: 'banana',
    backgroundColor: 'yellowgreen'
  },
  {
    label: '🍇 Grapes',
    key: 'grapes',
    backgroundColor: 'purple'
  }
]

Create an useState constant to set data and list item compoent to render. useState constant has to be updated with new arranged list to trigger a re-render with new list.

//app.tsx
import { useState } from "react";
import { Text, StyleSheet, TouchableOpacity } from "react-native";

export default function App() {

  const [data, setData] = useState(initialData);

  const renderItem = ({ item, drag, isActive }: RenderItemParams<Item>) => {
    return (
      <ScaleDecorator>
        <TouchableOpacity
          onLongPress={drag}
          disabled={isActive}
          style={[
            styles.rowItem,
            {
              backgroundColor: isActive
                ? "red"
                : item.backgroundColor
            }
          ]}
        >
          <Text style={styles.text}>{item.label}</Text>
        </TouchableOpacity>
      </ScaleDecorator>
    );
  };

  return (
    <GestureHandlerRootView style={{ flex: 1 }}>
      ...content...
    </GestureHandlerRootView>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  rowItem: {
    flexGrow: 1,
    height: 100,
    alignItems: "center",
    justifyContent: "center",
  },
  text: {
    color: "white",
    fontSize: 24,
    fontWeight: "bold",
    textAlign: "center",
  },
});

renderItem component is wrapped with a <ScaleDecorator> cell decorator to notify the user on selection of an item. Scaledecorator makes selected item to scale, <ShadowDecorator> drops a show around the item on selection and <OpacityDecorator> changes opacity on selection.

Add flatlist component

For the final step, add the <DraggableFlatList> component.

 <DraggableFlatList
      data={data}
      onDragEnd={({ data }) => setData(data)}
      keyExtractor={(item) => item.key}
      renderItem={renderItem}
      containerStyle={[{ backgroundColor: 'pink' }]}
    />

We can set list container styles with containerStyle prop.

This is a vertical list example. If you want to have a draggable horizontal list, wrap the <DraggableFlatList> component inside <View> tag and mention horizontal prop.

//For horizontal list
<View>
  <DraggableFlatList
    horizontal
    data={data}
    onDragEnd={({ data }) => setData(data)}
    keyExtractor={(item) => item.key}
    renderItem={renderItem}
    containerStyle={[{ backgroundColor: 'pink' }]}
  />
</View>

Final code will look like,

//app.tsx
import { useState } from "react";
import { Text, View, StyleSheet, TouchableOpacity } from "react-native";
import DraggableFlatList, {
  RenderItemParams,
  ScaleDecorator,
} from "react-native-draggable-flatlist";

type Item = {
  label: string;
  key: string;
  backgroundColor: string;
};

const initialData: Item[] = [
  {
    label: '🍎 Apple',
    key: 'apple',
    backgroundColor: 'indianred'
  },
  {
    label: '🍊 Orange',
    key: 'orange',
    backgroundColor: 'orange'
  },
  {
    label: '🍌 Banana',
    key: 'banana',
    backgroundColor: 'yellowgreen'
  },
  {
    label: '🍇 Grapes',
    key: 'grapes',
    backgroundColor: 'purple'
  },

]

export default function App() {

  const [data, setData] = useState(initialData);

  const renderItem = ({ item, drag, isActive }: RenderItemParams<Item>) => {
    return (
      <ScaleDecorator>
        <TouchableOpacity
          onLongPress={drag}
          disabled={isActive}
          style={[
            styles.rowItem,
            {
              backgroundColor: isActive
                ? "red"
                : item.backgroundColor
            }
          ]}
        >
          <Text style={styles.text}>{item.label}</Text>
        </TouchableOpacity>
      </ScaleDecorator>
    );
  };

  return (
    <GestureHandlerRootView style={{ flex: 1 }}>
      <DraggableFlatList
        data={data}
        onDragEnd={({ data }) => setData(data)}
        keyExtractor={(item) => item.key}
        renderItem={renderItem}
        containerStyle={[{ backgroundColor: 'pink' }]}
      />
    </GestureHandlerRootView>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  rowItem: {
    flexGrow: 1,
    height: 100,
    alignItems: "center",
    justifyContent: "center",
  },
  text: {
    color: "white",
    fontSize: 24,
    fontWeight: "bold",
    textAlign: "center",
  },
});