Creating a Switch Toggle in React using styled-components.

I always find myself every now and again creating a "Switch" or "Toggle" component for a client project.

After making them quite a few times I've decided to put my findings down in this post.

They can be super easy to make, and there's a few nuances that go with them. Let's begin.

Note: I've built this using the technologies I use the most: react, typescript and styled-components. But the CSS can be applied to any frontend stack :)

The whole component is built using just 4 components.

import styled from "styled-components";

const Label = styled.label``;
const Input = styled.input``;
const Switch = styled.div``;

const ToggleSwitch = () => {
  return (
    <Label>
      <span>Toggle is off</span>
      <Input />
      <Switch />
    </Label>
  );
};

This gives us something like this:

Now we actually don't want to show the <input>. But we do want it to be of type="checkbox".

This allows the user to be able to click on anything inside the <label> to trigger the onChange event, including our <span> element.

Note: It's important here to keep the input in the DOM by setting opacity: 0 and position: absolute. Why?

• opacity: 0 will hide it from the user
• position: absolute takes the element out of the normal doument flow.
• This allows the user to "tab" to the label/input and use the spacebar to toggle the element.

const Input = styled.input`
  opacity: 0;
  position: absolute;
`;

// Set type to be "checkbox"
<Input type="checkbox" />

I'll add a few styles to the <label> component, it's wrapping everything, so I want it to be display: flex to align the <span> and <Switch /> vertically.

The gap gives us a straight forward 10px gap between elements, and the cursor: pointer gives the user visual feedback saying "Hey! 👋 you can click me!".

I'll also add styling to the <Switch /> element.

const Label = styled.label`
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  gap: 10px;
  cursor: pointer;
`;

const Switch = styled.div`
  width: 60px;
  height: 32px;
  background: #b3b3b3;
  border-radius: 32px;
`

We now have something like this:

Next up I'm going to create a pseudo-element on the <Switch /> element. This will act as our switches "lever".

const Switch = styled.div`
  position: relative; /* <-- Add relative positioning */
  width: 60px;
  height: 32px;
  background: #b3b3b3;
  border-radius: 32px;
  padding: 4px; /* <!-- Add padding

  /* Add pseudo element */
  &:before {
    content: "";
    position: absolute;
    width: 28px;
    height: 28px;
    border-radius: 35px;
    top: 50%;
    left: 4px; /* <!-- Make up for padding
    background: white;
    transform: translate(0, -50%);
  }
`;

Now we have something that resembles a toggle switch:

To animate the switch to be in the "on" position when it's pressed I need to move the const Switch = styled.div variable declaration to be above the const Input = styled.input variable. This is so we can reference the Switch from within Input.

Using the :checked pseudo-class selector and the adjacent sibling combinator, we can make our switch turn green.

const Input = styled.input`
  display: none;

  &:checked + ${Switch} {
    background: green;
  }
`;

Now in that same nested css structure, we can target the :before pseudo-element of the Switch element:

const Input = styled.input`
  display: none;

  &:checked + ${Switch} {
    background: green;

    &:before {
      transform: translate(32px, -50%);
    }
  }
`;

Now all we have to do animate this into action is to add transition: 300ms to our Switch and the Switch :before pseudo-element

const Switch = styled.div`
  position: relative;
  width: 60px;
  height: 28px;
  background: #b3b3b3;
  border-radius: 32px;
  padding: 4px;
  transition: 300ms all;

  &:before {
    transition: 300ms all;
    content: "";
    position: absolute;
    width: 28px;
    height: 28px;
    border-radius: 35px;
    top: 50%;
    left: 4px;
    background: white;
    transform: translate(0, -50%);
  }
`;

I'll add a basic onChange handler and useState hook to allow us to store the value of the checked input and change the text depending on the value:

const ToggleSwitch = () => {
  const [checked, setChecked] = useState(false); // store value

  const handleChange = (e: ChangeEvent<HTMLInputElement>) => setChecked(e.target.checked)

  return (
    <Label>
      <span>Toggle is {checked ? 'on' : 'off'}</span>
      <Input checked={checked} type="checkbox" onChange={handleChange} />
      <Switch />
    </Label>
  );
};

And now we have a super simple working switch toggle:

Here's a CodeSandbox link

These things can be over-engineered sometimes, and there's also plenty of ways to recreate them.

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