DEV Community

Cover image for An easy scroll box implementation
Murilo Varela
Murilo Varela

Posted on

An easy scroll box implementation

#react #ui #hooks

It is a very common component in mobile and desktop UIs. Useful when displaying horizontal lists. The image below shows an example of a scroll box that displays a list of colors. And that is what we are going to be reproducing with React, so you can apply it in your project to display anything you want!

All the code can be found in this git repository here.

Let's start coding

Basic structure

Our scroll box consists of a wrapper with a horizontal scroll and a container that will have its content width.



import React, { useRef } from 'react';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
import './scrollBox.css';

function ScrollBox({ children }) {
  return (
    <div className="scroll-box">
      <div className="scroll-box__wrapper">
        <div className="scroll-box__container" role="list">
          {children.map((child, i) => (
            <div className="scroll-box__item" role="listitem" key={`scroll-box-item-${i}`}>
              {child}
            </div>
          ))}
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

ScrollBox.propTypes = {
  children: PropTypes.node.isRequired,
};

export default ScrollBox;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The style should guarantee that the wrapper creates the horizontal scroll and the container displays its content inline.



.scroll-box {
  position: relative;
  width: 100%;
  overflow: hidden;
}

.scroll-box__wrapper {
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  overflow-y: hidden;
  overflow-x: scroll;
}

.scroll-box__container {
  height: 100%;
  display: inline-flex;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Scroll box with scroll bar

Getting rid of the scroll bar

As you could see the mobile and the desktop version still display the scroll bar and that may not be what we need. So using CSS it's possible to hide it. Our CSS file would look like below:



.scroll-box {
  position: relative;
  width: 100%;
  overflow: hidden;
}

.scroll-box__wrapper {
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  overflow-y: hidden;
  overflow-x: scroll;
+   -ms-overflow-style: none; /* IE */
+   overflow: -moz-scrollbars-none; /* Firefox */
}

+ .scroll-box__wrapper::-webkit-scrollbar {
+   display: none; /* Chrome and Safari */
+ }

.scroll-box__container {
  height: 100%;
  display: inline-flex;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Scroll box working on mobile

Now the scroll bar disappears. If you want this component for mobile UI, that's ready to go! You already have a very nice scroll behavior with the screen touch. But if you need it to be used in desktop browsers scrolling with the mouse pointer, read the next lines.

Here we start the not so easy part.

Controlling the scroll with the mouse pointer

First of all, we need to get a ref of our wrapper so we can attach functions to the events onmousemove, onmousedown, onmouseup, and onmouseleave. So let's use the hook useRef to create a scrollWrapperRef and pass it to our wrapper div.
The next step is to attach functions to the events listed above when the ref if set. The code will look something like this:



import React, { useRef, useState, useEffect, useCallback } from 'react';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
import './scrollBox.css';

function ScrollBox({ children }) {
  const scrollWrapperRef = useRef();

  const scrollWrapperCurrent = scrollWrapperRef.current;
  useEffect(() => {
    if (scrollWrapperRef.current) {
      const handleDragStart = () => {};
      const handleDragMove = () => {};
      const handleDragEnd = () => {};

      if (scrollWrapperRef.current.ontouchstart === undefined) {
        scrollWrapperRef.current.onmousedown = handleDragStart;
        scrollWrapperRef.current.onmousemove = handleDragMove;
        scrollWrapperRef.current.onmouseup = handleDragEnd;
        scrollWrapperRef.current.onmouseleave = handleDragEnd;
      }
    }
  }, [scrollWrapperCurrent]);

  return (
    <div className="scroll-box">
      <div className="scroll-box__wrapper" ref={scrollWrapperRef}>
        <div className="scroll-box__container" role="list">
          {children.map((child, i) => (
            <div role="listitem" key={`scroll-box-item-${i}`} className="scroll-box__item">
              {child}
            </div>
          ))}
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

ScrollBox.propTypes = {
  children: PropTypes.node.isRequired,
};

export default ScrollBox;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
The handleDragStart

When the mouse button is pressed down we understand that the drag has begun, and we need to save the initial pointer position on the X-axis and the current scroll position. That's what we are going to do.



...
const [clickStartX, setClickStartX] = useState();
const [scrollStartX, setScrollStartX] = useState();
...
const handleDragStart = e => {
  setClickStartX(e.screenX);
  setScrollStartX(scrollWrapperRef.current.scrollLeft);
};
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
The handleDragMove

While having the mouse button pressed down and moving the cursor we understand that the scroll is being dragged, so we set the delta of the mouse X-axis plus the initial horizontal scroll to the wrapper horizontal scroll. That makes it follow the mouse pointer position.



...
const [clickStartX, setClickStartX] = useState();
const [scrollStartX, setScrollStartX] = useState();
...
const handleDragMove = e => {
  if (clickStartX !== undefined && scrollStartX !== undefined) {
    const touchDelta = clickStartX - e.screenX;
    scrollWrapperRef.current.scrollLeft = scrollStartX + touchDelta;
  }
};
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
The handleDragEnd

Releasing the mouse button or leaving the scroll box area is understood as stopping the dragging. And for that, we want to just unset the clickStartX and scrollStartX so the handleDragMove won't set the scrollLeft anymore.



...
const [clickStartX, setClickStartX] = useState();
const [scrollStartX, setScrollStartX] = useState();
...
const handleDragEnd = () => {
  if (clickStartX !== undefined) {
    setClickStartX(undefined);
    setScrollStartX(undefined);
  }
};
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Why setting mouse events inside the useEffect?

You may be asking yourself why we need to set that inside the useEffect. The main reason is to trigger the mouse events set up on the change of scrollWrapperRef.current, but once the scrollWrapperRef is a mutable object, we set the scrollWrapperRef.current it to a const scrollWrapperCurrent. That makes possible to the useEffect to understand that the current inside scrollWrapperRef has changed.

Tracking mouse position for desktop browsers only

On mobile browsers, the scrollWrapperRef.current.ontouchstart will have the value of null meaning that it may be used but is just not set. On desktop browsers, the value is undefined, once we won't have 'touches' on the screen (at least in most of the computers). So we just want that to happen in desktop browsers.

I didn't have the chance to test it out on desktop touch screen. If you have so, please leave a comment!



  if (scrollWrapperRef.current.ontouchstart === undefined) {
    scrollWrapperRef.current.onmousedown = handleDragStart;
    scrollWrapperRef.current.onmousemove = handleDragMove;
    scrollWrapperRef.current.onmouseup = handleDragEnd;
    scrollWrapperRef.current.onmouseleave = handleDragEnd;
  }
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Let's add physics!

As you can see the movement stops at the same place where the pointer stops dragging, and that's not what we get in the mobile experience. For that, we must add a momentum effect. It must keep its speed and gently slow down.

On the handleDragMove we must capture the mouse movement speed. To do that we will use the speed equation that is v = ds/dt, or the variation of space by an interval of time. See the code below to clarify a bit more.



const timing = (1 / 60) * 1000;
...
const [isDragging, setIsDragging] = useState(false);
const [lastScreenX, setLastScreenX] = useState(0);
const [speed, setSpeed] = useState(0);
const [direction, setDirection] = useState(0);

const handleLastScrollX = useCallback(
  throttle(screenX => {
    setLastScreenX(screenX);
  }, timing),
  []
);
...
const handleDragMove = e => {
  if (clickStartX !== undefined && scrollStartX !== undefined) {
    const touchDelta = clickStartX - e.screenX;
    scrollWrapperRef.current.scrollLeft = scrollStartX + touchDelta;

    if (Math.abs(touchDelta) > 1) {
      setIsDragging(true);
      setDirection(touchDelta / Math.abs(touchDelta));
      setSpeed(Math.abs((lastScreenX - e.screenX) / timing));
      setLastScreenX(e.screenX);
    }
  }
};
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

From lodash we get the throttle function that will guarantee that we only set the setLastScrollX one time each 16.666667ms, or (1 / 60) * 1000, what matches the 60 frames per second screen update from browsers.
The (lastScreenX - e.screenX) / timing will give us the current speed of the mouse pointer. And touchDelta / Math.abs(touchDelta) will provide us a result o -1 or 1 as a hint of movement direction.

To apply the continuation of movement after dragging the scroll box, an useEffect can be used just like shown below.



const timing = (1 / 60) * 1000;
const decay = v => -0.1 * ((1 / timing) ^ 4) + v;
...
const [momentum, setMomentum] = useState(0);
...
const handleMomentum = useCallback(
  throttle(nextMomentum => {
    setMomentum(nextMomentum);
    scrollRef.current.scrollLeft = scrollRef.current.scrollLeft + nextMomentum * timing * direction;
  }, timing),
  [scrollWrapperCurrent, direction]
);

useEffect(() => {
  if (direction !== 0) {
    if (momentum > 0 && !isDragging) {
      handleMomentum(decay(momentum));
    } else if (isDragging) {
      setMomentum(speed);
    } else {
      setDirection(0);
    }
  }
}, [momentum, isDragging, speed, direction, handleMomentum]);
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The decay function describes the exponential decrease of a value over a rate and time. Just what we need! So after isDragging is set to false on our handleDragEnd, it starts to add a value of dislocation caused by the momentum that will be recalculated each time until it reaches zero, so the movement stops.

And to stop the movement after clicking on the scroll box we set the direction to zero.



const handleDragStart = e => {
  ...
  setDirection(0);
};
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Dragging links and images

Using the isDragging that we are already tracking, we can set the container pointer-events to none. So while dragging no links, buttons or images are going to act like it should and will just be dragged normally. 



const handleDragMove = e => {
  e.preventDefault();
  e.stopPropagation();
  ...
}
...
return (
  <div className="scroll-box">
    <div className="scroll-box__wrapper" ref={scrollWrapperRef}>
      <div className="scroll-box__container" role="list" style={{ pointerEvents: isDragging ? 'none' : undefined }}>
        {children.map((child, i) => (
          <div role="listitem" key={`scroll-box-item-${i}`} className="scroll-box__item">
            {child}
          </div>
        ))}
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
 );
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The final component 



import React, { useRef, useState, useEffect, useCallback } from 'react';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
import throttle from 'lodash/throttle';
import './scrollBox.css';

const timing = (1 / 60) * 1000;
const decay = v => -0.1 * ((1 / timing) ^ 4) + v;

function ScrollBox({ children }) {
  const scrollWrapperRef = useRef();
  const [clickStartX, setClickStartX] = useState();
  const [scrollStartX, setScrollStartX] = useState();
  const [isDragging, setIsDragging] = useState(false);
  const [direction, setDirection] = useState(0);
  const [momentum, setMomentum] = useState(0);
  const [lastScrollX, setLastScrollX] = useState(0);
  const [speed, setSpeed] = useState(0);
  const handleLastScrollX = useCallback(
    throttle(screenX => {
      setLastScrollX(screenX);
    }, timing),
    []
  );
  const handleMomentum = useCallback(
    throttle(nextMomentum => {
      setMomentum(nextMomentum);
      scrollRef.current.scrollLeft = scrollRef.current.scrollLeft + nextMomentum * timing * direction;
    }, timing),
    [scrollWrapperCurrent, direction]
  );
  useEffect(() => {
    if (direction !== 0) {
      if (momentum > 0.1 && !isDragging) {
        handleMomentum(decay(momentum));
      } else if (isDragging) {
        setMomentum(speed);
      } else {
        setDirection(0);
      }
    }
  }, [momentum, isDragging, speed, direction, handleMomentum]);

  const scrollWrapperCurrent = scrollWrapperRef.current;
  useEffect(() => {
    if (scrollWrapperRef.current) {
      const handleDragStart = e => {
        setClickStartX(e.screenX);
        setScrollStartX(scrollWrapperRef.current.scrollLeft);
        setDirection(0);
      };
      const handleDragMove = e => {
        e.preventDefault();
        e.stopPropagation();

        if (clickStartX !== undefined && scrollStartX !== undefined) {
          const touchDelta = clickStartX - e.screenX;
          scrollWrapperRef.current.scrollLeft = scrollStartX + touchDelta;

          if (Math.abs(touchDelta) > 1) {
            setIsDragging(true);
            setDirection(touchDelta / Math.abs(touchDelta));
            setSpeed(Math.abs((lastScrollX - e.screenX) / timing));
            handleLastScrollX(e.screenX);
          }
        }
      };
      const handleDragEnd = () => {
        if (isDragging && clickStartX !== undefined) {
          setClickStartX(undefined);
          setScrollStartX(undefined);
          setIsDragging(false);
        }
      };

      if (scrollWrapperRef.current.ontouchstart === undefined) {
        scrollWrapperRef.current.onmousedown = handleDragStart;
        scrollWrapperRef.current.onmousemove = handleDragMove;
        scrollWrapperRef.current.onmouseup = handleDragEnd;
        scrollWrapperRef.current.onmouseleave = handleDragEnd;
      }
    }
  }, [scrollWrapperCurrent, clickStartX, isDragging, scrollStartX, handleLastScrollX, lastScrollX]);

  return (
    <div className="scroll-box">
      <div className="scroll-box__wrapper" ref={scrollWrapperRef}>
        <div className="scroll-box__container" role="list" style={{ pointerEvents: isDragging ? 'none' : undefined }}>
          {children.map((child, i) => (
            <div role="listitem" key={`scroll-box-item-${i}`} className="scroll-box__item">
              {child}
            </div>
          ))}
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

ScrollBox.propTypes = {
  children: PropTypes.node.isRequired,
};

export default ScrollBox;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Improvements!

We can make use of a hook to remove all the logic from our component by creating a hook! And that's dead simple!

Our hook will be called useScrollBox:



import { useState, useEffect, useCallback } from 'react';
import throttle from 'lodash/throttle';

const timing = (1 / 60) * 1000;
const decay = v => -0.1 * ((1 / timing) ^ 4) + v;

function useScrollBox(scrollRef) {
  const [clickStartX, setClickStartX] = useState();
  const [scrollStartX, setScrollStartX] = useState();
  const [isDragging, setIsDragging] = useState(false);
  const [direction, setDirection] = useState(0);
  const [momentum, setMomentum] = useState(0);
  const [lastScrollX, setLastScrollX] = useState(0);
  const [speed, setSpeed] = useState(0);

  const scrollWrapperCurrent = scrollRef.current;
  const handleLastScrollX = useCallback(
    throttle(screenX => {
      setLastScrollX(screenX);
    }, timing),
    []
  );
  const handleMomentum = useCallback(
    throttle(nextMomentum => {
      setMomentum(nextMomentum);
      scrollRef.current.scrollLeft = scrollRef.current.scrollLeft + nextMomentum * timing * direction;
    }, timing),
    [scrollWrapperCurrent, direction]
  );
  useEffect(() => {
    if (direction !== 0) {
      if (momentum > 0.1 && !isDragging) {
        handleMomentum(decay(momentum));
      } else if (isDragging) {
        setMomentum(speed);
      } else {
        setDirection(0);
      }
    }
  }, [momentum, isDragging, speed, direction, handleMomentum]);

  useEffect(() => {
    if (scrollRef.current) {
      const handleDragStart = e => {
        setClickStartX(e.screenX);
        setScrollStartX(scrollRef.current.scrollLeft);
        setDirection(0);
      };
      const handleDragMove = e => {
        e.preventDefault();
        e.stopPropagation();

        if (clickStartX !== undefined && scrollStartX !== undefined) {
          const touchDelta = clickStartX - e.screenX;
          scrollRef.current.scrollLeft = scrollStartX + touchDelta;

          if (Math.abs(touchDelta) > 1) {
            setIsDragging(true);
            setDirection(touchDelta / Math.abs(touchDelta));
            setSpeed(Math.abs((lastScrollX - e.screenX) / timing));
            handleLastScrollX(e.screenX);
          }
        }
      };
      const handleDragEnd = () => {
        if (isDragging && clickStartX !== undefined) {
          setClickStartX(undefined);
          setScrollStartX(undefined);
          setIsDragging(false);
        }
      };

      if (scrollRef.current.ontouchstart === undefined) {
        scrollRef.current.onmousedown = handleDragStart;
        scrollRef.current.onmousemove = handleDragMove;
        scrollRef.current.onmouseup = handleDragEnd;
        scrollRef.current.onmouseleave = handleDragEnd;
      }
    }
  }, [scrollWrapperCurrent, clickStartX, isDragging, scrollStartX, handleLastScrollX, lastScrollX]);

  return { clickStartX, scrollStartX, isDragging, direction, momentum, lastScrollX, speed };
}

export default useScrollBox;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

And our component can use it as any other hook.



import React, { useRef } from 'react';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
import useScrollBox from './useScrollBox';
import './scrollBox.css';

function ScrollBox({ children }) {
  const scrollWrapperRef = useRef();
  const { isDragging } = useScrollBox(scrollWrapperRef);
  return (
    <div className="scroll-box">
      <div className="scroll-box__wrapper" ref={scrollWrapperRef}>
        <div className="scroll-box__container" role="list" style={{ pointerEvents: isDragging ? 'none' : undefined }}>
          {children.map((child, i) => (
            <div role="listitem" key={`scroll-box-item-${i}`} className="scroll-box__item">
              {child}
            </div>
          ))}
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

ScrollBox.propTypes = {
  children: PropTypes.node.isRequired,
};

export default ScrollBox;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

How pretty is it now? Hope you have enjoyed and learned something new!

Top comments (7)

Collapse
 
anuraghazra profile image
Anurag Hazra •

"easy"?

Collapse
 
murilovarela profile image
Murilo Varela •

hahaha! I say easy because we just hide the scroll bar and handle the dragging! No complex controllers or complex scroll position calculations!
If you have any questions, I will be more than glad to answer!

Collapse
 
michaelparkadze profile image
Michael Parkadze •

How would you implement a snapping ability to the items?

for example if you add scroll-snap-type: x mandatory, it does snap but breaks the scrolling, how would you go about implementing the same effect that scroll-snap-type does just on web?

Collapse
 
luizbm profile image
Luiz Augusto • • Edited

Nice!
I searched Google a little and couldn't find a simpler solution until now for React.

The only thing I changed was the "if" inside "handleDragEnd" that I removed, and I added "setIsDragging(true)" inside handleDragStart for the pointer effect when mousedown but with no movement

Don't know though if those changes have any side effects heh. I tested and it is all fine here

EDIT: also applied the draging style to the wrapper switching between "cursor: grab" and "cursor: grabbing"

Collapse
 
sujaykundu777 profile image
Sujay Kundu • • Edited

That's so cool, I have been thinking/trying to implement the component from a long time.. will save for reference 🙂

Collapse
 
lsg2099 profile image
lsg2099 •

Hi, love this example, super helpful for what I need!!

If I wanted to make this a vertical list, what would I need to change?

Collapse
 
vicentel89 profile image
vicentel89 •

'scrollRef' is not defined

Read next

andrewbaisden profile image

Deploying a React Watchlist Tracker App to Production Using DeployHQ

Andrew Baisden -

ishjotsb profile image

Front-end Optimization: Debouncing

Ishjot Singh -

felipefreitag profile image

Google Analytics (GA4) implementation with React - Remix example

Felipe Freitag Vargas -

programminginblood profile image

Why Set.has() is Faster Than Array.includes() for Finding Items

Programming In Blood -