react-chessboard

The React Chessboard Library used at ChessOpenings.co.uk

Inspired and adapted from the unmaintained chessboardjsx

What is react-chessboard?

react-chessboard is a React component that provides chessboard functionality to your application. The Chess game logic that controls the board should be independent to the board, using a library such as Chess.js. An example of these two working together is shown in the example below. For interactive examples visit react-chessboard.com.

ChessOpenings.co.uk was originally built utilising the chessboardjsx library. With chessboardjsx being unmaintained, it made it difficult to add functionality or optimise performance, so react-chessboard was made.

Installation

npm i react-chessboard

Examples

Storybook

Features

Current

• Accessible Functions
  • chessboardRef.current.clearPremoves();, takes optional boolean parameter clearLastPieceColour to allow/disallow further premoves of the last moved piece color. Default: true
• Board Orientation Choice
• Custom Actions
  • getPositionObject
  • onArrowsChange
  • onDragOverSquare
  • onMouseOutSquare
  • onMouseOverSquare
  • onPieceClick
  • onPieceDragBegin
  • onPieceDragEnd
  • onPieceDrop
  • onSquareClick
  • onSquareRightClick
• Customisable Board Styles
• Customisable Pieces
• Customisable Square Styles
• Drag and Drop
• Draw Arrows with Drag or Props
• Mobile Compatibility
• Moving Piece Animations
• Optional Square Coordinates Notation
• Position Control
• Premoves
• Responsive Board Width
• TypeScript Support

Planned

• Promotion Piece Select
• Spare Pieces

Notes

• Between version 0.0.3 and 0.0.4, onPieceDrop was changed to allow you to return a value of true or false depending on whether the move was successful or not.
• If more than one board is rendered and draggable on a low end device, performance will struggle due to performance issues with react-dnd.
• In the rare case that react-chessboard component is hot swapped out for another in its place, this will cause an issue with the CustomDragLayer. To prevent this, the react-chessboard component needs to be completely unmounted before being replaced.

Usage

Bare Minimum

import { Chessboard } from "react-chessboard";

export default function App() {
  return (
    <div>
      <Chessboard id="BasicBoard" />
    </div>
  );
}

Basic Example

import { useState } from "react";
import Chess from "chess.js";
import { Chessboard } from "react-chessboard";

export default function PlayRandomMoveEngine() {
  const [game, setGame] = useState(new Chess());

  function makeAMove(move) {
    const gameCopy = { ...game };
    const result = gameCopy.move(move);
    setGame(gameCopy);
    return result; // null if the move was illegal, the move object if the move was legal
  }

  function makeRandomMove() {
    const possibleMoves = game.moves();
    if (game.game_over() || game.in_draw() || possibleMoves.length === 0) return; // exit if the game is over
    const randomIndex = Math.floor(Math.random() * possibleMoves.length);
    makeAMove(possibleMoves[randomIndex]);
  }

  function onDrop(sourceSquare, targetSquare) {
    const move = makeAMove({
      from: sourceSquare,
      to: targetSquare,
      promotion: "q", // always promote to a queen for example simplicity
    });

    // illegal move
    if (move === null) return false;
    setTimeout(makeRandomMove, 200);
    return true;
  }

  return <Chessboard position={game.fen()} onPieceDrop={onDrop} />;
}

Advanced Examples

For more advanced code usage examples, please see example boards shown in Storybook.

Props

| Prop | Default Value | Options | Description | | ----------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | animationDuration | number: 300 | | Time in milliseconds for piece to slide to target square. Only used when the position is programmatically changed. If a new position is set before the animation is complete, the board will cancel the current animation and snap to the new position. | | areArrowsAllowed | boolean: true | [true, false] | Whether or not arrows can be drawn with right click and dragging. | | arePiecesDraggable | boolean: true | [true, false] | Whether or not all pieces are draggable. | | arePremovesAllowed | boolean: false | [true, false] | Whether or not premoves are allowed. | | boardOrientation | string: 'white' | ['white', 'black'] | The orientation of the board, the chosen colour will be at the bottom of the board. | | boardWidth | number: 560 | | The width of the board in pixels. | | clearPremovesOnRightClick | boolean: true | [true, false] | If premoves are allowed, whether or not to clear the premove queue on right click. | | customArrowColor | string: 'rgb(255,170,0)' | rgb or hex string | String with rgb or hex value to colour drawn arrows. | | customArrows | string[][]: [] | array of string arrays | Array of custom arrows to draw on the board. Each arrow within the array must be an array of length 2 with strings denoting the from and to square to draw the arrow e.g. [ ['a3', 'a5'], ['g1', 'f3'] ]. | | customBoardStyle | object: {} | inline CSS styling | Custom board style object e.g. { borderRadius: '5px', boxShadow: '0 5px 15px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5 '}. | | customDarkSquareStyle | object: { backgroundColor: '#B58863' } | inline CSS styling | Custom dark square style object. | | customDndBackend | BackendFactory: undefined | | Custom react-dnd backend to use instead of the one provided by react-chessboard. | | customDndBackendOptions | any: undefined | | Options to use for the given custom react-dnd backend. See customDndBackend. | | customDropSquareStyle | object: { boxShadow: 'inset 0 0 1px 6px rgba(255,255,255,0.75)' } | inline CSS styling | Custom drop square style object (Square being hovered over with dragged piece). | | customLightSquareStyle | object: { backgroundColor: '#F0D9B5' } | inline CSS styling | Custom light square style object. | | customPieces | object: {} | | Custom pieces object where each key must match a corresponding chess piece (wP, wB, wN, wR, wQ, wK, bP, bB, bN, bR, bQ, bK). The value of each piece is a function that takes in some optional arguments to use and must return JSX to render. e.g. { wK: ({ isDragging: boolean, squareWidth: number, droppedPiece: string, targetSquare: string, sourceSquare: string }) => jsx }. | | customPremoveDarkSquareStyle | object: { backgroundColor: '#A42323' } | inline CSS styling | Custom premove dark square style object. | | customPremoveLightSquareStyle | object: { backgroundColor: '#BD2828' } | inline CSS styling | Custom premove light square style object. | | customSquareStyles | object: {} | inline CSS styling | Custom styles for all squares. | | id | number: 0 | [string, number] | Board identifier, necessary if more than one board is mounted for drag and drop. | | isDraggablePiece | function: ({ piece, sourceSquare }) => true | returns [true, false] | Function called when a piece drag is attempted. Returns if piece is draggable. | | getPositionObject | function: (currentPosition) => {} | | User function that receives current position object when position changes. | | onArrowsChange | function: (squares) => {} | | User function is run when arrows are set on the board. | | onDragOverSquare | function: (square) => {} | | User function that is run when piece is dragged over a square. | | onMouseOutSquare | function: (square) => {} | | User function that is run when mouse leaves a square. | | onMouseOverSquare | function: (square) => {} | | User function that is run when mouse is over a square. | | onPieceClick | function: (piece) => {} | | User function that is run when piece is clicked. | | onPieceDragBegin | function: (piece, sourceSquare) => {} | | User function that is run when piece is grabbed to start dragging. | | onPieceDragEnd | function: (piece, sourceSquare) => {} | | User function that is run when piece is let go after dragging. | | onPieceDrop | function: (sourceSquare, targetSquare, piece) => true | returns [true, false] | User function that is run when piece is dropped on a square. Must return whether the move was successful or not. This return value does not control whether or not the piece was placed (as that is controlled by the position prop) but instead controls premove logic. | | onSquareClick | function: (square) => {} | | User function that is run when a square is clicked. | | onSquareRightClick | function: (square) => {} | | User function that is run when a square is right clicked. | | position | string: 'start' | ['start', FEN string, { e5: 'wK', e4: 'wP', ... }] | FEN string or position object notating where the chess pieces are on the board. Start position can also be notated with the string: 'start'. | | showBoardNotation | boolean: true | [true, false] | Whether or not to show the file and rank co-ordinates (a..h, 1..8). | | snapToCursor | boolean: true | [true, false] | Whether or not to center dragged pieces on the mouse cursor. |

Contributing

1. Fork this repository
2. Clone your forked repository onto your development machine

   git clone https://github.com/yourUsernameHere/react-chessboard.git
   cd react-chessboard

3. Create a branch for your PR

   git checkout -b your-branch-name

4. Set upstream remote

   git remote add upstream https://github.com/Clariity/react-chessboard.git

5. Make your changes
6. Test your changes by running storybook

   npm run storybook

7. Push your changes

   git add .
   git commit -m "feature/cool-new-feature"
   git push --set-upstream origin your-branch-name

8. Create pull request on GitHub
9. Contribute again

   git checkout main
   git pull upstream main
   git checkout -b your-new-branch-name

LICENSE

MIT