Expo + Next.js Router + React Navigation 🥳

A set of hooks that wrap the react-navigation API that you're used to, and make it work with next/router.

This library helps me use the Expo + Next.js integration without stressing about navigation.

This is a new library, PRs are very welcome!

Example

👾 Github Repo | 💻 Website | 📱 Open expo app directly | ☎️ Expo app website

Install

For react-navigation v6

yarn add expo-next-react-navigation

For react-navigation v5

Version 1.x supports v5.

yarn add expo-next-react-navigation@v5

For react-navigation v4

yarn add [email protected]

React navigation v4 is supported up to v0.0.25.

I'm probably going to stop releasing new versions for v4, and v5 will soon be upgraded to the latest tag.

Table of contents

• Set up
• Usage
• Hooks
  • useRouting
  • useFocusEffect
• Components
  • Link

Set up

Step 0. Install next with expo:

• Init: expo init (or npx create-next-app)

• Install: yarn add @expo/next-adapter

• Install next: yarn add next

• Configure: yarn next-expo

• Start: yarn next dev

I recommend becoming familiar next's architecture with expo. Follow the Expo docs or see this article by Evan Bacon if you're curious.

Step 1. Edit/create next.config.js

yarn add next-compose-plugins next-fonts next-images next-transpile-modules

Step 2: edit next.config.js to look something like this:

/* eslint-disable @typescript-eslint/no-var-requires */
const { withExpo } = require('@expo/next-adapter')
const withFonts = require('next-fonts')
const withImages = require('next-images')
const withPlugins = require('next-compose-plugins')

const withTM = require('next-transpile-modules')([
  'expo-next-react-navigation',
  // you can add other modules that need traspiling here
])

module.exports = withPlugins(
  [withTM, withFonts, withImages, [withExpo, { projectRoot: __dirname }]],
  {
    // ...
  }
)

All done! Run yarn next dev & open http://localhost:3000 👻

• Take a look at the next tutorial for creating pages.

You can add other packages that need transpiling to the transpileModules array. See this post for details.

Usage

Replace the following instances in your code after installation and setup:

useNavigation 👉 useRouting

-import { useNavigation } from 'react-navigation-hooks'
+import { useRouting } from 'expo-next-react-navigation'

useLayoutEffect

-import { useLayoutEffect } from 'react-navigation-hooks'
+import { useLayoutEffect } from 'expo-next-react-navigation'

<TouchableOpacity /> 👉 <Link />

-import { TouchableOpacity } from 'react-native'
+import { Link } from 'expo-next-react-navigation'

-<TouchableOpacity onPress={() => navigate({ routeName: 'chat' })}>
-  <Text>Go</Text>
- </TouchableOpacity>
+<Link routeName="chat" params={{ roomId: 'hey!' }}>
+  Go
+</Link>

All set ⚡️

API

useRouting

React hook that wraps useNavigation (from react-navigation) hook and useRouter (from next-router).

It follows the same API as useNavigation.

import { useRouting } from 'expo-next-react-navigation`

export default function App() {
  const { navigate, push, getParam, goBack } = useRouting()


}

navigate

Only argument is a dictionary with these values. Unlike react-navigation, this doesn't currently support a string as argument.

• routeName: string, required
• params: optional dictionary
• web: Optional dictionary with added values for web, following the API from next/router's Router.push function.
  • path: (optional) Fulfills the same value as pathname from next/router, overriding the routeName field. If you set this to /cars, it will navigate to /cars instead of the routeName field. As a result, it will load the file located at pages/cars.js.
  • as: (optional) If set, the browser will show this value in the address bar. Useful if you want to show a pretty/custom URL in the address bar that doesn't match the actual path. Unlike the path field, this does not affect which route you actually go to.
  • shallow: Update the path of the current page without rerunning getStaticProps, getServerSideProps or getInitialProps. Defaults to false

Example: Navigate to a user

export default function Home() {
  const { navigate } = useRouting()

  // goes to yourdomain.com/user?id=chris
  const onPress = () =>
    navigate({
      routeName: 'user',
      params: { id: 'chris' },
    })

  // 👇or this👇
  // goes to `yourdomain.com/user/chris`
  const navigateCleanLink = () =>
    navigate({
      routeName: 'user',
      params: { id: 'chris' },
      web: { as: `/user/chris` },
    })

  // 👇or this👇
  // 'profile' path overrides 'user' on web, so it uses the pages/profile.js file
  // even though it navigates to yourdomain.com/profile?id=chris?color=blue`
  // ...it actually shows up as yourdomain.com/@chris in the URL bar.
  const navigateCleanLinkWithParam = () =>
    navigate({
      routeName: 'user',
      params: { id: 'chris', color: 'blue' }, // accessed with getParam in the next screen
      web: { as: `/@chris`, path: 'profile' },
    })
}

This follows the next pattern of dynamic routing. You'll need to create a pages/user/[id].js file.

For more thoughts on how and when you should use the web field, see Web Thoughts.

getParam

Same API as getParam from react-navigation.

Similar to query from next/router, except that it's a function to grab the values.

pages/user/[id].js

Imagine you navigated to yourdomain.com/user/chris on web using the example above.

export default function User() {
  const { getParam } = useRouting()

  const id = getParam('id') // chris

  // do something with the id
}

useFocusEffect

See react navigation docs. On web, it simply replaces the focus effect with a normal effect hook. On mobile, it is the exact react navigation hook.

Make sure to use useCallback as seen in the example.

import { useFocusEffect } from 'expo-next-react-navigation'

export default ({ userId }) => {
  useFocusEffect(
    useCallback(() => {
      const unsubscribe = API.subscribe(userId, user => setUser(user))

      return () => unsubscribe()
    }, [userId])
  )

  return <Profile userId={userId} />
}

Link

The following will use the chat route in react navigation.

However, it will use the pages/room.js file for nextjs. Also, it will show up as domain.com/messages in the address bar.

Optionally accepts a nextLinkProps prop dictionary and touchableOpacityProps dictionary as well.

export default function Button() {
  return (
    <Link
      routeName="chat"
      params={{ roomId: '12' }}
      web={{
        path: '/room',
        as: 'messages',
      }}
    >
      Chat in room 12
    </Link>
  )
}

Required props:

• routeName: string, see useRouting().navigate docs.
• children: string

Optional props

• web: A dictionary with the follwing options:

type Web = {
  /**
   * Alternative path to override routeName on web.
   */
  path?: string
  /**
   * A custom URL ending to show in the browser address bar instead of the `web.path` or `routeName`.
   *
   * Should start with `/`.
   */
  as?: string
  /**
   * Prefetch the page in the background. Defaults to `true`
   */
  prefetch?: boolean
  /**
   * Scroll to the top of the page after a navigation. Defaults to `true`
   *
   */
  scroll?: boolean
  /**
   * Replace the current history state instead of adding a new url into the stack. Defaults to `false`
   */
  replace?: boolean
  /**
   * Update the path of the current page without rerunning getStaticProps, getServerSideProps or getInitialProps. Defaults to false
   */
  shallow?: boolean
}

• web: dictionary, see useRouting().navigate docs. On v1.0.5+, you can also pass the prefetch, replace, and scroll booleans here, from the next/link component.

• touchableOpacityProps: extends React Native's TouchableOpacity props.

• nextLinkProps: extends next/router's Link props.

• isText: if false, you can set the children to be non-Text nodes. Defaults to true. If true, the children can be a string or a Text node.

Other shout outs

nextjs-progressbar

I think this is an awesome package for adding a loading progress bar to your next pages. It's super easy. Check it out.

Link: https://www.npmjs.com/package/nextjs-progressbar

yarn add nextjs-progressbar

or

npm i nextjs-progressbar

pages/_app.js

import React from 'react'
import App from 'next/app'
import NextNprogress from 'nextjs-progressbar'

class MyApp extends App {
  render() {
    const { Component, pageProps } = this.props
    return (
      <>
        <NextNProgress
          color="#29D"
          startPosition="0.3"
          stopDelayMs="200"
          height="3"
        />
        <Component {...pageProps} />
      </>
    )
  }
}

export default MyApp

Web Thoughts

The web prop in the navigate function and Link component can help provide cleaner urls (user/mike instead of user?id=mike) on web.

Also, navigation patterns on mobile can be different than web, and this field can help you account for those situations.

For instance, imagine you have a tab navigator. Say the first tab has a nested stack navigator with an inbox screen and a chat room screen. If you navigate from a notifications tab to this tab, and a chat room screen was already open, you probably want that chat room to stay open on mobile. Only if you press the tab button a second time should it pop back to the inbox screen.

This may not be the case on web. Web navigation patterns on web may lead you to want to open the inbox directly, instead of the open chat screen. This example could look something like this:

navigate({
  routeName: 'inboxStack',
  web: {
    path: 'inbox',
  },
})

I've also considered letting the web field take a dynamic parameter like this chat/:roomId:

// goes to `yourdomain.com/chat/chris` and still passes `chris` as a `roomId` param
const navigateCleanLink = () =>
  navigate({
    routeName: 'chat',
    params: { roomId: 'chris' },
    web: { dynamic: `chat/[roomId]` },
  })

// goes to yourdomain.com/chat?roomId=chris
const onPress = () =>
  navigate({
    routeName: 'chat',
    params: { roomId: 'chris' },
  })

But that's not added. For now, the same is achieved by doing this:

const roomId = 'chris'

const navigateToChatRoom = () =>
  navigate({
    routeName: 'chat',
    params: { roomId },
    web: { path: `chat/${roomId}` },
  })

This would open the pages/chat/[roomId].js file, with roomId as a param.