Roving UX React

Turns tedious tab UX into a controlled and stateful experience

Inspired by roving-ux by Adam Argyle
Learn more in this article by Rob Dodson on web.dev
Try it at this GUI Challenge (use tab then left || right arrows)

Features & Why

1️⃣ User's shouldn't need to tab through each item in a list to see the next list
2️⃣ Providing keyboard list UX should be easy
3️⃣ Maintaining the last focused element should be easy

Getting Started

Installation

npm i roving-ux-react

Importing

// import from NPM
import { useRovingIndex } from 'roving-ux-react'

Syntax

Quick API Overview

const {
  activeIndex, // index of the currently focused target
  roverProps, // props to assign to the rover
  getTargetProps, // getter function for each targets props, initialize with index
} = useRovingIndex()

const {
  tabIndex, // tabIndex for rover element, should always be -1
  onFocus, // focus handler to listen for nested elements receiving focus
  onKeyDown, // key event handler to listen for arrow key navigation
} = roverProps

Example Usage

import { useRovingIndex } from 'roving-ux-react'

// just one roving ux container
// roving-ux-react will use each child initialized with `getTargetProps` as target

function Carousel() {
  const { roverProps, getTargetProps } = useRovingIndex()

  return (
    <ul {...roverProps}>
      <li {...getTargetProps(0)}>Item #1</li>
      <li {...getTargetProps(1)}>Item #2</li>
      <li {...getTargetProps(2)}>Item #3</li>
    </ul>
  )
}