In this blog, we will learn how to implement drag and drop in ReactJS with the help of external libraries. However, implementing it using jQuery or standard JavaScript always involves large calculations that depend on how it is performed. But with the help of external libraries, it’s easy to implement with less effort.
Considering that you have a good understanding & knowledge of ReactJS components and npm libraries, continue with this blog.
What is the drag and drop feature?
The drag and drop function allows users to select an object or a section of the text, move it to the desired location, and then “drop” it at that location.
First, let’s see the list of available libraries for implementing the drag-and-drop feature.
–react-dnd
–react-beautiful-dnd
–react-draggable
–sortablejs
In this blog, we will learn to implement the drag and drop in react with the react-beautiful-dnd library step by step.
1. Create react project:
First, you must create a new react application to implement the drag and drop feature. Open your terminal and create a new react application with the CRA command.
npx create-react-app react-drag-and-drop-app
2. Import required libraries:
After creating the application, set up the project folders and import all the required libraries. For installing react-beautiful-dnd, follow the below command.
npm i react-beautiful-dnd
3. react-beautiful-dnd components:
In the react-beautiful-dnd, we have mainly three main components. To implement this library, we need to understand these components.
4. DragDropContext:
On the top level, you have to implement this component. So your whole implementation will come under the DragDropContext parent component. Let’s see its implementation.
<DragDropContext onDragEnd={onDragEnd}>
<ListGrid>
{lists.map((listKey) => (
<DraggableElement
elements={elements[listKey]}
key={listKey}
prefix={listKey}
/>
))}
</ListGrid>
</DragDropContext>This is the code example from the demo project, which you can find at the end of the blog. Here you can see we have implemented the DraDropContext component on the top, and here we have the onDragEnd event triggered after each successful drop. It returns the droppable Id required to implement the further logic.
5. Droppable:
This component is used to implement the droppable area. And every draggable component which comes under this Droppable component can be dropped in this area.
<Droppable droppableId={`${prefix}`}>
{(provided) => (
<div {...provided.droppableProps} ref={provided.innerRef}>
{elements.map((item, index) => (
<ListItem key={item.id} item={item} index={index} />
))}
{provided.placeholder}
</div>
)}
</Droppable>This is the implementation of the droppable component. Here you can see we have the droppable component. We have to give one unique Id to the droppable parameter. And this is the same id we will get in onDragEnd event we have seen in the previous point.
6. Draggable:
This component is used to implement the draggable area. The Daragable tag takes two arguments draggable and index. The draggableId is nothing but the unique ID, and the index is the index value of the draggable component.
Here we have a callback function with to parameters provided and a snapshot passed as a parameter to the component defined in the return of the callback function. And the component which is defined under the draggable tag can be dragged and dropped in the dropable area.
<Draggable draggableId={item.id} index={index}>
{(provided, snapshot) => {
return (
<DragItem
ref={provided.innerRef}
snapshot={snapshot}
{...provided.draggableProps}
{...provided.dragHandleProps}
>
<CardHeader>{randomHeader}</CardHeader>
<span>Content</span>
<CardFooter>
<span>{item.content}</span>
</CardFooter>
</DragItem>
);
}}
</Draggable>This is the implementation of a draggable component. Here the DragItem is nothing but the div under the return of the callback function, which is defined under the draggable component.
We have completed the setup of the three main components of the react-beautiful-dnd.
In this blog, we saw what is drag and drop feature is and how to implement drag and drop in ReactJS with the help of third-party libraries we also saw different libraries available for implementing this feature. After that, we went through the different steps to the implementation of one of the libraries called react-beautiful-dnd. Then, at last, we saw the advantages of using react-beautiful-dnd.
Thank you for reading! In case you have any questions feel free to comment.
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