CSS Animations but in React Native

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Introduction

I started creating YouTube tutorials in 2021, and everything started with this video: "Introduction to Reanimated 2". If you're curious, here's the written article.

Since then, Reanimated is still the best way to animate in React Native and the content explained in the video is still valid.

However, today Software Mansion has announced Reanimated 4 and it's a game changer (here's the blog post).

Two new ingredients have been added to the mix: CSS Animations and Transitions.

Let's see how things have changed 👇

What's new?

Do you remember how we used to animate a simple square in React Native?

The key tools we used for this animation were useSharedValue, useAnimatedStyle, withTiming, and withRepeat.

To implement the pause functionality, we used withPause from react-native-redash.

Here's a quick refresher on how to create this animation step-by-step:

import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { StyleSheet, View } from 'react-native';
import Animated, {
  withRepeat,
  useAnimatedStyle,
  useSharedValue,
  withTiming,
  useDerivedValue,
} from 'react-native-reanimated';
import { withPause } from 'react-native-redash';

const SIZE = 100;

export const AnimatedSquare = () => {
  const [isPlaying, setIsPlaying] = useState(false);
  const isPaused = useDerivedValue(() => !isPlaying, [isPlaying]);
  const progress = useSharedValue(0);

  const rStyle = useAnimatedStyle(() => ({
    borderRadius: progress.value * 20,
    transform: [
      { scale: 0.5 + progress.value * 0.5 },
      { rotate: `${progress.value * 360}deg` },
    ],
    opacity: 0.5 + progress.value * 0.5,
  }));

  useEffect(() => {
    progress.value = withPause(
      withRepeat(withTiming(1, { duration: 2000 }), -1, true),
      isPaused
    );
  }, [isPaused]);

  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <Animated.View style={[styles.square, rStyle]} />
      <Button
        onPress={() => setIsPlaying((prev) => !prev)}
        state={isPlaying ? 'active' : 'inactive'}
      />
    </View>
  );
};

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    alignItems: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    backgroundColor: '#1a1a1a',
  },
  square: {
    height: SIZE,
    width: SIZE,
    backgroundColor: 'rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9)',
  },
});

CSS Animations

First of all, let's make a premise. The code above is still valid and great, sometimes you need to have a lot of control over the animation you're building and the ingredients mentioned above are most likely the best way to do it.

However, here we just wanted to build an animated square. There must be a better way to do it.

Starting from Reanimated 4, we can now pass the initial and final state of the animation within the Animated.View component.

Here's how it works:

const InitialState = {
  borderRadius: 0,
  opacity: 0.5,
  transform: [
    { rotate: '0deg' },
    {
      scale: 0.5,
    },
  ],
} as const;

const FinalState = {
  borderRadius: 20,
  opacity: 1,
  transform: [
    { rotate: '360deg' },
    {
      scale: 1,
    },
  ],
} as const;

export const AnimatedSquare = () => {
  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <Animated.View
        style={[
          styles.square,
          {
            animationDuration: 2000,
            animationTimingFunction: 'easeInOut', // use the curve you'd like the most
            animationName: {
              from: InitialState,
              to: FinalState,
            },
          },
        ]}
      />
    </View>
  );
};

Doesn't it look cleaner?

Repeating the animation

So how do we repeat the animation 🧐

Since we're passing the initial and final state of the animation, we can't use the withRepeat high-order function.

Again, there must be a better way to do it.

... // InitialState and FinalState

export const AnimatedSquare = () => {
  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <Animated.View
        style={[
          styles.square,
          {
            animationDuration: 2000,
            animationTimingFunction: 'easeInOut',
            animationIterationCount: 'infinite', // repeat the animation infinitely (or just 1, 2, 3, etc...)
            animationDirection: 'alternate', // alternate the animation direction to create a boomerang effect
            animationName: {
              from: InitialState,
              to: FinalState,
            },
          },
        ]}
      />
    </View>
  );
};

Here's how it looks with the animation repeating infinitely:

Playing/Pausing the animation

Pausing the animation is now as easy as setting the animationPlayState property to paused.

... // InitialState and FinalState

export const AnimatedSquare = () => {
  const [isPlaying, setIsPlaying] = useState(false);

  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <Animated.View
        style={[
          styles.square,
          {
            animationDuration: 2000,
            animationTimingFunction: 'easeInOut',
            animationIterationCount: 'infinite',
            animationDirection: 'alternate',
            animationPlayState: isPlaying ? 'running' : 'paused',
            animationName: {
              from: InitialState,
              to: FinalState,
            },
          },
        ]}
      />
      <Button
        onPress={() => setIsPlaying((prev) => !prev)}
        state={isPlaying ? 'play' : 'pause'}
      />
    </View>
  );
};

And here's the magic happening ✨

Additional amazing resources

Still collecting resources, but here are some of the most interesting ones:

Final Thoughts

The introduction of CSS Animations and Transitions in Reanimated 4 brings several advantages:

Simpler Syntax: Define animations using familiar CSS-like properties instead of complex animation worklets
Declarative Approach: Specify the initial and final states directly in your component's style
Built-in Controls: Easy-to-use animation controls like animationPlayState, animationIterationCount, and animationDirection
Reduced Boilerplate: No need for multiple useSharedValue and useAnimatedStyle hooks for basic animations
Better Developer Experience: More intuitive API that feels closer to web development

While the traditional Reanimated API is still valuable for complex animations and precise control, the new CSS animations provide a more straightforward approach for common use cases.

This addition makes React Native animations more accessible to developers coming from web development and simplifies a lot the implementation of basic animations.

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