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Version: 4.x

Upgrading from 3.x

In React Navigation 4, we've extracted out the navigators to separate packages to make it easier to maintain and release updates faster. You can follow the guide below to upgrade your projects.

Note: Before making these changes, we recommend you to commit all local changes to git so you can revert back to a good state if something goes wrong with the upgrade.

Install the new packages​

First, we need to install the react-navigation package along with the various navigators. If you don't use some of these navigators, you can omit them.

To install them, run:

npm install react-navigation react-navigation-stack@^1.7.3 react-navigation-tabs@^1.2.0 react-navigation-drawer@^1.4.0

This will install the versions compatible with your code if you were using react-navigation@3.x, so you wouldn't need any more changes beyond changing the imports.

Note: If you have @react-navigation/core or @react-navigation/native in your package.json, please remove them and change the imports to import from react-navigation package instead.

Changing your code​

Then change any imports for stack, tabs or drawer to import from the above packages instead of react-navigation.

- import { createAppContainer, createStackNavigator } from 'react-navigation';
+ import { createAppContainer } from 'react-navigation';
+ import { createStackNavigator } from 'react-navigation-stack';

The following imports need to be changed to import from react-navigation-stack:

  • createStackNavigator
  • StackGestureContext
  • Transitioner
  • StackView
  • StackViewCard
  • StackViewTransitionConfigs
  • Header
  • HeaderTitle
  • HeaderBackButton
  • HeaderStyleInterpolator

The following imports need to be changed to import from react-navigation-tabs:

  • createBottomTabNavigator
  • createMaterialTopTabNavigator
  • BottomTabBar
  • MaterialTopTabBar

The following imports need to be changed to import from react-navigation-drawer:

  • createDrawerNavigator
  • DrawerGestureContext
  • DrawerRouter
  • DrawerActions
  • DrawerView
  • DrawerNavigatorItems
  • DrawerSidebar

Upgrading navigators (optional)​

You don't need to upgrade the navigators to their latest version when upgrading to react-navigation@4.x. You can upgrade them separately later as per your convenience.

Note: We recommend to do each of these changes in a separate commit so you can revert back to a good state if something goes wrong with the upgrade.

Installing dependencies​

The latest drawer and tabs depend on react-native-gesture-handler and react-native-reanimated. If you already have these libraries installed and at the latest version, you are done here! Otherwise, read on for installation instructions for these dependencies.

Installing dependencies into an Expo managed project​

In your project directory, run the following:

npx expo install react-native-gesture-handler react-native-reanimated

This will install versions of these libraries that are compatible.

Installing dependencies into a bare React Native project​

In your project directory, run npm install react-native-reanimated react-native-gesture-handler react-native-screens.

Next, we need to link these libraries. The steps depends on your React Native version:

  • React Native 0.60 and higher

    On newer versions of React Native, linking is automatic.

    To complete the linking on iOS, make sure you have Cocoapods installed. Then run:

    cd ios
    pod install
    cd ..

  • React Native 0.59 and lower

    If you're on an older React Native version, you need to manually link the dependencies. To do that, run:

    react-native link react-native-reanimated
    react-native link react-native-gesture-handler

To finalize installation of react-native-gesture-handler for Android, make the following modifications to MainActivity.java:

package com.reactnavigation.example;

import com.facebook.react.ReactActivity;
+ import com.facebook.react.ReactActivityDelegate;
+ import com.facebook.react.ReactRootView;
+ import com.swmansion.gesturehandler.react.RNGestureHandlerEnabledRootView;

public class MainActivity extends ReactActivity {

  @Override
  protected String getMainComponentName() {
    return "Example";
  }

+  @Override
+  protected ReactActivityDelegate createReactActivityDelegate() {
+    return new ReactActivityDelegate(this, getMainComponentName()) {
+      @Override
+      protected ReactRootView createRootView() {
+       return new RNGestureHandlerEnabledRootView(MainActivity.this);
+      }
+    };
+  }
}

Upgrading packages​

react-navigation-tabs​

To upgrade react-navigation-tabs, run:

npm install react-navigation-tabs

This version upgrades react-native-tab-view to 2.x. As a result, the animations in createMaterialTopTabNavigator now use the react-native-reanimated library.

Breaking changes​
  • If you have a custom tab bar in createMaterialTopTabNavigator which uses the position prop, you'll need to update it to use Animated from react-native-reanimated instead of react-native.
  • The activeTintColor and inactiveTintColor options for the tab bar of createMaterialTopTabNavigator now controls the opacity of the label and icons as well.
  • The animationsEnabled and optimizationsEnabled options have been removed from createMaterialTopTabNavigator.
  • Support for React < 16.3 has been dropped, which means the minimum supported React Native version is now 0.56.
New features​
  • A new lazyPlaceholderComponent option is added which lets you show a placeholder for lazy loaded tabs.

react-navigation-drawer​

To upgrade react-navigation-drawer, run:

npm install react-navigation-drawer

This version upgrades now uses the react-native-reanimated library for animations. This means, if you're using the drawerProgress value, you'll need to migrate your code to use Animated from react-native-reanimated.

react-navigation-stack​

To upgrade react-navigation-stack, run:

npm install react-navigation-stack

In this release, we have moved several options into navigationOptions so that you can configure options per screen instead of per navigator. This lets you do things like customize animations for a particular screen, set options based on screenProps etc. Usage of built-in components such as Header and HeaderBackButton has also been simplified. Other changes are made to improve consistency within the API.

From this version, all state changes have an animation, including replace and reset which didn't do an animation previously. If you don't want animations, you can specify animationEnabled: false in navigationOptions for a specific screen, or in defaultNavigationOptions for the whole navigator.

Note: The alpha versions for 2.0 used Reanimated for the animations. We've replaced Reanimated with React Native's Animated API in the stable release. If you did any custom animations with the alpha, please migrate your code to the Animated API.

New peer dependencies​

The new version requires 2 new peer dependencies. To install them in your project, run:

npm install react-native-safe-area-context @react-native-community/masked-view
Stack Navigator config​

The following configuration options have been removed or moved:

  • cardShadowEnabled - moved to navigationOptions
  • cardOverlayEnabled - moved to navigationOptions
  • cardStyle - moved to navigationOptions
  • transparentCard - removed in favor of cardStyle: { backgroundColor: 'transparent' } in navigationOptions
  • headerBackTitleVisible - moved to navigationOptions
  • headerLayoutPreset - moved to navigationOptions as headerTitleAlign
  • onTransitionStart - moved to navigationOptions
  • onTransitionEnd - moved to navigationOptions
  • headerTransitionPreset - removed in favor of new APIs for animations in navigationOptions
  • transitionConfig - removed in favor of new APIs for animations in navigationOptions

The following navigationOptions have been removed or changed:

  • headerForceInset - use safeAreaInsets instead to control the safe areas, or use headerStatusBarHeight to control the padding for the status bar.
  • gesturesEnabled - renamed to gestureEnabled for consistency.
  • header - now accepts a function returning react element instead, use headerShown: false instead of header: null to hide the header.
  • headerTitle - now accepts a function returning a React element or a string.
  • headerLeft - now accepts a function returning a React element.
  • headerRight - now accepts a function returning a React element.
  • headerBackImage - now accepts a function returning a React element.
  • headerBackTitle - now specifies the back title visible in current screen instead of next, specifying null no longer hides back title, use backTitleVisible instead, for a screen to change next screen's back title, it can pass params.
  • headerBackground - now accepts a function returning a React element.

The following navigationOptions have been added:

  • gestureEnabled
  • animationEnabled
  • headerTitleAlign
  • cardShadowEnabled
  • cardOverlayEnabled
  • cardStyle
  • headerBackgroundStyle
  • headerBackTitleVisible
  • swipeVelocityImpact
  • onTransitionStart
  • onTransitionEnd

You can find more details about these options in the documentation.

Library exports​

The library now exports the following items:

  • createStackNavigator
  • StackView
  • Header
  • HeaderTitle
  • HeaderBackButton
  • HeaderBackground
  • CardStyleInterpolators
  • HeaderStyleInterpolators
  • TransitionSpecs
  • TransitionPresets
  • CardAnimationContext
  • GestureHandlerRefContext
  • HeaderHeightContext
  • useCardAnimation
  • useHeaderHeight
  • useGestureHandlerRef

The following components now receive different set of props, so if you use them, or use your own custom component, you will need to update them:

Header (header option)​
  • mode
  • layout
  • scene
  • previous
  • navigation
  • styleInterpolator
HeaderBackButton (headerLeft option)​
  • disabled
  • onPress
  • pressColorAndroid
  • backImage
  • tintColor
  • label
  • truncatedLabel
  • labelVisible
  • labelStyle
  • allowFontScaling
  • onLabelLayout
  • screenLayout
  • titleLayout
  • canGoBack
Removal of Transitioner​

The old Transitioner component has been removed as a result of rewrite of the animation logic. We're not going to expose the new animation logic since it's internal implementation detail and we want to be able to change it without breaking your code. If you need Transitioner in your project for some reason, you can copy the old files into your project Transitioner.tsx.

TypeScript​

If you're using TypeScript, you'll also need to upgrade the navigators to the latest version following the previous section. Since the navigators have been extracted out, navigator specific types have been removed from the main package. You'll need to update the types accordingly:

  • Replace NavigationScreenProp with:
    • NavigationSwitchProp for createSwitchNavigator from react-navigation
    • NavigationStackProp for createStackNavigator from react-navigation-stack
    • NavigationTabProp for createBottomTabNavigator and createMaterialTopTabNavigator from react-navigation-tabs
    • NavigationDrawerProp for createDrawerNavigator from react-navigation-drawer
  • Replace NavigationScreenProps with:
    • NavigationSwitchScreenProps for createSwitchNavigator from react-navigation
    • NavigationStackScreenProps for createStackNavigator from react-navigation-stack
    • NavigationTabScreenProps for createBottomTabNavigator and createMaterialTopTabNavigator from react-navigation-tabs
    • NavigationDrawerScreenProps for createDrawerNavigator from react-navigation-drawer
  • Replace NavigationScreenOptions with:
    • NavigationStackOptions for createStackNavigator from react-navigation-stack
    • NavigationBottomTabOptions for createBottomTabNavigator from react-navigation-tabs
    • NavigationMaterialTabOptions for createMaterialTopTabNavigator from react-navigation-tabs
    • NavigationDrawerOptions for createDrawerNavigator from react-navigation-drawer
  • Replace NavigationScreenComponent with:
    • NavigationSwitchScreenComponent for createSwitchNavigator from react-navigation
    • NavigationStackScreenComponent for createStackNavigator from react-navigation-stack
    • NavigationBottomTabScreenComponent for createBottomTabNavigator from react-navigation-tabs
    • NavigationMaterialTabScreenComponent for createMaterialTopTabNavigator from react-navigation-tabs
    • NavigationDrawerScreenComponent for createDrawerNavigator from react-navigation-drawer

See the TypeScript guide for more details.

TypeScript support is still a work in progress, so please open an issue if you're facing a problem.