React Scrollama 🦙

React Scrollama is a simple and silky library for scrollytelling. It relies on IntersectionObserver and sticky positioning over scroll listeners. It is originally adapted from Russel Samora's Scrollama.

A few examples of ambitious interactive stories that were built with React Scrollama…

17 interactive visualization stories using React Scrollama for scrollytelling
Comment Tati a imprimé sa marque à Barbès by Fabien Casaleggio
The scramble to secure America’s voting machines by Beatrice Jin
Sex Diversity Among Grad Students is Stagnating by Jason Kao

Demo

A live demo lives here. It was debu'd at the August 2018 ReactNYC meetup.

Basic step triggers	Sticky graphic on the side

Install

React Scrollama can be installed as an npm package:

$ npm install react-scrollama

Usage

A Scrollama component wraps a set of steps. Each Step component must wrap a DOM element (i.e. not just text).

<Scrollama onStepEnter={callback} offset={0.5}>
  <Step data={1}>
    <div>...</div>
  </Step>
  <Step data={2}>
    <div>...</div>
  </Step>
</Scrollama>

<Scrollama> provides an interface for listening in on scroll triggers like entering or exiting a step. (Here's a full list of available props.)

A basic example:

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { Scrollama, Step } from 'react-scrollama';

const ScrollamaDemo = () => {
  const [currentStepIndex, setCurrentStepIndex] = useState(null);

  // This callback fires when a Step hits the offset threshold. It receives the
  // data prop of the step, which in this demo stores the index of the step.
  const onStepEnter = ({ data }) => {
    setCurrentStepIndex(data);
  };

  return (
    <div style={{ margin: '50vh 0', border: '2px dashed skyblue' }}>
      <div style={{ position: 'sticky', top: 0, border: '1px solid orchid' }}>
        I'm sticky. The current triggered step index is: {currentStepIndex}
      </div>
      <Scrollama offset={0.5} onStepEnter={onStepEnter} debug>
        {[1, 2, 3, 4].map((_, stepIndex) => (
          <Step data={stepIndex} key={stepIndex}>
            <div
              style={{
                margin: '50vh 0',
                border: '1px solid gray',
                opacity: currentStepIndex === stepIndex ? 1 : 0.2,
              }}
            >
              I'm a Scrollama Step of index {stepIndex}
            </div>
          </Step>
        ))}
      </Scrollama>
    </div>
  );
};

export default ScrollamaDemo;

API

React Scrollama components do not render into the DOM. They are meant to set up Intersection Observers on the elements inside the <Step> components. In the code above, only the <div> elements would show up in the DOM.

Scrollama

These are the props you can set on the Scrollama component itself:

Prop	Type	Default	Description
offset	number (from 0 to 1) or pixel value (e.g. "300px")	0.3	How far from the top of the viewport to trigger a step (as a proportion of view height)
threshold	number (greater than 1)	4	Granularity of the progress interval in pixels (smaller = more granular)
onStepEnter	function		Callback that fires when the top or bottom edge of a step enters the offset threshold.
onStepExit	function		Callback that fires when the top or bottom edge of a step exits the offset threshold.
onStepProgress	function		Callback that fires the progress a step has made through the threshold.
debug	boolean	false	Whether to show visual debugging tools.

The onStepEnter and onStepExit callbacks receive one argument, an object, with the following properties:

{
  element, // The DOM node of the step that was triggered
  data, // The data supplied to the step
  direction, // 'up' or 'down'
  entry, // the original `IntersectionObserver` entry
}

The onStepProgress callback receives one argument, an object, with the following properties:

{
  element, // The DOM node of the step that was triggered
  data, // The data supplied to the step
  progress, // The percent of completion of the step (0 to 1)
  direction, // 'up' or 'down'
  entry, // the original `IntersectionObserver` entry
}

To create a fixed graphic with text scrolling beside/over it, use position: sticky;. How to use position sticky.

Step

A Step element can contain one child, which must be a DOM element. To use a React component as the child node, it must be wrapped with a DOM element like <div>.

These are the props you can set on the Step component:

Prop	Type	Default	Description
data	any		Data to be given to <Scrollama> callbacks when step triggered.

You will also probably want to set a key prop on each Step if you're transforming an array of data into a list of Step elements (see Lists and Keys).

Thank you to everyone who made this possible!

• jsonkao
• maerzhase
• NicholasLYang
• jonesbp
• kennethormandy
• cedricdelpoux
• davidnmora
• jefffriesen
• paolocorti
• elbertwang3
• michaelgrotton
• jjrchrds
• goleary
• danieleguido
• Lane
• jkjustjoshing
• tuckergordon
• fschwander
• thisispaul

Features roadmap

• Currently, there is no way to throttle/customize React Scrollama's resize listener 😢. We're working on this in #44.
• Fire previous step triggers if they were jumped

Lmk if you need these features ASAP.