Using BottomNavigation with React Navigation

caution

The createMaterialBottomTabNavigator has been deprecated as of react-native-paper@5.14.0. Instead, use @react-navigation/bottom-tabs version 7.x or later, combined with BottomNavigation.Bar to achieve a Material Design look.

For implementation details, see the dedicated example.

A material-design themed tab bar on the bottom of the screen that lets you switch between different routes with animation. Routes are lazily initialized - their screen components are not mounted until they are first focused.

This wraps the BottomNavigation component from react-native-paper, however if you configure the Babel plugin, it won't include the whole library in your bundle.

info

To use this navigator, ensure that you have @react-navigation/native and its dependencies (follow this guide):

👉 For a complete example please visit createMaterialBottomTabNavigator snack

API Definition

To use this tab navigator, import it from react-native-paper/react-navigation:

import { createMaterialBottomTabNavigator } from 'react-native-paper/react-navigation';

const Tab = createMaterialBottomTabNavigator();

function MyTabs() {
  return (
    <Tab.Navigator>
      <Tab.Screen name="Home" component={HomeScreen} />
      <Tab.Screen name="Settings" component={SettingsScreen} />
    </Tab.Navigator>
  );
}

👉 For a complete usage guide please visit Tab Navigation

Props

The Tab.Navigator component accepts following props:

id

Optional unique ID for the navigator. This can be used with navigation.getParent to refer to this navigator in a child navigator.

initialRouteName

The name of the route to render on first load of the navigator.

screenOptions

Default options to use for the screens in the navigator.

backBehavior

This controls what happens when goBack is called in the navigator. This includes pressing the device's back button or back gesture on Android.

It supports the following values:

• firstRoute - return to the first screen defined in the navigator (default)
• initialRoute - return to initial screen passed in initialRouteName prop, if not passed, defaults to the first screen
• order - return to screen defined before the focused screen
• history - return to last visited screen in the navigator; if the same screen is visited multiple times, the older entries are dropped from the history
• none - do not handle back button

shifting

Whether the shifting style is used, the active tab icon shifts up to show the label and the inactive tabs won't have a label.

By default, this is true when you have more than 3 tabs. Pass shifting={false} to explicitly disable this animation, or shifting={true} to always use this animation.

labeled

Whether to show labels in tabs. When false, only icons will be displayed.

activeColor

Custom color for icon and label in the active tab.

inactiveColor

Custom color for icon and label in the inactive tab.

barStyle

Style for the bottom navigation bar. You can pass custom background color here:

<Tab.Navigator
  initialRouteName="Home"
  activeColor="#f0edf6"
  inactiveColor="#3e2465"
  barStyle={{ backgroundColor: '#694fad' }}
>
  {/* ... */}
</Tab.Navigator>

If you have a translucent navigation bar on Android, you can also set a bottom padding here:

<Tab.Navigator
  initialRouteName="Home"
  activeColor="#f0edf6"
  inactiveColor="#3e2465"
  barStyle={{ paddingBottom: 48 }}
>
  {/* ... */}
</Tab.Navigator>

theme

Enables the customization of default theme attributes (e.g. colors) or facilitates the utilization of a personalized custom theme.

Options

The following options can be used to configure the screens in the navigator:

title

Generic title that can be used as a fallback for headerTitle and tabBarLabel.

tabBarIcon

Function that given { focused: boolean, color: string } returns a React.Node, to display in the tab bar.

tabBarColor

In v5.x works only with theme version 2.

Color for the tab bar when the tab corresponding to the screen is active. Used for the ripple effect. This is only supported when shifting is true.

tabBarLabel

Title string of a tab displayed in the tab bar. When undefined, scene title is used. To hide, see labeled option in the previous section.

tabBarBadge

Badge to show on the tab icon, can be true to show a dot, string or number to show text.

tabBarAccessibilityLabel

Accessibility label for the tab button. This is read by the screen reader when the user taps the tab. It's recommended to set this if you don't have a label for the tab.

tabBarTestID

ID to locate this tab button in tests.

Events

The navigator can emit events on certain actions. Supported events are:

tabPress

This event is fired when the user presses the tab button for the current screen in the tab bar. By default a tab press does several things:

• If the tab is not focused, tab press will focus that tab
• If the tab is already focused:
  • If the screen for the tab renders a scroll view, you can use useScrollToTop to scroll it to top
  • If the screen for the tab renders a stack navigator, a popToTop action is performed on the stack

To prevent the default behavior, you can call event.preventDefault:

React.useEffect(() => {
  const unsubscribe = navigation.addListener('tabPress', (e) => {
    // Prevent default behavior

    e.preventDefault();
    // Do something manually
    // ...
  });

  return unsubscribe;
}, [navigation]);

Helpers

The tab navigator adds the following methods to the navigation prop:

jumpTo

Navigates to an existing screen in the tab navigator. The method accepts following arguments:

• name - string - Name of the route to jump to.
• params - object - Screen params to pass to the destination route.

navigation.jumpTo('Profile', { name: 'Michaś' });

Example

import { createMaterialBottomTabNavigator } from 'react-native-paper/react-navigation';
import MaterialDesignIcons from '@react-native-vector-icons/material-design-icons';

const Tab = createMaterialBottomTabNavigator();

function MyTabs() {
  return (
    <Tab.Navigator
      initialRouteName="Feed"
      activeColor="#e91e63"
      barStyle={{ backgroundColor: 'tomato' }}
    >
      <Tab.Screen
        name="Feed"
        component={Feed}
        options={{
          tabBarLabel: 'Home',
          tabBarIcon: ({ color }) => (
            <MaterialDesignIcons name="home" color={color} size={26} />
          ),
        }}
      />
      <Tab.Screen
        name="Notifications"
        component={Notifications}
        options={{
          tabBarLabel: 'Updates',
          tabBarIcon: ({ color }) => (
            <MaterialDesignIcons name="bell" color={color} size={26} />
          ),
        }}
      />
      <Tab.Screen
        name="Profile"
        component={Profile}
        options={{
          tabBarLabel: 'Profile',
          tabBarIcon: ({ color }) => (
            <MaterialDesignIcons name="account" color={color} size={26} />
          ),
        }}
      />
    </Tab.Navigator>
  );
}