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Version: 0.61

Text

A React component for displaying text.

Text supports nesting, styling, and touch handling.

In the following example, the nested title and body text will inherit the fontFamily from styles.baseText, but the title provides its own additional styles. The title and body will stack on top of each other on account of the literal newlines:

Nested text​

Both Android and iOS allow you to display formatted text by annotating ranges of a string with specific formatting like bold or colored text (NSAttributedString on iOS, SpannableString on Android). In practice, this is very tedious. For React Native, we decided to use web paradigm for this where you can nest text to achieve the same effect.

Behind the scenes, React Native converts this to a flat NSAttributedString or SpannableString that contains the following information:

"I am bold and red"
0-9: bold
9-17: bold, red

Containers​

The <Text> element is unique relative to layout: everything inside is no longer using the flexbox layout but using text layout. This means that elements inside of a <Text> are no longer rectangles, but wrap when they see the end of the line.

<Text>
  <Text>First part and </Text>
  <Text>second part</Text>
</Text>
// Text container: the text will be inline if the space allowed it
// |First part and second part|

// otherwise, the text will flow as if it was one
// |First part |
// |and second |
// |part       |

<View>
  <Text>First part and </Text>
  <Text>second part</Text>
</View>
// View container: each text is its own block
// |First part and|
// |second part   |

// otherwise, the text will flow in its own block
// |First part |
// |and        |
// |second part|

Limited Style Inheritance​

On the web, the usual way to set a font family and size for the entire document is to take advantage of inherited CSS properties like so:

html {
  font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;
  font-size: 11px;
  color: #141823;
}

All elements in the document will inherit this font unless they or one of their parents specifies a new rule.

In React Native, we are more strict about it: you must wrap all the text nodes inside of a <Text> component. You cannot have a text node directly under a <View>.

// BAD: will raise exception, can't have a text node as child of a <View>
<View>
  Some text
</View>

// GOOD
<View>
  <Text>
    Some text
  </Text>
</View>

You also lose the ability to set up a default font for an entire subtree. Meanwhile, fontFamily only accepts a single font name, which is different from font-family in CSS. The recommended way to use consistent fonts and sizes across your application is to create a component MyAppText that includes them and use this component across your app. You can also use this component to make more specific components like MyAppHeaderText for other kinds of text.

<View>
  <MyAppText>
    Text styled with the default font for the entire application
  </MyAppText>
  <MyAppHeaderText>Text styled as a header</MyAppHeaderText>
</View>

Assuming that MyAppText is a component that only renders out its children into a Text component with styling, then MyAppHeaderText can be defined as follows:

class MyAppHeaderText extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <MyAppText>
        <Text style={{fontSize: 20}}>{this.props.children}</Text>
      </MyAppText>
    );
  }
}

Composing MyAppText in this way ensures that we get the styles from a top-level component, but leaves us the ability to add / override them in specific use cases.

React Native still has the concept of style inheritance, but limited to text subtrees. In this case, the second part will be both bold and red.

<Text style={{fontWeight: 'bold'}}>
  I am bold
  <Text style={{color: 'red'}}>and red</Text>
</Text>

We believe that this more constrained way to style text will yield better apps:

  • (Developer) React components are designed with strong isolation in mind: You should be able to drop a component anywhere in your application, trusting that as long as the props are the same, it will look and behave the same way. Text properties that could inherit from outside of the props would break this isolation.

  • (Implementor) The implementation of React Native is also simplified. We do not need to have a fontFamily field on every single element, and we do not need to potentially traverse the tree up to the root every time we display a text node. The style inheritance is only encoded inside of the native Text component and doesn't leak to other components or the system itself.

Reference

Props​

accessible​

When true, indicates that the view is an accessibility element. By default, all the touchable elements are accessible.

TypeRequired
boolNo

accessibilityLabel​

Overrides the text that's read by the screen reader when the user interacts with the element. By default, the label is constructed by traversing all the children and accumulating all the Text nodes separated by space.

TypeRequired
stringNo

accessibilityHint​

An accessibility hint helps users understand what will happen when they perform an action on the accessibility element when that result is not clear from the accessibility label.

TypeRequired
stringNo

accessibilityRole​

accessibilityRole communicates the purpose of a component to the user of an assistive technology.

accessibilityRole can be one of the following:

  • 'none' - Used when the element has no role.
  • 'button' - Used when the element should be treated as a button.
  • 'link' - Used when the element should be treated as a link.
  • 'search' - Used when the text field element should also be treated as a search field.
  • 'image' - Used when the element should be treated as an image. Can be combined with button or link, for example.
  • 'keyboardkey' - Used when the element acts as a keyboard key.
  • 'text' - Used when the element should be treated as static text that cannot change.
  • 'adjustable' - Used when an element can be "adjusted" (e.g. a slider).
  • 'imagebutton' - Used when the element should be treated as a button and is also an image.
  • 'header' - Used when an element acts as a header for a content section (e.g. the title of a navigation bar).
  • 'summary' - Used when an element can be used to provide a quick summary of current conditions in the app when the app first launches.
  • 'alert' - Used when an element contains important text to be presented to the user.
  • 'checkbox' - Used when an element represents a checkbox which can be checked, unchecked, or have mixed checked state.
  • 'combobox' - Used when an element represents a combo box, which allows the user to select among several choices.
  • 'menu' - Used when the component is a menu of choices.
  • 'menubar' - Used when a component is a container of multiple menus.
  • 'menuitem' - Used to represent an item within a menu.
  • 'progressbar' - Used to represent a component which indicates progress of a task.
  • 'radio' - Used to represent a radio button.
  • 'radiogroup' - Used to represent a group of radio buttons.
  • 'scrollbar' - Used to represent a scroll bar.
  • 'spinbutton' - Used to represent a button which opens a list of choices.
  • 'switch' - Used to represent a switch which can be turned on and off.
  • 'tab' - Used to represent a tab.
  • 'tablist' - Used to represent a list of tabs.
  • 'timer' - Used to represent a timer.
  • 'toolbar' - Used to represent a tool bar (a container of action buttons or components).
TypeRequired
stringNo

accessibilityState​

Describes the current state of a component to the user of an assistive technology.

See the Accessibility guide for more information.

TypeRequired
object: {disabled: bool, selected: bool, checked: bool or 'mixed', busy: bool, expanded: bool}No

adjustsFontSizeToFit​

Specifies whether fonts should be scaled down automatically to fit given style constraints.

TypeRequiredPlatform
boolNoiOS

allowFontScaling​

Specifies whether fonts should scale to respect Text Size accessibility settings. The default is true.

TypeRequired
boolNo

dataDetectorType​

Determines the types of data converted to clickable URLs in the text element. By default no data types are detected.

You can provide only one type.

Possible values for dataDetectorType are:

  • 'phoneNumber'
  • 'link'
  • 'email'
  • 'none'
  • 'all'
TypeRequiredPlatform
enum('phoneNumber', 'link', 'email', 'none', 'all')NoAndroid

disabled​

Specifies the disabled state of the text view for testing purposes

TypeRequiredPlatform
boolNoAndroid

ellipsizeMode​

When numberOfLines is set, this prop defines how text will be truncated. numberOfLines must be set in conjunction with this prop.

This can be one of the following values:

  • head - The line is displayed so that the end fits in the container and the missing text at the beginning of the line is indicated by an ellipsis glyph. e.g., "...wxyz"
  • middle - The line is displayed so that the beginning and end fit in the container and the missing text in the middle is indicated by an ellipsis glyph. "ab...yz"
  • tail - The line is displayed so that the beginning fits in the container and the missing text at the end of the line is indicated by an ellipsis glyph. e.g., "abcd..."
  • clip - Lines are not drawn past the edge of the text container.

The default is tail.

TypeRequired
enum('head', 'middle', 'tail', 'clip')No

maxFontSizeMultiplier​

Specifies largest possible scale a font can reach when allowFontScaling is enabled. Possible values:

  • null/undefined (default): inherit from the parent node or the global default (0)
  • 0: no max, ignore parent/global default
  • >= 1: sets the maxFontSizeMultiplier of this node to this value
TypeRequired
numberNo

minimumFontScale​

Specifies smallest possible scale a font can reach when adjustsFontSizeToFit is enabled. (values 0.01-1.0).

TypeRequiredPlatform
numberNoiOS

nativeID​

Used to locate this view from native code.

TypeRequired
stringNo

numberOfLines​

Used to truncate the text with an ellipsis after computing the text layout, including line wrapping, such that the total number of lines does not exceed this number.

This prop is commonly used with ellipsizeMode.

TypeRequired
numberNo

onLayout​

Invoked on mount and layout changes with

{nativeEvent: {layout: {x, y, width, height}}}

TypeRequired
functionNo

onLongPress​

This function is called on long press.

e.g., onLongPress={this.increaseSize}>

TypeRequired
functionNo

onMoveShouldSetResponder​

Does this view want to "claim" touch responsiveness? This is called for every touch move on the View when it is not the responder.

View.props.onMoveShouldSetResponder: (event) => [true | false], where event is a synthetic touch event as described above.

TypeRequired
functionNo

onPress​

This function is called on press.

e.g., onPress={() => console.log('1st')}

TypeRequired
functionNo

onResponderGrant​

The View is now responding for touch events. This is the time to highlight and show the user what is happening.

View.props.onResponderGrant: (event) => {}, where event is a synthetic touch event as described above.

TypeRequired
functionNo

onResponderMove​

The user is moving their finger.

View.props.onResponderMove: (event) => {}, where event is a synthetic touch event as described above.

TypeRequired
functionNo

onResponderRelease​

Fired at the end of the touch.

View.props.onResponderRelease: (event) => {}, where event is a synthetic touch event as described above.

TypeRequired
functionNo

onResponderTerminate​

The responder has been taken from the View. Might be taken by other views after a call to onResponderTerminationRequest, or might be taken by the OS without asking (e.g., happens with control center/ notification center on iOS)

View.props.onResponderTerminate: (event) => {}, where event is a synthetic touch event as described above.

TypeRequired
functionNo

onResponderTerminationRequest​

Some other View wants to become responder and is asking this View to release its responder. Returning true allows its release.

View.props.onResponderTerminationRequest: (event) => {}, where event is a synthetic touch event as described above.

TypeRequired
functionNo

onStartShouldSetResponderCapture​

If a parent View wants to prevent a child View from becoming responder on a touch start, it should have this handler which returns true.

View.props.onStartShouldSetResponderCapture: (event) => [true | false], where event is a synthetic touch event as described above.

TypeRequired
functionNo

onTextLayout​

TODO.

pressRetentionOffset​

When the scroll view is disabled, this defines how far your touch may move off of the button, before deactivating the button. Once deactivated, try moving it back and you'll see that the button is once again reactivated! Move it back and forth several times while the scroll view is disabled. Ensure you pass in a constant to reduce memory allocations.

TypeRequired
object: {top: number, left: number, bottom: number, right: number}No

selectable​

Lets the user select text, to use the native copy and paste functionality.

TypeRequired
boolNo

selectionColor​

The highlight color of the text.

TypeRequiredPlatform
colorNoAndroid

style​

TypeRequired
Text Style Props, View Style PropsNo

suppressHighlighting​

When true, no visual change is made when text is pressed down. By default, a gray oval highlights the text on press down.

TypeRequiredPlatform
boolNoiOS

testID​

Used to locate this view in end-to-end tests.

TypeRequired
stringNo

textBreakStrategy​

Set text break strategy on Android API Level 23+, possible values are simple, highQuality, balanced The default value is highQuality.

TypeRequiredPlatform
enum('simple', 'highQuality', 'balanced')NoAndroid

Known issues