React Scroll To Top On Route Change

Table of Contents

Introduction: Understand the Need for Scroll to Top on Route Change in React

In React, it is common to use routing to navigate between components. However, when a user clicks on a link to go to a new route, the page doesn’t automatically scroll to the top. This can be frustrating for the user as they may want to start from the top of the page when they navigate to a new route. As a developer, it is important to provide a seamless user experience by automating this task using React.

Scrolling to the top on route change is a simple but effective way to improve the user experience. By doing this, the user can easily see the content at the top of the page and is not forced to manually scroll up.

Getting Started: Setting up the React App and Installing the Dependencies

To start building a React app, you need to first set up your development environment and install the necessary dependencies. Here are the steps to set up a basic React app:

Install Node.js on your system if you haven’t already.
Open your terminal or command prompt and run the following command to install the create-react-app package globally:
npm install -g create-react-app
Create a new React app by running the following command:
npx create-react-app my-app
Replace my-app with the name of your app.
Navigate into your project directory by running:
cd my-app
Start the development server by running:
npm start

Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll have a basic React app up and running in your browser. You can start building your app by editing the files in the src folder.

In addition to the initial setup, you may also need to install additional dependencies for your app. You can use the npm install command to install dependencies from the NPM registry. For example, if you want to install React Router, you can run the following command:

npm install react-router-dom

Implementing Scroll to Top: Writing the Scroll to Top Functionality in React

Scroll to Top functionality is a common feature that is required in almost every web application. React makes it very easy to implement and customize this feature as per the requirements of the application. In this article, we will discuss how to implement the Scroll to Top functionality in React.

The first step is to create a reusable ScrollToTop functional component in React. This component would take the children props and scroll the page to the top when the component is mounted.

{`import React from 'react';
import { withRouter } from 'react-router-dom';

function ScrollToTop({ children, location: { pathname } }) {
  React.useEffect(() =&gt; {
    window.scrollTo(0, 0);
  }, [pathname]);

  return children;
}

export default withRouter(ScrollToTop);`}

The above code uses the withRouter Higher-order component to get the current pathname from the location props, and then it uses the useEffect Hook to scroll the page to the top whenever the pathname changes.

To use this ScrollToTop component, wrap it around the routes in your application.

{`import React from 'react';
import { BrowserRouter as Router, Route } from 'react-router-dom';
import ScrollToTop from './ScrollToTop';

function App() {
  return (
    &lt;Router&gt;
      &lt;ScrollToTop&gt;
        &lt;Route exact path="/" component={Home} /&gt;
        &lt;Route path="/about" component={About} /&gt;
        &lt;Route path="/contact" component={Contact} /&gt;
      &lt;/ScrollToTop&gt;
    &lt;/Router&gt;
  );
}

export default App;`}

The ScrollToTop component will now automatically scroll the page to the top whenever the user navigates to a new route in the application, providing a seamless user experience.

Hooking the Scroll to Top Functionality with Route Change: Using React Router

When building a React application with multiple pages, it’s essential to have a smooth user experience. One way to achieve this is by incorporating a scroll-to-top functionality when the user navigates to a new page or route.

Using React Router, we can hook into the history object to detect when the user navigates to a new route. We can then use the window.scrollTo() method to scroll to the top of the page.

Here’s an example of how we can implement this functionality as a custom hook:

import { useEffect } from 'react';
import { useLocation } from 'react-router-dom';

function useScrollToTop() {
  const { pathname } = useLocation();

  useEffect(() =&gt; {
    window.scrollTo(0, 0);
  }, [pathname]);
}

export default useScrollToTop;

We can then use this custom hook in our components to automatically scroll to the top of the page whenever the user navigates to a new route:

import React from 'react';
import { Router, Route } from 'react-router-dom';
import useScrollToTop from './useScrollToTop';

function App() {
  return (
    &lt;Router&gt;
      &lt;Route path="/" exact&gt;
        &lt;Home /&gt;
      &lt;/Route&gt;
      &lt;Route path="/about" exact&gt;
        &lt;About /&gt;
      &lt;/Route&gt;
    &lt;/Router&gt;
  );
}

function Home() {
  useScrollToTop();

  return (
    &lt;div&gt;
      &lt;h1&gt;Home&lt;/h1&gt;
      &lt;p&gt;Welcome to the home page.&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/div&gt;
  );
}

function About() {
  useScrollToTop();

  return (
    &lt;div&gt;
      &lt;h1&gt;About&lt;/h1&gt;
      &lt;p&gt;Learn more about us.&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/div&gt;
  );
}

With this implementation, we can ensure that our users always have a smooth and seamless experience when navigating through our React application.

Testing the Scroll to Top on Route Change: Validating the Functionality

When implementing a React app with multiple routes, it is important to provide a smooth user experience when navigating between pages. This includes ensuring that the user is automatically scrolled to the top of the page on route change.

To validate the functionality of the scroll to top feature, we can create a test case where we simulate a route change and ensure that the page scrolls to the top.

One way to achieve this is by using a fake component that simply renders a <div> element and listens to the scroll event. When this event is triggered, we can update the component state to indicate that scrolling has occurred.


  const ScrollTest = () => {
    const [scrolled, setScrolled] = useState(false);

    useEffect(() => {
      window.scrollTo(0, 0);
      setScrolled(true);
    }, []);

    return (
      
        {!scrolled && Scrolling...}
        {scrolled && Scrolled to top!}
      
    );
  };

We can then add this component to our test suite and simulate a route change:

  import { render, screen } from "@testing-library/react";
  import { MemoryRouter, Route } from "react-router-dom";
  import ScrollTest from "./ScrollTest";

  test("scrolls to top on route change", () =&gt; {
    render(
      &lt;MemoryRouter initialEntries={["/path"]} initialIndex={0}&gt;
        &lt;Route path="/path"&gt;&lt;ScrollTest /&gt;&lt;/Route&gt;
        &lt;Route path="/other"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other Page&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/Route&gt;
      &lt;/MemoryRouter&gt;
    );

    // Wait for scroll to occur
    const scrollSuccess = screen.getByText("Scrolled to top!");
    expect(scrollSuccess).toBeInTheDocument();
  });

If the test passes, we can be confident that the scroll to top feature is working as expected and providing a seamless user experience for our React app.

Advanced Features: Adding Animations and Customizing the Scroll to Top Functionality

With the React Scroll to Top package, you can not only achieve basic functionality of scrolling to the top of the page on route change, but you can also add animations and customize the scroll to top functionality to fit the needs of your project.

One way to add animations to the scroll to top functionality is by using CSS transitions or animations. You can add classes to the ScrollTop component to trigger these animations on scroll to top.

Additionally, you can customize the behavior of the ScrollTop component by passing in props. For example, you can change the position and styling of the scroll button, as well as adjust the speed and smoothness of the scroll animation.

By utilizing these advanced features, you can create a more seamless and visually appealing user experience for your website or application.

Conclusion: Summary and Final Thoughts on React Scroll to Top on Route Change

After discussing the implementation of React Scroll to Top on Route Change, we can conclude that it is an essential feature for single-page applications. This feature ensures a seamless scrolling experience for users when switching between pages.

React Scroll to Top on Route Change can be easily implemented using the ‘react-router-scroll-top’ package and can be customized to fit specific design requirements. It is also important to note that this feature can significantly enhance user experience and improve the overall performance of your application.

Overall, React Scroll to Top on Route Change is a powerful tool that should be considered when developing a single-page application, and we highly recommend its integration.