Use Tailwind CSS in React Native projects

tailwind-rn

Use Tailwind in React Native projects

All styles are generated directly from Tailwind's output, so they're always up-to-date.

  • JIT mode
  • Responsive breakpoints (e.g. sm, md, lg)
  • Dark mode
  • Custom configuration

Migrating from v3.x?

Install

$ npm install tailwind-rn

Getting Started

Run the following command to automatically add tailwind-rn to your React Native project:

$ npx setup-tailwind-rn

It will do most of the setup for you, but you'll have to follow a few more instructions from setup-tailwind-rn to finish the process.

Manual setup
  1. Install tailwind-rn.
$ npm install tailwind-rn
  1. Install Tailwind and concurrently.
$ npm install --save-dev tailwindcss concurrently
  1. Create Tailwind config and necessary files.
$ npx tailwindcss init
$ echo '@tailwind utilities;' > input.css

These commands will create the following files:

  • tailwind.config.js - Tailwind configuration file.
  • input.css - Entrypoint for Tailwind compiler. It's required to override the output of Tailwind, so that it doesn't generate CSS for resetting browser styles, which will cause tailwind-rn to fail.

Make sure to configure content part of the config in tailwind.config.js to point to your JavaScript files to speed up compilation.

  1. Add scripts to build Tailwind styles in package.json.
{
	"scripts": {
+		"build:tailwind": "tailwindcss --input input.css --output tailwind.css --no-autoprefixer && tailwind-rn",
+		"dev:tailwind": "concurrently "tailwindcss --input input.css --output tailwind.css --no-autoprefixer --watch" "tailwind-rn --watch"
	}
}
  1. Build Tailwind styles in watch mode.
$ npm run dev:tailwind

After styles are built, you'll see two more files:

  • tailwind.css - CSS generated by Tailwind.
  • tailwind.json - The same CSS, but converted into JSON, so that tailwind-rn can understand it.
  1. Import TailwindProvider and tailwind.json in the root of your app and wrap the root of your app with it:
import {TailwindProvider} from 'tailwind-rn';
import utilities from './tailwind.json';

const App = () => (
	<TailwindProvider utilities={utilities}>
		<MyComponent />
	</TailwindProvider>
);

export default App;
  1. Use Tailwind in React Native!
import {useTailwind} from 'tailwind-rn';

const MyComponent = () => {
	const tailwind = useTailwind();

	return <Text style={tailwind('text-blue-600')}>Hello world</Text>;
};

Usage

Use useTailwind React hook and apply any of the supported utilities from Tailwind in your React Native views.

import React from 'react';
import {SafeAreaView, View, Text} from 'react-native';
import {useTailwind} from 'tailwind-rn';

const Hello = () => {
	const tailwind = useTailwind();

	return (
		<SafeAreaView style={tailwind('h-full')}>
			<View style={tailwind('pt-12 items-center')}>
				<View style={tailwind('bg-blue-200 px-3 py-1 rounded-full')}>
					<Text style={tailwind('text-blue-800 font-semibold')}>
						Hello Tailwind
					</Text>
				</View>
			</View>
		</SafeAreaView>
	);
};

export default Hello;

tailwind function returns a simple object with styles, which can be used in any React Native view, such as <View>, <Text> and others.

tailwind('pt-12 items-center');
//=> {
//     paddingTop: 48,
//     alignItems: 'center'
//   }

CLI

$ tailwind-rn --help

  Use Tailwind CSS in React Native projects

  Usage
    $ tailwind-rn [options]

  Options
    -i, --input    Path to CSS file that Tailwind generates (default: tailwind.css)
    -o, --output   Output file (default: tailwind.json)
    -w, --watch    Watch for changes and rebuild as needed

Run tailwind-rn CLI to transform the CSS generated by Tailwind into a JSON file that can be consumed by TailwindProvider. Add --watch flag to watch for changes and build styles continuously, which is useful for development.

API

TailwindProvider

utilities

Type: object

Parsed JSON object of styles generated by tailwind-rn CLI stored in tailwind.json by default.

import {TailwindProvider} from 'tailwind-rn';
import utilities from './tailwind.json';

const App = () => (
	<TailwindProvider utilities={utilities}>
		<MyComponent />
	</TailwindProvider>
);

useTailwind

React hook, which returns a tailwind function, that accepts a string with class names. This function returns an object of styles, which can be applied to a React Native view via style property.

Note: Add TailwindProvider above the component where you're using this hook.

import {useTailwind} from 'tailwind-rn';

const MyComponent = () => {
	const tailwind = useTailwind();

	return <Text style={tailwind('text-blue-600')}>Hello world</Text>;
};

Supported Utilities

Modifiers

Layout

Flexbox

Spacing

Sizing

Typography

Backgrounds

Borders

Effects

Interactivity

GitHub

https://github.com/vadimdemedes/tailwind-rn