3 Ways to Hide Navigation Bar in React Native Application

3 Ways to Hide Navigation Bar

Here are the 3 Ways to Hide Navigation Bar in React Native Application. If you are making an application with a React Navigation StackNavigator, you can find a NavigationBar/ ActionBar on the top of the screen. If you are on the first screen of the StackNavigator it will show simple NavigationBar but if you navigate to the next screen then it will show you the back arrow to go back.

Sometimes you don’t want to have a navigation bar on the top of the screen so to hide the navigation bar we can use headerShown: false.

To hide the header here are the following options.

Options to Hide Navigation Bar

1. For the single screen, you can set headerShown: false in navigation options using useLayoutEffect hook

React.useLayoutEffect(() => {
  navigation.setOptions({headerShown: false});
}, [navigation]);

2. For the single screen, you can set headerShown:null in Stack.Screen

<Stack.Screen
  name="Home"
  component={HomeActivity}
  options={{headerShown: false}}
/>

3. Hide the header for all the screens in once using screenOptions in Stack.Navigator

<Stack.Navigator
  initialRouteName="HomeActivity"
  screenOptions={{headerShown: false}}
>
  <Stack.Screen>
    .......
  </Stack.Screen>
</Stack.Navigator>

If you want to hide the header dynamically on click of a button then you can visit our post on Hiding React Navigation Header on Press of a Button.

In this example, you can see how can you hide the header of any screen. Please find the comments to see how can you hide the header in different ways. We will use react-navigation to make the navigation bar on the top of the screen. So let’s get started.

To Make a React Native App

Getting started with React Native will help you to know more about the way you can make a React Native project. We are going to use react-native init to make our React Native App. Assuming that you have node installed, you can use npm to install the react-native-cli command line utility. Open the terminal and go to the workspace and run

npm install -g react-native-cli

Run the following commands to create a new React Native project

react-native init ProjectName

If you want to start a new project with a specific React Native version, you can use the --version argument:

react-native init ProjectName --version X.XX.X

react-native init ProjectName --version react-native@next

This will make a project structure with an index file named App.js in your project directory.

Installation of Dependencies

For navigation we need to add react-navigation and other supporting dependencies.

To install the dependencies open the terminal and jump into your project

cd ProjectName

1. Install react-navigation

npm install @react-navigation/native --save

2. Other supporting libraries react-native-gesture-handler, react-native-reanimated, react-native-screens and react-native-safe-area-context and @react-native-community/masked-view

npm install react-native-reanimated react-native-gesture-handler react-native-screens react-native-safe-area-context @react-native-community/masked-view --save

3. For the Stack Navigator install

npm install @react-navigation/stack --save

Note: When you use a navigator (such as stack navigator), you’ll need to follow the installation instructions of that navigator for any additional dependencies. If you’re getting an error “Unable to resolve module”, you need to install that module in your project.

You might get warnings related to peer dependencies after installation. They are usually caused by incorrect version ranges specified in some packages. You can safely ignore most warnings as long as your app builds.

CocoaPods Installation

Please use the following command to install CocoaPods

npx pod-install ios

To finalize the installation of react-native-gesture-handler, add the following at the top (make sure it’s at the top and there’s nothing else before it) of your entry files, such as index.js or App.js:

import 'react-native-gesture-handler';

Note: If you skip this step, your app may crash in production even if it works fine in development.

Project File Structure

To start coding you need to create a directory named pages in your project and create a file HomeActivity.js in it.

Code

Now open App.js in any code editor and replace the code with the following code

App.js

// 3 Ways to Hide Navigation Bar in React Native Application
// https://aboutreact.com/react-native-hide-navigation-bar-and-make-screen-full-screen/

import 'react-native-gesture-handler';

import React from 'react';

import {NavigationContainer} from '@react-navigation/native';
import {createStackNavigator} from '@react-navigation/stack';

import HomeActivity from './pages/HomeActivity';

const Stack = createStackNavigator();

const App = () => {
  return (
    <NavigationContainer>
      <Stack.Navigator
        initialRouteName="HomeActivity"
        //screenOptions={{headerShown: false}}
      >
        <Stack.Screen
          name="Home"
          component={HomeActivity}
          //options={{headerShown: false}}
        />
      </Stack.Navigator>
    </NavigationContainer>
  );
};

export default App;

Open pages/HomeActivity.js in any code editor and replace the code with the following code.

HomeActivity.js

// 3 Ways to Hide Navigation Bar in React Native Application
// https://aboutreact.com/react-native-hide-navigation-bar-and-make-screen-full-screen/

import React from 'react';
import {SafeAreaView, StyleSheet, Text, View} from 'react-native';

const HomeActivity = ({navigation, route}) => {
  React.useLayoutEffect(() => {
    navigation.setOptions({headerShown: false});
  }, [navigation]);

  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={{flex: 1, backgroundColor: 'white'}}>
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Text style={styles.header}>
          3 Ways to Hide Navigation Bar
          {'\n'}
          in React Native Application
        </Text>
      </View>
      <Text style={{textAlign: 'center', color: 'grey'}}>
        www.aboutreact.com
      </Text>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
};

export default HomeActivity;

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    alignItems: 'center',
    padding: 16,
  },
  header: {
    fontSize: 25,
    textAlign: 'center',
    marginVertical: 16,
  }
});

To Run the React Native App

Open the terminal again and jump into your project using.

cd ProjectName

To run the project on an Android Virtual Device or on real debugging device

react-native run-android

or on the iOS Simulator by running (macOS only)

react-native run-ios

Download Source Code

Output Screenshots

Output in Online Emulator

This is how you can hide Navigation Bar and make Screen Full Screen. If you have any doubts or you want to share something about the topic you can comment below or contact us here. There will be more posts coming soon. Stay tuned!

Hope you liked it. 🙂