Tab View inside Navigation Drawer / Sidebar with React Navigation V6

Tab View + Navigation Drawer

This is an example of Tab View inside Navigation Drawer / Sidebar with React Navigation in React Native. We will use react-navigation to make a navigation drawer and Tab in this example. I hope you have already seen our post on React Native Navigation Drawer because in this post we are just extending the last post to show the Tab View inside the Navigation Drawer.

In this example, we have a navigation drawer with 3 screens in the navigation menu and a Tab View on the first screen of the Navigation Drawer. When we open Screen1 the Tab will be visible and on the other options, this Tab will be invisible.

To Create a Drawer Navigator

<NavigationContainer>
  <Drawer.Navigator>
    <Drawer.Screen
      name="HomeScreenStack"
      options={{ drawerLabel: 'Home Screen Option' }}
      component={HomeScreenStack} />
    <Drawer.Screen
      name="SettingScreenStack"
      options={{ drawerLabel: 'Setting Screen Option' }}
      component={SettingScreenStack} />
  </Drawer.Navigator>
</NavigationContainer>

To Create Material Top Tab Navigator

<Tab.Navigator initialRouteName="HomeScreen">
  <Tab.Screen
    name="HomeScreen"
    component={HomeScreen}
    options={{tabBarLabel: 'Home Screen'}}  />
  <Tab.Screen
    name="ExploreScreen"
    component={ExploreScreen}
    options={{tabBarLabel: 'Explore Screen'}} />
</Tab.Navigator>

In this example, we will make a Tab Navigator inside a Drawer Navigator 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 command line interface to make our React Native App.

If you have previously installed a global react-native-cli package, please remove it as it may cause unexpected issues:

npm uninstall -g react-native-cli @react-native-community/cli

Run the following commands to create a new React Native project

npx react-native init ProjectName

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

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

Note If the above command is failing, you may have old version of react-native or react-native-cli installed globally on your pc. Try uninstalling the cli and run the cli using npx.

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-screens and react-native-safe-area-context

npm install react-native-screens react-native-safe-area-context --save

react-native-screens package requires one additional configuration step to properly work on Android devices. Edit MainActivity.java file which is located in android/app/src/main/java/<your package name>/MainActivity.java.

Add the following code to the body of MainActivity class:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onCreate(null);
}

and make sure to add the following import statement at the top of this file below your package statement:

import android.os.Bundle;

This change is required to avoid crashes related to View state being not persisted consistently across Activity restarts.
3. For the Drawer Navigator install

npm install @react-navigation/drawer --save

4. Now we need to install and configure install react-native-gesture-handler and react-native-reanimated libraries that is required by the drawer navigator:

npm install react-native-gesture-handler react-native-reanimated --save

To configure react-native-reanimated add Reanimated’s Babel plugin to your babel.config.js (Reanimated plugin has to be listed last.)

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    ...
  ],
  plugins: [
    ... ,
    'react-native-reanimated/plugin'
  ],
};

To configure 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 file, such as index.js or App.js

import 'react-native-gesture-handler';

Note: If you are building for Android or iOS, do not skip this step, or your app may crash in production even if it works fine in development. This is not applicable to other platforms.

5. For the  Tab Navigator install

npm install @react-navigation/material-top-tabs react-native-tab-view react-native-pager-view --save

6. These steps are enough for the drawer navigation and Tab but in this example, we are also moving between screens so we will also need Stack Navigator

npm install @react-navigation/native-stack --save

CocoaPods Installation

Please use the following command to install CocoaPods

npx pod-install

Project Structure

To start with this example you need to create a directory named pages in your project and create three files ExploreScreen.js, HomeScreen.js, and SettingScreen.js.

Code

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

App.js

// Tab View inside Navigation Drawer
// https://aboutreact.com/tab-view-inside-navigation-drawer-sidebar-with-react-navigation/

import 'react-native-gesture-handler';

import * as React from 'react';

import {NavigationContainer} from '@react-navigation/native';
import {createNativeStackNavigator} from '@react-navigation/native-stack';
import {createDrawerNavigator} from '@react-navigation/drawer';
import {createMaterialTopTabNavigator} from '@react-navigation/material-top-tabs';

import HomeScreen from './pages/HomeScreen';
import ExploreScreen from './pages/ExploreScreen';
import SettingScreen from './pages/SettingScreen';

const Stack = createNativeStackNavigator();
const Drawer = createDrawerNavigator();
const Tab = createMaterialTopTabNavigator();

const TabStack = () => {
  return (
    <Tab.Navigator
      initialRouteName="HomeScreen"
      screenOptions={{
        tabBarActiveTintColor: '#FFFFFF',
        tabBarInactiveTintColor: '#F8F8F8',
        tabBarStyle: {
          backgroundColor: '#f4511e',
        },
        tabBarIndicatorStyle: {
          borderBottomColor: '#87B56A',
          borderBottomWidth: 2,
        },
      }}>
      <Tab.Screen
        name="HomeScreen"
        component={HomeScreen}
        options={{
          tabBarLabel: 'Home Screen',
          /*tabBarIcon: ({color, size}) => (
            <MaterialCommunityIcons
             name="home"
             color={color}
             size={size}
            />
          ),*/
        }}
      />
      <Tab.Screen
        name="ExploreScreen"
        component={ExploreScreen}
        options={{
          tabBarLabel: 'Explore Screen',
          /*tabBarIcon: ({color, size}) => (
            <MaterialCommunityIcons
             name="settings"
             color={color}
             size={size}
            />
          ),*/
        }}
      />
    </Tab.Navigator>
  );
};

const HomeScreenStack = () => {
  return (
    <Stack.Navigator screenOptions={{headerShown: false}}>
      <Stack.Screen name="TabStack" component={TabStack} />
    </Stack.Navigator>
  );
};

const SettingScreenStack = () => {
  return (
    <Stack.Navigator screenOptions={{headerShown: false}}>
      <Stack.Screen name="SettingScreen" component={SettingScreen} />
    </Stack.Navigator>
  );
};

const App = () => {
  return (
    <NavigationContainer>
      <Drawer.Navigator
        screenOptions={{
          headerStyle: {
            backgroundColor: '#f4511e', //Set Header color
          },
          headerTintColor: '#fff', //Set Header text color
        }}>
        <Drawer.Screen
          name="HomeScreenStack"
          options={{
            drawerLabel: 'Home Screen Option',
            title: 'Home Screen',
          }}
          component={HomeScreenStack}
        />
        <Drawer.Screen
          name="SettingScreenStack"
          options={{
            drawerLabel: 'Setting Screen Option',
            title: 'Setting Screen',
          }}
          component={SettingScreenStack}
        />
      </Drawer.Navigator>
    </NavigationContainer>
  );
};

export default App;

HomeScreen.js

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

// Tab View inside Navigation Drawer
// https://aboutreact.com/tab-view-inside-navigation-drawer-sidebar-with-react-navigation/

import * as React from 'react';
import {Button, View, Text, SafeAreaView} from 'react-native';

const HomeScreen = ({navigation}) => {
  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={{flex: 1}}>
      <View style={{flex: 1, padding: 16}}>
        <View
          style={{
            flex: 1,
            alignItems: 'center',
            justifyContent: 'center',
          }}>
          <Text
            style={{
              fontSize: 25,
              textAlign: 'center',
              marginBottom: 16,
            }}>
            Home Screen
          </Text>
          <Button
            onPress={() => navigation.navigate('SettingScreenStack')}
            title="Go to Setting Screen"
          />
          <Button
            onPress={() => navigation.navigate('ExploreScreen')}
            title="Go to Explore Screen"
          />
        </View>
        <Text
          style={{
            fontSize: 18,
            textAlign: 'center',
            color: 'grey'
          }}>
          React Navigate Drawer with Top Tab
        </Text>
        <Text
          style={{
            fontSize: 16,
            textAlign: 'center',
            color: 'grey'
          }}>
          www.aboutreact.com
        </Text>
      </View>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
};

export default HomeScreen;

ExploreScreen.js

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

// Tab View inside Navigation Drawer
// https://aboutreact.com/tab-view-inside-navigation-drawer-sidebar-with-react-navigation/

import * as React from 'react';
import {Button, View, Text, SafeAreaView} from 'react-native';

const ExploreScreen = ({navigation}) => {
  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={{flex: 1}}>
      <View style={{flex: 1, padding: 16}}>
        <View
          style={{
            flex: 1,
            alignItems: 'center',
            justifyContent: 'center',
          }}>
          <Text
            style={{
              fontSize: 25,
              textAlign: 'center',
              marginBottom: 16,
            }}>
            Explore Screen
          </Text>
          <Button
            onPress={() => navigation.navigate('SettingScreen')}
            title="Go to Setting Screen"
          />
          <Button
            onPress={() => navigation.navigate('HomeScreen')}
            title="Go to Home Screen"
          />
        </View>
        <Text
          style={{
            fontSize: 18,
            textAlign: 'center',
            color: 'grey'
          }}>
          React Navigate Drawer with Top Tab
        </Text>
        <Text
          style={{
            fontSize: 16,
            textAlign: 'center',
            color: 'grey'
          }}>
          www.aboutreact.com
        </Text>
      </View>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
};

export default ExploreScreen;

SettingScreen.js

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

// Tab View inside Navigation Drawer
// https://aboutreact.com/tab-view-inside-navigation-drawer-sidebar-with-react-navigation/

import * as React from 'react';
import {Button, View, Text, SafeAreaView} from 'react-native';

const SettingScreen = ({navigation}) => {
  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={{flex: 1}}>
      <View style={{flex: 1, padding: 16}}>
        <View
          style={{
            flex: 1,
            alignItems: 'center',
            justifyContent: 'center',
          }}>
          <Text
            style={{
              fontSize: 25,
              textAlign: 'center',
              marginBottom: 16,
            }}>
            Setting Screen
          </Text>
          <Button
            onPress={() => navigation.navigate('HomeScreenStack')}
            title="Go to Home Stack"
          />
          <Button
            onPress={() => navigation.navigate('HomeScreen')}
            title="Go to Home Screen"
          />
          <Button
            onPress={() => navigation.navigate('ExploreScreen')}
            title="Go to Explore Screen"
          />
        </View>
        <Text
          style={{
            fontSize: 18,
            textAlign: 'center',
            color: 'grey'
          }}>
          React Navigate Drawer with Top Tab
        </Text>
        <Text
          style={{
            fontSize: 16,
            textAlign: 'center',
            color: 'grey'
          }}>
          www.aboutreact.com
        </Text>
      </View>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
};

export default SettingScreen;

To Run the React Native App

Open the terminal again and jump into your project using.

cd ProjectName

1. Start Metro Bundler

First, you will need to start Metro, the JavaScript bundler that ships with React Native. To start Metro bundler run following command

npx react-native start

Once you start Metro Bundler it will run forever on your terminal until you close it. Let Metro Bundler run in its own terminal. Open a new terminal and run the application.

2. Start React Native Application

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

npx react-native run-android

or on the iOS Simulator by running (macOS only)

npx react-native run-ios

Output Screenshots

This is how you can add Tab View inside Navigation Drawer / Sidebar with React Navigation in React Native. 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. 🙂