React Native Vector Image

iOS/Android native vector assets generated from SVG.

• Faster render – ~5x faster than react-native-svg.
• Smaller JS bundle = faster startup.
• Native support for dark mode.
• Web support for Expo.

Installation

yarn add react-native-vector-image

Android

Edit android/app/build.gradle to look like this (without the +):

apply plugin: "com.android.application"
apply plugin: "org.jetbrains.kotlin.android"
apply plugin: "com.facebook.react"
+ apply from: "../../node_modules/react-native-vector-image/strip_svgs.gradle"

iOS

Open your project in Xcode, select the Build Phases tab, and edit the Bundle React Native code and images script to look like this (without the +):

set -e

WITH_ENVIRONMENT="$REACT_NATIVE_PATH/scripts/xcode/with-environment.sh"
REACT_NATIVE_XCODE="$REACT_NATIVE_PATH/scripts/react-native-xcode.sh"

/bin/sh -c "$WITH_ENVIRONMENT $REACT_NATIVE_XCODE"
+ ../node_modules/react-native-vector-image/strip_svgs.sh

Expo

After installing this npm package, add the config plugin to the plugins array of your app.json or app.config.js:

{
  "expo": {
    "plugins": ["react-native-vector-image"]
  }
}

Next, rebuild your app as described in the "Adding custom native code" guide.

Options

{
  "expo": {
    "plugins": [
      [
        "react-native-vector-image",
        {
          // These are default options, change if you want a different value:
          "stripSvgs": false, // if true, svgs will be removed from bundle. expo-updates package crashes when svgs it expects in the bundle are not there
          "metroConfigFile": "metro.config.js",
          "resetCache": false,
          "bundleWithExpo": true,
          "entryFile": "index.ts"
        }
      ]
    ]
  }
}

Shout out to zamplyy for making the first version of the Expo plugin.

Usage

Since native vector assets cannot be served over http via metro dev server, they must be generated and compiled into the app bundle.

Step 1: import an .svg file

import VectorImage from 'react-native-vector-image';

const App = () => <VectorImage source={require('./image.svg')} />;

To add dark mode to your image, create a new file with an .dark.svg extension, ie image.svg = light and image.dark.svg = dark.

Step 2: generate native assets

This takes a while as metro has to go through all the code to find the imported SVGs.

Note: for Expo just use the plugin and npx expo prebuild.

yarn react-native-vector-image generate

Argument	Description	Default
--entry-file	Path to the app entrypoint file.	index.js
--config	Path to the metro config file.	metro.config.js
--reset-cache	Reset metro cache before extracting SVG assets.	false
--bundle-with-expo	Whether to bundle the app with Expo presets or using metro directly.	false
--ios-output	Path to an iOS .xcassets folder.	ios/AppName/Images.xcassets
--no-ios-output	Disable iOS output.	false
--android-output	Path to an Android res folder.	android/app/src/main/res
--no-android-output	Disable Android output.	false
--current-color	Replace any currentColor color references in SVGs.	#000000
--current-color-dark	Replace any currentColor color references in .dark.svg SVGs.	#ffffff

Step 3: recompile

yarn react-native run-ios
# or
yarn react-native run-android

Optional: using source/drawable

If you need to use the underlying image source/drawable you can use the VectorImage.resolveAssetSource method, for example with Expo's native tabs:

const iconSource = VectorImage.resolveAssetSource(require('./icon.svg'));

return (
  <NativeTabs.Trigger name="index">
    <Icon src={iconSource} drawable={iconSource.uri} />
  </NativeTabs.Trigger>
);

Troubleshooting

generate command outputs "Error while parsing image.svg"

Some optimizations applied by SVGO are not compatible with the SVG parser on Android. Try to re-export the SVG without optimizing it.

<VectorImage /> warns "Could not find image"

It means that the native vector asset does not exist or is out of sync with the SVG. Simply generate the files and recompile the app.

the generate command does not generate any new assets

Make sure your image component is used (imported) somewhere in your code, otherwise the asset generator won't find it.

License

MIT License. © Joel Arvidsson 2021

svg2vd: MIT © 2020 Shopify