Migrating From IonSlides to Swiper.js
We recommend Swiper.js if you need a modern touch slider component. It powers our IonSlides component, but we now recommend that developers use Swiper for React directly.
This guide will go over how to get Swiper for React set up in your Ionic Framework application. It will also go over any migration information you may need to move from IonSlides to the official Swiper React integration.
Swiper's React component is set to be removed in a future release of Swiper, with Swiper Element as the replacement. However, this guide shows how to migrate to the React component because it provides the most stable experience at the time of writing. Notably, React does not have strong support for Web Components yet.
Using Swiper's React component is not required to use Swiper.js with Ionic Framework.
Getting Started
First, update to the latest version of Ionic:
npm install @ionic/react@latest @ionic/react-router@latest
Once that is done, install the Swiper dependency in your project:
npm install swiper@latest
Developers using Create React App must use react-scripts v5.0.0+ with the latest version of Swiper.
Swiping with Style
Next, we need to import the base Swiper styles. We are also going to import the styles that Ionic provides which will let us customize the Swiper styles using the same CSS Variables that we used with IonSlides.
We recommend importing the styles in the component in which Swiper is being used. This ensures that the styles are only loaded when needed:
import React from 'react';
import { IonContent, IonPage } from '@ionic/react';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from 'swiper/react';
import 'swiper/css';
import '@ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css';
const Home: React.FC = () => {
return (
...
);
};
export default Home;
Importing @ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css is not required to use Swiper.js with Ionic. This files is used for backward-compatibility with the IonSlides component and can be safely omitted if you prefer not to use the CSS Variables provided in the stylesheet.
Updating Selectors
Previously, we were able to target ion-slides and ion-slide to apply any custom styling. The contents of those style blocks remain the same, but we need to update the selectors. Below is a list of selector changes when going from ion-slides to Swiper React:
| ion-slides Selector | Swiper Selector |
|---|---|
ion-slides | .swiper |
ion-slide | .swiper-slide |
Pre-processors (optional)
For developers using SCSS or Less styles, Swiper also provides imports for those files.
For Less styles, replace css with less in the Swiper import path:
import React from 'react';
import { IonContent, IonPage } from '@ionic/react';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from 'swiper/react';
import 'swiper/less';
import '@ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css';
const Home: React.FC = () => {
return (
...
);
};
export default Home;
For SCSS styles replace css with scss in the Swiper import path:
import React from 'react';
import { IonContent, IonPage } from '@ionic/react';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from 'swiper/react';
import 'swiper/scss';
import '@ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css';
const Home: React.FC = () => {
return (
...
);
};
export default Home;
Using Components
Swiper exports two components: Swiper and SwiperSlide. The Swiper component is the equivalent of IonSlides, and SwiperSlide is the equivalent of IonSlide.
These components are imported from swiper/react:
import React from 'react';
import { IonContent, IonPage } from '@ionic/react';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from 'swiper/react';
import 'swiper/css';
import '@ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css';
const Home: React.FC = () => {
return (
<IonPage>
<IonContent>
<Swiper>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 1</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 2</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 3</SwiperSlide>
</Swiper>
</IonContent>
</IonPage>
);
};
export default Home;
Using Modules
By default, Swiper for React does not import any additional modules. To use modules such as Navigation or Pagination, you need to import them first.
IonSlides automatically included the Pagination, Scrollbar, Autoplay, Keyboard, and Zoom modules. This part of the guide will show you how to install these modules.
To begin, we need to import the modules and their corresponding CSS files from the swiper package:
import React from 'react';
import { IonContent, IonPage } from '@ionic/react';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from 'swiper/react';
import { Autoplay, Keyboard, Pagination, Scrollbar, Zoom } from 'swiper';
import 'swiper/css';
import 'swiper/css/autoplay';
import 'swiper/css/keyboard';
import 'swiper/css/pagination';
import 'swiper/css/scrollbar';
import 'swiper/css/zoom';
import '@ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css';
const Home: React.FC = () => {
return (
<IonPage>
<IonContent>
<Swiper>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 1</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 2</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 3</SwiperSlide>
</Swiper>
</IonContent>
</IonPage>
);
};
export default Home;
From here, we need to provide these modules to Swiper by using the modules property on the Swiper component:
import React from 'react';
import { IonContent, IonPage } from '@ionic/react';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from 'swiper/react';
import { Autoplay, Keyboard, Pagination, Scrollbar, Zoom } from 'swiper';
import 'swiper/css';
import 'swiper/css/autoplay';
import 'swiper/css/keyboard';
import 'swiper/css/pagination';
import 'swiper/css/scrollbar';
import 'swiper/css/zoom';
import '@ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css';
const Home: React.FC = () => {
return (
<IonPage>
<IonContent>
<Swiper modules={[Autoplay, Keyboard, Pagination, Scrollbar, Zoom]}>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 1</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 2</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 3</SwiperSlide>
</Swiper>
</IonContent>
</IonPage>
);
};
export default Home;
Finally, we can turn these features on by using the appropriate properties:
import React from 'react';
import { IonContent, IonPage } from '@ionic/react';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from 'swiper/react';
import { Autoplay, Keyboard, Pagination, Scrollbar, Zoom } from 'swiper';
import 'swiper/css';
import 'swiper/css/autoplay';
import 'swiper/css/keyboard';
import 'swiper/css/pagination';
import 'swiper/css/scrollbar';
import 'swiper/css/zoom';
import '@ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css';
const Home: React.FC = () => {
return (
<IonPage>
<IonContent>
<Swiper
modules={[Autoplay, Keyboard, Pagination, Scrollbar, Zoom]}
autoplay={true}
keyboard={true}
pagination={true}
scrollbar={true}
zoom={true}
>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 1</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 2</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 3</SwiperSlide>
</Swiper>
</IonContent>
</IonPage>
);
};
export default Home;
See https://swiperjs.com/react#usage for a full list of modules.
The IonicSlides Module
With IonSlides, Ionic automatically customized dozens of Swiper properties. This resulted in an experience that felt smooth when swiping on mobile devices. We recommend using the IonicSlides module to ensure that these properties are also set when using Swiper directly. However, using this module is not required to use Swiper.js in Ionic.
It is recommended to review the properties set by IonicSlides and determine which ones you would like to customize.
We can install the IonicSlides module by importing it from @ionic/react and passing it in as the last item in the modules array:
import React from 'react';
import { IonContent, IonPage, IonicSlides } from '@ionic/react';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from 'swiper/react';
import { Autoplay, Keyboard, Pagination, Scrollbar, Zoom } from 'swiper';
import 'swiper/css';
import 'swiper/css/autoplay';
import 'swiper/css/keyboard';
import 'swiper/css/pagination';
import 'swiper/css/scrollbar';
import 'swiper/css/zoom';
import '@ionic/react/css/ionic-swiper.css';
const Home: React.FC = () => {
return (
<IonPage>
<IonContent>
<Swiper
modules={[Autoplay, Keyboard, Pagination, Scrollbar, Zoom, IonicSlides]}
autoplay={true}
keyboard={true}
pagination={true}
scrollbar={true}
zoom={true}
>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 1</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 2</SwiperSlide>
<SwiperSlide>Slide 3</SwiperSlide>
</Swiper>
</IonContent>
</IonPage>
);
};
export default Home;
The IonicSlides module must be the last module in the array. This will let it automatically customize the settings of modules such as Pagination, Scrollbar, Zoom, and more.