Implement @mention in TextInput

Question

How can I implement @mention in react native's TextInput?

I've tried this react-native-mention but it is not being maintained anymore. There are so many styling issues and callback issues.

What I want is to display custom view inside TextInput. Something like this.

And after tapping on the list I want to display like this:

So far I am able to achieve:

When I type '@' in TextInput user list appear.

And when I tap on user I get username in TextInput

Code:

   renderSuggestionsRow() {
      return this.props.stackUsers.map((item, index) => {
         return (
            <TouchableOpacity key={`index-${index}`} onPress={() => this.onSuggestionTap(item.label)}>
               <View style={styles.suggestionsRowContainer}>
                  <View style={styles.userIconBox}>
                     <Text style={styles.usernameInitials}>{!!item.label && item.label.substring(0, 2).toUpperCase()}</Text>
                  </View>
                  <View style={styles.userDetailsBox}>
                     <Text style={styles.displayNameText}>{item.label}</Text>
                     <Text style={styles.usernameText}>@{item.label}</Text>
                  </View>
               </View>
            </TouchableOpacity>
         )
      });
   }

   onSuggestionTap(username) {
      this.setState({
         comment: this.state.comment.slice(0, this.state.comment.indexOf('@')) + '#'+username,
         active: false
      });
   }

   handleChatText(value) {
      if(value.includes('@')) {
         if(value.match(/@/g).length > 0) {
            this.setState({active: true});
         }
      } else {
         this.setState({active: false});
      }
      this.setState({comment: value});
   }
render() {
      const {comments} = this.state;
      return (
         <View style={styles.container}>
            {
               this.state.active ?
               <View style={{ marginLeft: 20}}>
                  {this.renderSuggestionsRow()}
               </View> : null
            }
            <View style={{ height: 55}}/>
            <View style={styles.inputContainer}>
               <TextInput
                  style={styles.inputChat}
                  onChangeText={(value) => this.handleChatText(value)}
               >
                  {comment}
               </TextInput>

               <TouchableOpacity style={styles.inputIcon} onPress={() => this.addComment()}>
                  <Icon type='FontAwesome' name='send-o' style={{fontSize: 16, color: '#FFF'}}/>
               </TouchableOpacity>
            </View>
         </View>
      );
   }

Answer 1

One simple solution would be to use react-native-parsed-text. Here is an example:

import * as React from "react";
import { Text, View, StyleSheet } from 'react-native';
import ParsedText from 'react-native-parsed-text';

const userNameRegEx = new RegExp(/@([\w\d.\-_]+)?/g);
export default class Example extends React.Component {

  handleNamePress = (name) => {
    alert("Pressed username " + name);
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <ParsedText
          style={styles.text}
          parse={
            [
              {pattern: userNameRegEx, style: styles.username, onPress: this.handleNamePress},
            ]
          }
          childrenProps={{allowFontScaling: false}}
        >
          This is  a text with @someone mentioned!
        </ParsedText>
      </View>
    );
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    alignItems: 'center',
    backgroundColor: '#F5FCFF',
  },
  text: {
    color: 'black',
    fontSize: 15,
  },
  username: {
    color: 'white',
    fontWeight: 'bold',
    backgroundColor: "purple",
    paddingHorizontal: 4,
    paddingBottom: 2,
    borderRadius: 4,
  },
});

However, this library doesn't support rendering custom views. The example above is achieved by just pure styling. If you need a custom view you need to implement something yourself. For a long time, it wasn't possible to render arbitrary components embedded inside a text-components. However, this has changed now afaik and we can do stuff like this:

<Text>Hello I am an example <View style={{ height: 25, width: 25, backgroundColor: "blue"}}></View> with an arbitrary view!</Text>

Check both code examples here: https://snack.expo.io/@hannojg/restless-salsa

One important note: You can render the output of the ParsedText or your own custom component inside the TextInput, like this:

<TextInput
 ...
>
  <ParsedText
   ...
  >
    {inputValue}
  </ParsedText>
</TextInput>