Hide the arrows on mobile — touch-only scrolling on small screens
Open this on a phone, or flip on touch emulation in DevTools — the arrows disappear and swiping does all the work.
Edit this example live in Storybook
How the demo hides the arrows
LeftArrow and RightArrow are optional props — pass undefined and the slot isn’t rendered at all, so there’s nothing to hide with CSS and no buttons left in the tab order. The switch is a matchMedia(’(pointer: coarse)’) check in an effect: the server can’t know the pointer type, so the first paint is desktop-first with arrows in, and hydration removes them once a coarse pointer is confirmed. A change listener keeps it live — DevTools device emulation flips it without a reload.
What the story does on touch
The story’s useSwipe hook turns free panning into paging. The curried onTouchStart, onTouchMove and onTouchEnd props each receive the API object; start resets the end coordinate and records targetTouches[0].clientX, move tracks it, and end measures the travelled distance. Past minSwipeDistance (20px) it calls apiObj.scrollPrev() or apiObj.scrollNext() — one smooth page per swipe, whatever the finger’s speed.
Suppressing native touch scrolling
For paging to be the only motion, the browser’s own panning has to stop, and React 18+ registers touchmove listeners as passive, where preventDefault is ignored. The story’s effect reaches the real scroll element through apiRef (ref.current.scrollContainer.current) and attaches its own listener with { passive: false }, where the call works.
Notes
- Pick the SSR default deliberately: rendering arrows first favors crawlers and desktop users, and touch devices lose them right after hydration.
(pointer: coarse)targets the input, not the screen size — a narrow desktop window keeps its arrows, a tablet doesn’t.- If you only want to hide arrows and keep native swiping (the demo’s behavior), skip the story’s
touchmoveeffect — free panning and hidden arrows coexist fine. - The touch threshold is 20px versus the 50px of the desktop flick — see the swipe-on-desktop example for the mouse variant.
Full source
Complete and copy-paste ready — this is the exact file behind the live-editable Storybook version.
import 'react-horizontal-scrolling-menu/dist/styles.css';
import styled from '@emotion/styled';
import React from 'react';
import {
type publicApiType,
ScrollMenu,
VisibilityContext,
} from 'react-horizontal-scrolling-menu';
export function MobileSwipeOnly() {
const [items] = React.useState(() => getItems());
const [selected, setSelected] = React.useState<string[]>([]);
const isItemSelected = (id: string): boolean =>
!!selected.find((el) => el === id);
const handleItemClick = (itemId: string) => {
const itemSelected = isItemSelected(itemId);
setSelected((currentSelected: string[]) =>
itemSelected
? currentSelected.filter((el) => el !== itemId)
: currentSelected.concat(itemId),
);
};
const { onTouchEnd, onTouchMove, onTouchStart } = useSwipe();
const ref = React.useRef<publicApiType>(null);
// React 18+ attaches touchmove listeners as passive, so preventDefault only
// works from a non-passive listener added manually to the scroll container.
React.useEffect(() => {
const onTouchMove = (ev: TouchEvent) => {
ev.preventDefault();
};
const node = ref.current?.scrollContainer.current;
node?.addEventListener('touchmove', onTouchMove, { passive: false });
return () => node?.removeEventListener('touchmove', onTouchMove);
}, [ref]);
return (
<NoScrollbar>
<ScrollMenu
LeftArrow={LeftArrow}
RightArrow={RightArrow}
onWheel={onWheel}
onTouchEnd={onTouchEnd}
onTouchMove={onTouchMove}
onTouchStart={onTouchStart}
apiRef={ref}
>
{items.map(({ id }) => (
<Card
title={id}
itemId={id} // NOTE: itemId is required for track items
key={id}
onClick={() => handleItemClick(id)}
selected={isItemSelected(id)}
/>
))}
</ScrollMenu>
</NoScrollbar>
);
}
export default MobileSwipeOnly;
export const useSwipe = () => {
const [touchStart, setTouchStart] = React.useState(0);
const [touchEnd, setTouchEnd] = React.useState(0);
// the required distance between touchStart and touchEnd to be detected as a swipe
const minSwipeDistance = 20;
const onTouchStart = () => (ev: React.TouchEvent) => {
setTouchEnd(0);
setTouchStart(ev.targetTouches[0].clientX);
};
const onTouchMove = () => (ev: React.TouchEvent) => {
setTouchEnd(ev.targetTouches[0].clientX);
};
const onTouchEnd = (apiObj: publicApiType) => () => {
if (!touchStart || !touchEnd) return false;
const distance = touchStart - touchEnd;
const isSwipe = Math.abs(distance) > minSwipeDistance;
const isLeftSwipe = distance < minSwipeDistance;
if (isSwipe) {
if (isLeftSwipe) {
apiObj.scrollPrev();
} else {
apiObj.scrollNext();
}
}
};
return { onTouchStart, onTouchEnd, onTouchMove };
};
const NoScrollbar = styled('div')({
'&': {
position: 'relative',
},
'& .react-horizontal-scrolling-menu--scroll-container::-webkit-scrollbar': {
display: 'none',
},
'& .react-horizontal-scrolling-menu--scroll-container': {
scrollbarWidth: 'none',
'-ms-overflow-style': 'none',
},
});
function LeftArrow() {
const visibility = React.useContext<publicApiType>(VisibilityContext);
const disabled = visibility.useLeftArrowVisible();
return (
<Arrow
disabled={disabled}
onClick={() => visibility.scrollPrev()}
testId="left-arrow"
>
Left
</Arrow>
);
}
function RightArrow() {
const visibility = React.useContext<publicApiType>(VisibilityContext);
const disabled = visibility.useRightArrowVisible();
return (
<Arrow
disabled={disabled}
onClick={() => visibility.scrollNext()}
testId="right-arrow"
>
Right
</Arrow>
);
}
function Arrow({
children,
disabled,
onClick,
className,
testId,
}: {
children: React.ReactNode;
disabled: boolean;
onClick: VoidFunction;
className?: string;
testId: string;
}) {
return (
<ArrowButton
disabled={disabled}
onClick={onClick}
className={'arrow' + `-${className}`}
data-testid={testId}
>
{children}
</ArrowButton>
);
}
const ArrowButton = styled('button')((props) => ({
cursor: 'pointer',
display: 'flex',
flexDirection: 'column',
justifyContent: 'center',
marginBottom: '2px',
opacity: props.disabled ? '0' : '1',
userSelect: 'none',
borderRadius: '6px',
borderWidth: '1px',
}));
function Card({
onClick,
selected,
title,
itemId,
}: {
onClick: (context: publicApiType) => void;
selected: boolean;
title: string;
itemId: string;
}) {
const visibility = React.useContext<publicApiType>(VisibilityContext);
const isVisible = visibility.useIsVisible(itemId, true);
return (
<CardBody
data-cy={itemId}
onClick={() => onClick(visibility)}
onKeyDown={(ev: React.KeyboardEvent) => {
ev.code === 'Enter' && onClick(visibility);
}}
data-testid="card"
role="button"
tabIndex={0}
className="card"
visible={isVisible}
selected={selected}
>
<div className="header">
<div>{title}</div>
<div className="visible">visible: {JSON.stringify(isVisible)}</div>
<div className="selected">selected: {JSON.stringify(!!selected)}</div>
</div>
<div className="background" />
</CardBody>
);
}
const CardBody = styled('div')<{ selected?: boolean; visible?: boolean }>(
(props) => ({
border: '1px solid',
display: 'inline-block',
margin: '0 10px',
width: '160px',
userSelect: 'none',
borderRadius: '8px',
overflow: 'hidden',
'& .header': {
backgroundColor: 'white',
},
'& .visible': {
backgroundColor: props.visible ? 'transparent' : 'gray',
},
'& .background': {
backgroundColor: props.selected ? 'green' : 'bisque',
height: '200px',
},
}),
);
const getId = (index: number) => `${'test'}${index}`;
const getItems = () =>
Array(10)
.fill(0)
.map((_, ind) => ({ id: getId(ind) }));
function onWheel(apiObj: publicApiType, ev: React.WheelEvent): void {
// NOTE: no good standart way to distinguish touchpad scrolling gestures
// but can assume that gesture will affect X axis, mouse scroll only Y axis
// of if deltaY too small probably is it touchpad
const isThouchpad = Math.abs(ev.deltaX) !== 0 || Math.abs(ev.deltaY) < 15;
if (isThouchpad) {
ev.stopPropagation();
return;
}
if (ev.deltaY < 0) {
apiObj.scrollNext();
} else {
apiObj.scrollPrev();
}
}