Drag to scroll with the mouse — without breaking clicks
DragDealer class and three mouse props.Grab anywhere on the row and drag. Items are still clickable — a click after a drag is suppressed.
Edit this example live in Storybook
How it works
ScrollMenu exposes curried mouse handlers — onMouseDown, onMouseUp and onMouseMove each receive the API object and return a regular event handler. The DragDealer instance tracks one anchor coordinate: on every move it applies the delta straight to scrollContainer.current.scrollLeft. Native scrolling does the rest — no transforms, no physics, and the scrollbar stays real.
Why clicks keep working
A drag only starts after the pointer moves more than 5px, so a plain click never scrolls. The other direction is the classic bug: item onClick fires after mouseup, so releasing a drag on top of a card would select it. dragStop clears the applying flag immediately but keeps dragging set for one more animation frame — click handlers check it and bail.
Details worth stealing
dragStartcancels the pending reset from the previous gesture — without it, a fast second drag can apply a stale delta.onMouseLeaveon the wrapper also callsdragStop, so leaving the row mid-drag can’t leave it stuck in the dragging state.- Touch needs none of this — the container is a real scroll container, so swiping already works.
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 MouseDrag() {
const [items] = React.useState(() => getItems());
const [selected, setSelected] = React.useState<string[]>([]);
// NOTE: for drag by mouse
const dragState = React.useRef(new DragDealer());
const handleDrag =
({ scrollContainer }: publicApiType) =>
(ev: React.MouseEvent) =>
dragState.current.dragMove(ev, (posDiff) => {
if (scrollContainer.current) {
scrollContainer.current.scrollLeft += posDiff;
}
});
const onMouseDown = React.useCallback(
() => dragState.current.dragStart,
[dragState],
);
const onMouseUp = React.useCallback(
() => dragState.current.dragStop,
[dragState],
);
const isItemSelected = (id: string): boolean =>
!!selected.find((el) => el === id);
const handleItemClick = (itemId: string) => {
if (dragState.current.dragging) {
return false;
}
const itemSelected = isItemSelected(itemId);
setSelected((currentSelected: string[]) =>
itemSelected
? currentSelected.filter((el) => el !== itemId)
: currentSelected.concat(itemId),
);
};
return (
<NoScrollbar onMouseLeave={() => dragState.current.dragStop()}>
<ScrollMenu
LeftArrow={LeftArrow}
RightArrow={RightArrow}
onMouseDown={onMouseDown}
onMouseUp={onMouseUp}
onMouseMove={handleDrag}
onWheel={onWheel}
>
{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 MouseDrag;
class DragDealer {
clicked: boolean;
dragging: boolean;
position: number;
constructor() {
this.clicked = false;
this.dragging = false;
this.position = 0;
}
public dragStart = (ev: React.MouseEvent) => {
this.position = ev.clientX;
this.clicked = true;
};
public dragStop = () => {
window.requestAnimationFrame(() => {
this.dragging = false;
this.clicked = false;
});
};
public dragMove = (ev: React.MouseEvent, cb: (posDiff: number) => void) => {
const newDiff = this.position - ev.clientX;
const movedEnough = Math.abs(newDiff) > 5;
if (this.clicked && movedEnough) {
this.dragging = true;
}
if (this.dragging && movedEnough) {
this.position = ev.clientX;
cb(newDiff);
}
};
}
const NoScrollbar = styled('div')({
'& .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();
}
}