Fancy-image-loader NPM

fancy-image-loader

A generic React component to show a placeholder in place of an image while the image is loading and replace the placeholder with the image when the image has loaded.

Features: 1. Placeholder can be another image or an HTML element 2. You can style the placeholder/error element 3. All attributes of tag are supported

Context

Most of the modern websites use images in some form or the other in their content. For example, e- commerce websites commonly have pages showing a list of products with the products’ images.

Whenever you navigate to a web page that has one or more images in it, the browser tries to load those images. And loading an image may take time depending upon the size of the image and the network of the user. So sometimes images can take a lot of time to load. And usually how browsers behave is that until the image has loaded, the browser would have nothing to show. This is generally considered a bad user-experience because the user does not know if something is expected in that content area but as soon as the image loads, it suddenly appears. So it is considered a good practice to show a placeholder until the image has loaded. Facebook takes this practice to another level by showing placeholder for the entire page until the content has loaded.

Getting Started

npm i fancy-image-loader

npm install fancy-image-loader

Usage - Example 1

import React from 'react';
import {render} from 'react-dom';
import FancyImageLoader from 'fancy-image-loader';

let placeholder = () => {
    return <img src="file/path/loading.gif"/>
}

let error = () => {
    return <img src="file/path/error.png"/>
}

let imageItem = "https://images.alphacoders.com/151/151291.jpg";

render(
  <FancyImageLoader 
        src={item}
        placeholder={placeholder}
        error ={error}
        class="img"
        alt = "Awesome image dude"
        style = {{borderRadius : '9px'}}
        height="200px"
        width="300px"></FancyImageLoader>
, document.getElementById('root'));

Usage - Example 2 (HTML Placeholer)

import React from 'react';
import {render} from 'react-dom';
import FancyImageLoader from 'fancy-image-loader';

let itemHtmlStyle = {
    display: "flex",
    justifyContent: "center",
    height: "100%",
    alignItems: "center",
    textAlign: "center",
    background: "azure"
}

let placeholder = function () {
    return  <img src="http://www.tbaf.org.tw/event/2016safe/imgs/loader1.gif" style={itemStyle}/>;
}

let placeholderHtml = function () {
return <div style={itemHtmlStyle}>
            Loading image please wait
        </div>  
}

let errorHtml = function () {
return <div style={itemHtmlStyle}>
            Sorry image failed
        </div>  
}

let imageItem = "https://images.alphacoders.com/151/151291.jpg";

render(
  <FancyImageLoader 
        src={item}
        placeholder={placeholderHtml}
        error ={errorHtml}
        class="fancy-image"
        alt = "Awesome image dude"
        style = {{borderRadius : '9px'}}></FancyImageLoader>
, document.getElementById('root'));

Props

Name	Required	Type	Description
`src`	Yes	string	Source path of the image to be loaded + displayed
`placeholder`	Yes	function	A Placeholder function which returns simple react element html/image to be dispayed before image loads/loading
`error`	No	function	An optional error function which returns simple HTML/image to be displayed when image failed to load. If error doesn't provided then placeholder will stay in place.
`class`	No	string	css class property for the image element
`width`	No	string	An optioal width attribute string 100px, 200px etc
`height`	No	string	Height attribute string 100px, 200px etc
`alt`	No	string	Alternative text content
`style`	No	object	Style object containing css stuff for the `image` component.
`border`	No	string	Standered border styling - 0px solid etc.