How to auto-slide the window out from behind keyboard when TextInput has focus?

I've seen this hack for native apps to auto scroll the window, but wondering best way to do it in React Native... When a <TextInput> field gets focus and is positioned low in the view, the keyboard will cover up the text field.

You can see this issue in example UIExplorer's TextInputExample.js view.

Does anyone have a good solution?

2017 Answer

The KeyboardAvoidingView is probably the best way to go now. Check out the docs here. It is really simple compared to Keyboard module which gives Developer more control to perform animations. Spencer Carli demonstrated all the possible ways on his medium blog.

2015 Answer

The correct way to do this in react-native does not require external libraries, takes advantage of native code, and includes animations.

First define a function that will handle the onFocus event for each TextInput (or any other component you would like to scroll to):

// Scroll a component into view. Just pass the component ref string.
inputFocused (refName) {
  setTimeout(() => {
    let scrollResponder = this.refs.scrollView.getScrollResponder();
    scrollResponder.scrollResponderScrollNativeHandleToKeyboard(
      React.findNodeHandle(this.refs[refName]),
      110, //additionalOffset
      true
    );
  }, 50);
}

Then, in your render function:

render () {
  return (
    <ScrollView ref='scrollView'>
        <TextInput ref='username' 
                   onFocus={this.inputFocused.bind(this, 'username')}
    </ScrollView>
  )
}

This uses the RCTDeviceEventEmitter for keyboard events and sizing, measures the position of the component using RCTUIManager.measureLayout, and calculates the exact scroll movement required in scrollResponderInputMeasureAndScrollToKeyboard.

You may want to play around with the additionalOffset parameter, to fit the needs of your specific UI design.

Facebook open sourced KeyboardAvoidingView in react native 0.29 to solve this problem. Documentation and usage example can be found here.