react-chessboard

The React Chessboard Library used at ChessOpenings.co.uk

Inspired and adapted from the unmaintained chessboardjsx

What is react-chessboard?

react-chessboard is a React component that provides chessboard functionality to your application. The Chess game logic that controls the board should be independent to the board, using a library such as Chess.js. An example of these two working together is shown in the example below. For interactive examples visit react-chessboard.com.

ChessOpenings.co.uk was originally built utilising the chessboardjsx library. With chessboardjsx being unmaintained, it made it difficult to add functionality or optimise performance, so react-chessboard was made.

Installation

npm i react-chessboard

Features

Current

Accessible Functions
- chessboardRef.current.clearPremoves();
Board Orientation Choice
Custom Actions
- getPositionObject
- onDragOverSquare
- onMouseOutSquare
- onMouseOverSquare
- onPieceClick
- onPieceDrop
- onSquareClick
- onSquareRightClick
Customisable Board Styles
Customisable Pieces
Customisable Square Styles
Drag and Drop
Draw Arrows with Drag or Props
Mobile Compatibility
Moving Piece Animations
Optional Square Coordinates Notation
Position Control
Premoves
Responsive Board Width
Typescript Support

Planned

Promotion Piece Select
Spare Pieces

Notes

Between version 0.0.3 and 0.0.4, onPieceDrop was changed to allow you to return a value of true or false depending on whether the move was successful or not.
If more than one board is rendered and draggable on a low end device, performance will struggle due to performance issues with react-dnd.
In the rare case that react-chessboard component is hot swapped out for another in its place, this will cause an issue with the CustomDragLayer. To prevent this, the react-chessboard component needs to be completely unmounted before being replaced. An example of how this can be achieved is shown in example/src/index.js.

Usage

Bare Minimum

import { Chessboard } from "react-chessboard";

export default function App() {
  return (
    <div>
      <Chessboard id="BasicBoard" />
    </div>
  );
}

Basic Example

import { useState } from "react";
import Chess from "chess.js";
import { Chessboard } from "react-chessboard";

export default function PlayRandomMoveEngine() {
  const [game, setGame] = useState(new Chess());

  function safeGameMutate(modify) {
    setGame((g) => {
      const update = { ...g };
      modify(update);
      return update;
    });
  }

  function makeRandomMove() {
    const possibleMoves = game.moves();
    if (game.game_over() || game.in_draw() || possibleMoves.length === 0)
      return; // exit if the game is over
    const randomIndex = Math.floor(Math.random() * possibleMoves.length);
    safeGameMutate((game) => {
      game.move(possibleMoves[randomIndex]);
    });
  }

  function onDrop(sourceSquare, targetSquare) {
    let move = null;
    safeGameMutate((game) => {
      move = game.move({
        from: sourceSquare,
        to: targetSquare,
        promotion: "q", // always promote to a queen for example simplicity
      });
    });
    if (move === null) return false; // illegal move
    setTimeout(makeRandomMove, 200);
    return true;
  }

  return <Chessboard position={game.fen()} onPieceDrop={onDrop} />;
}

Advanced Examples

For more advanced code usage examples, please see example boards shown in example/src/boards.

Props

Prop	Default Value	Options	Description
animationDuration	number: 300		Time in milliseconds for piece to slide to target square. Only used when the position is programmatically changed. If a new position is set before the animation is complete, the board will cancel the current animation and snap to the new position.
areArrowsAllowed	boolean: true	[true, false]	Whether or not arrows can be drawn with right click and dragging.
arePiecesDraggable	boolean: true	[true, false]	Whether or not all pieces are draggable.
arePremovesAllowed	boolean: false	[true, false]	Whether or not premoves are allowed.
boardOrientation	string: 'white'	['white', 'black']	The orientation of the board, the chosen colour will be at the bottom of the board.
boardWidth	number: 560		The width of the board in pixels.
clearPremovesOnRightClick	boolean: true	[true, false]	If premoves are allowed, whether or not to clear the premove queue on right click.
customArrowColor	string: 'rgb(255,170,0)'	rgb or hex string	String with rgb or hex value to colour drawn arrows.
customArrows	string[][]: []	array of string arrays	Array of custom arrows to draw on the board. Each arrow within the array must be an array of length 2 with strings denoting the from and to square to draw the arrow e.g. [ ['a3', 'a5'], ['g1', 'f3'] ].
customBoardStyle	object: {}	inline CSS styling	Custom board style object e.g. { borderRadius: '5px', boxShadow: '0 5px 15px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5 '}.
customDarkSquareStyle	object: { backgroundColor: '#B58863' }	inline CSS styling	Custom dark square style object.
customDropSquareStyle	object: { boxShadow: 'inset 0 0 1px 6px rgba(255,255,255,0.75)' }	inline CSS styling	Custom drop square style object (Square being hovered over with dragged piece).
customLightSquareStyle	object: { backgroundColor: '#F0D9B5' }	inline CSS styling	Custom light square style object.
customPieces	object: {}		Custom pieces object where each key must match a corresponding chess piece (wP, wB, wN, wR, wQ, wK, bP, bB, bN, bR, bQ, bK). The value of each piece is a function that takes in some optional arguments to use and must return JSX to render. e.g. { wK: ({ isDragging: boolean, squareWidth: number, droppedPiece: string, targetSquare: string, sourceSquare: string }) => jsx }.
customPremoveDarkSquareStyle	object: { backgroundColor: '#A42323' }	inline CSS styling	Custom premove dark square style object.
customPremoveLightSquareStyle	object: { backgroundColor: '#BD2828' }	inline CSS styling	Custom premove light square style object.
customSquareStyles	object: {}	inline CSS styling	Custom styles for all squares.
id	number: 0	[string, number]	Board identifier, necessary if more than one board is mounted for drag and drop.
isDraggablePiece	function: ({ piece, sourceSquare }) => true	returns [true, false]	Function called when a piece drag is attempted. Returns if piece is draggable.
getPositionObject	function: (currentPosition) => {}		User function that receives current position object when position changes.
onDragOverSquare	function: (square) => {}		User function that is run when piece is dragged over a square.
onMouseOutSquare	function: (square) => {}		User function that is run when mouse leaves a square.
onMouseOverSquare	function: (square) => {}		User function that is run when mouse is over a square.
onPieceClick	function: (piece) => {}		User function that is run when piece is clicked.
onPieceDrop	function: ({ sourceSquare, targetSquare, piece }) => true	returns [true, false]	User function that is run when piece is dropped on a square. Must return whether the move was successful or not.
onSquareClick	function: (square) => {}		User function that is run when a square is clicked.
onSquareRightClick	function: (square) => {}		User function that is run when a square is right clicked.
position	string: 'start'	['start', FEN string, { e5: 'wK', e4: 'wP', ... }]	FEN string or position object notating where the chess pieces are on the board. Start position can also be notated with the string: 'start'.
showBoardNotation	boolean: true	[true, false]	Whether or not to show the file and rank co-ordinates (a..h, 1..8).

Contributing

Fork this repository
Clone your forked repository onto your development machine git clone https://github.com/yourUsernameHere/react-chessboard.git cd react-chessboard
Create a branch for your PR git checkout -b your-branch-name
Set upstream remote git remote add upstream https://github.com/Clariity/react-chessboard.git
Make your changes
Test your changes using the example folder npm run build cd example npm start
Push your changes git add . git commit -m "feature/cool-new-feature" git push --set-upstream origin your-branch-name
Create pull request on GitHub
Contribute again git checkout main git pull upstream main git checkout -b your-new-branch-name

LICENSE

MIT

yp717/react-chessboard