Swiper React | How to create custom navigation/pagination components using React refs?

Question

SwiperJS documentation states that navigation prevEl/nextEl can either be of type "string" or "HTMLElement". Using string selectors is easy enough as:

const MySwiper = (props) => (
  <Swiper
    navigation={{
      prevEl: '.prev',
      nextEl: '.next',
    }}
    {...props}
  >
    <SwiperSlide>slide 1</SwiperSlide>
    <SwiperSlide>slide 2</SwiperSlide>
    <div className="prev" />
    <div className="next" />
  </Swiper>
)

However, how would this be correctly implemented with React refs? Using HTML nodes instead of string selectors allows for navigation prevEl/nextEl to be scoped to each rendered instance of MySwiper.

const App = () => (
  <div>
    <MySwiper className="mySwiper1" />
    <MySwiper className="mySwiper2" />
  </div>
)

In the App example above, navigation prevEl/nextEl from .mySwiper2 should not trigger sliding of .mySwiper1, which is what would happen with string selectors.

My current sad & hacky workaround:

const MySwiper = () => {
  const navigationPrevRef = React.useRef(null)
  const navigationNextRef = React.useRef(null)

  return (
    <Swiper
      navigation={{
        // Both prevEl & nextEl are null at render so this does not work
        prevEl: navigationPrevRef.current,
        nextEl: navigationNextRef.current,
      }}
      onSwiper={(swiper) => {
        // Delay execution for the refs to be defined
        setTimeout(() => {
          // Override prevEl & nextEl now that refs are defined
          swiper.params.navigation.prevEl = navigationPrevRef.current
          swiper.params.navigation.nextEl = navigationNextRef.current

          // Re-init navigation
          swiper.navigation.destroy()
          swiper.navigation.init()
          swiper.navigation.update()
        })
      }}
    >
      <SwiperSlide>slide 1</SwiperSlide>
      <SwiperSlide>slide 2</SwiperSlide>
      <div ref={navigationPrevRef} />
      <div ref={navigationNextRef} />
    </Swiper>
  )
}

Answer 1

I think I fixed the issue, I also faced the same problem, but finally, let's start

 1. import SwiperCore, { Navigation} from 'swiper'
 2. SwiperCore.use([Navigation])
 3. i will use your exmaple:     

    const MySwiper = () => {
      const navigationPrevRef = React.useRef(null)
      const navigationNextRef = React.useRef(null)
      return (
        <Swiper
          navigation={{
            prevEl: navigationPrevRef.current,
            nextEl: navigationNextRef.current,
          }}
         onBeforeInit={{
              swiper.params.navigation.prevEl = navigationPrevRef.current;
              swiper.params.navigation.nextEl = navigationNextRef.current;
         }}
        >
          <SwiperSlide>slide 1</SwiperSlide>
          <SwiperSlide>slide 2</SwiperSlide>
          <div ref={navigationPrevRef} />
          <div ref={navigationNextRef} />
        </Swiper>
      )
    }

that's it, so if you check Swiper duc there is a page only for API, where you can find a section talking about events that swiper provide, anyway i hope this was helpful

Answer 2

just watch out for a little mistake with onBeforeInit into sample of Amine D.

corrected code:

const MySwiper = () => {
  const navigationPrevRef = React.useRef(null)
  const navigationNextRef = React.useRef(null)
  return (
    <Swiper
      navigation={{
        prevEl: navigationPrevRef.current,
        nextEl: navigationNextRef.current,
      }}
     onBeforeInit={(swiper) => {
          swiper.params.navigation.prevEl = navigationPrevRef.current;
          swiper.params.navigation.nextEl = navigationNextRef.current;
     }}
    >
      <SwiperSlide>slide 1</SwiperSlide>
      <SwiperSlide>slide 2</SwiperSlide>
      <div ref={navigationPrevRef} />
      <div ref={navigationNextRef} />
    </Swiper>
  )
}

Answer 3

Passing refs directly is apparently not possible in Swiper v6.2.0.

I created a Github issue as well for anyone ending up here where the library author answered. https://github.com/nolimits4web/swiper/issues/3855

Answer 4

While Pierrat's answer did initially solve it for me, I was encountering a bug where the navigation buttons wouldn't do anything until after I'd paused and restarted the Swiper.

To fix, I created my own functions for handling the updates and used those instead.

const MyComponent = () => {
  const sliderRef = useRef(null);

  const handlePrev = useCallback(() => {
    if (!sliderRef.current) return;
    sliderRef.current.swiper.slidePrev();
  }, []);

  const handleNext = useCallback(() => {
    if (!sliderRef.current) return;
    sliderRef.current.swiper.slideNext();
  }, []);

  return (
    <div>
      <Swiper ref={sliderRef}>
        <SwiperSlide />
        ...slides
        <SwiperSlide />
      </Swiper>
      <div className="prev-arrow" onClick={handlePrev} />
      <div className="next-arrow" onClick={handleNext} />
    </div>
  )
}

Answer 5

As per the previous answers, the following one is the complete code. That may help you to implement as you want.

import React from "react";
import SwiperCore, { Navigation } from 'swiper';
import { Swiper, SwiperSlide } from "swiper/react";

SwiperCore.use([Navigation]);

const MySwiper = () => {
      const navigationPrevRef = React.useRef(null)
      const navigationNextRef = React.useRef(null)
      return (
        <Swiper
          navigation={{
            prevEl: navigationPrevRef.current,
            nextEl: navigationNextRef.current,
          }}
         setTimeout(() => {
          // Override prevEl & nextEl now that refs are defined
          swiper.params.navigation.prevEl = navigationPrevRef.current
          swiper.params.navigation.nextEl = navigationNextRef.current

          // Re-init navigation
          swiper.navigation.destroy()
          swiper.navigation.init()
          swiper.navigation.update()
        })
        >
          <SwiperSlide>slide 1</SwiperSlide>
          <SwiperSlide>slide 2</SwiperSlide>
          <div ref={navigationPrevRef} />
          <div ref={navigationNextRef} />
        </Swiper>
      )
    }

const App = () => (
  <div>
    <MySwiper className="mySwiper1" />
    <MySwiper className="mySwiper2" />
  </div>
)

ReactDOM.render(<App/>, document.getElementById('root'));