React SDK

This page provides an in-depth introduction to the React frontend framework library.

On this page:

• Overview
  • Quick example
• Get started with React
  • React SDK installation and configuration video tutorial
  • Installation
  • Configuration
• Transformations
• Plugins
• Sample projects

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Overview

Cloudinary's React frontend framework library provides image rendering capabilities and plugins that you can implement using code that integrates seamlessly with your existing React application.

Quick example

This example shows a transformation URL being created using the @cloudinary/url-gen package, and rendered using React.

import React from 'react'
import {AdvancedImage} from '@cloudinary/react';
import {Cloudinary} from "@cloudinary/url-gen";

// Import required actions.
import {sepia} from "@cloudinary/url-gen/actions/effect";

const App = () => {

  // Create and configure your Cloudinary instance.
  const cld = new Cloudinary({
    cloud: {
      cloudName: 'demo'
    }
  }); 

  // Use the image with public ID, 'front_face'.
  const myImage = cld.image('front_face');

  // Apply the transformation.
  myImage
  .effect(sepia());  // Apply a sepia effect.

  // Render the transformed image in a React component.
  return (
    <div>
      <AdvancedImage cldImg={myImage} />
    </div>
  )
};

This code creates the HTML required to deliver the front_face.jpg image with the sepia effect applied.

You can apply more than one transformation at a time (see chained transformations) to give more interesting results:

import { thumbnail, scale } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/actions/resize";
import { byRadius } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/actions/roundCorners";
import { sepia } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/actions/effect";
import { source } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/actions/overlay";
import { byAngle } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/actions/rotate";
import { format } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/actions/delivery";
import { opacity, brightness } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/actions/adjust";
import { image } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/qualifiers/source";
import { Position } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/qualifiers/position";
import { png } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/qualifiers/format";
import { focusOn, compass } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/qualifiers/gravity";
import { face } from "@cloudinary/url-gen/qualifiers/focusOn";

new CloudinaryImage("front_face")
  .resize(
    thumbnail()
      .width(150)
      .height(150)
      .gravity(focusOn(face()))
  )
  .roundCorners(byRadius(20))
  .effect(sepia())
  .overlay(
    source(
      image("cloudinary_icon").transformation(
        new Transformation()
          .resize(scale().width(50))
          .adjust(opacity(60))
          .adjust(brightness().level(90))
      )
    ).position(
      new Position()
        .gravity(compass("south_east"))
        .offsetX(5)
        .offsetY(5)
    )
  )
  .rotate(byAngle(10))
  .delivery(format(png()));

• Crop to a 150x150 thumbnail using face-detection gravity to automatically determine the location for the crop
• Round the corners with a 20 pixel radius
• Apply a sepia effect
• Overlay the Cloudinary logo on the southeast corner of the image (with a slight offset). The logo is scaled down to a 50 pixel width, with increased brightness and partial transparency (opacity = 60%)
• Rotate the resulting image (including the overlay) by 10 degrees
• Convert and deliver the image in PNG format (the originally uploaded image was a JPG)

import { transformationStringFromObject } from "@cloudinary/url-gen";

const transformation = transformationStringFromObject([
  {gravity: "face", height: 150, width: 150, crop: "thumb"},
  {radius: 20},
  {effect: "sepia"},
  {overlay: "cloudinary_icon"},
  {width: 50, crop: "scale"},
  {opacity: 60},
  {effect: "brightness:90"},
  {flags: "layer_apply", gravity: "south_east", x: 5, y: 5},
  {angle: 10},
  {fetch_format: "png"}
  ]);
myImage.addTransformation(transformation);

Get started with React

React SDK installation and configuration video tutorial

Watch this video tutorial to see how to install and configure the React SDK:

Tutorial contents

Installation

Install Cloudinary's JavaScript and React packages using the NPM package manager:

npm i @cloudinary/url-gen @cloudinary/react

Configuration

You can specify the configuration parameters that are used to create the delivery URLs, either using a Cloudinary instance or per image/video.

Cloudinary instance configuration

If you want to use the same configuration to deliver all your media assets, it's best to set up the configuration through a Cloudinary instance, for example:

import React from 'react'
import {AdvancedImage} from '@cloudinary/react';
import {Cloudinary} from "@cloudinary/url-gen";

const App = () => {

  // Create a Cloudinary instance and set your cloud name.
  const cld = new Cloudinary({
    cloud: {
      cloudName: 'demo'
    }
  });

  // cld.image returns a CloudinaryImage with the configuration set.
  const myImage = cld.image('sample');

  // The URL of the image is: https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/sample

  // Render the image in a React component.
  return (
    <div>
      <AdvancedImage cldImg={myImage} />
    </div>
  )
};

You can set other configuration parameters related to your cloud and URL as required, for example, if you have your own custom delivery hostname, and want to generate a secure URL (HTTPS):

// Create a Cloudinary instance, setting some Cloud and URL configuration parameters.
const cld = new Cloudinary({
  cloud: {
    cloudName: 'demo'
  },
  url: {
    secureDistribution: 'www.example.com', 
    secure: true 
  }
});

// This creates a URL of the form: https://www.example.com/demo/image/upload/sample

Asset instance configuration

If you need to specify different configurations to deliver your media assets, you can specify the configuration per image/video instance, for example:

import React from 'react'
import {AdvancedImage} from '@cloudinary/react';
import {CloudinaryImage} from "@cloudinary/url-gen";
import {URLConfig} from "@cloudinary/url-gen";
import {CloudConfig} from "@cloudinary/url-gen";

const App = () => {

  // Set the Cloud configuration and URL configuration
  let cloudConfig = new CloudConfig({cloudName: 'demo'});
  let urlConfig = new URLConfig({secure: true});

  // Instantiate and configure a CloudinaryImage object.
  let myImage = new CloudinaryImage('docs/shoes', cloudConfig, urlConfig);

  // The URL of the image is: https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/docs/shoes

  // Render the image in a React component.
  return (
    <div>
      <AdvancedImage cldImg={myImage} />
    </div>
  )
};

Transformations

The @cloudinary/url-gen package simplifies the generation of transformation URLs, and includes special components and directives for easy embedding of assets in your React application.

The @cloudinary/url-gen package installs an additional transformation-builder-sdk library as a dependency, which handles the transformation generation part of the URL.

You can use the Transformation Builder reference to find all available transformations, syntax and examples.

To find out more about transforming your assets using the @cloudinary/url-gen package, see:

• React image transformations
• React video transformations

Plugins

The Cloudinary React library provides plugins to render the media on your site in the optimal way and improve your user's experience by automating media tasks like lazy loading, responsive images and more.

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Sample projects

Take a look at the React sample projects page to help you get started integrating Cloudinary into your React application.