How can i create a transparent background in react navigation 5.x?

Question

I changed the background color to make it more obvious. I want the red container to become transparent.

Is there any way to achieve this? I am using react-navigation 5 and I created a custom bottom tab bar according to Bottom-tab-navigator

The code I am using for the bottom bar is the following

import React from 'react';
import { View, StyleSheet } from 'react-native';
import colors from 'styles/colors';
import TabBarItem from './TabBarItem/TabBarItem';
const homeIcon = require('assets/maps.png');

export enum Item {
  Home,
  ProfileView,
}

const DashboardTabBar: React.FC<{}> = ({ state, descriptors, navigation }) => {
  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <View style={styles.innerContainer}>
        {state.routes.map((route, index) => {
          const { options } = descriptors[route.key];

          const isFocused = state.index === index;

          const onPress = () => {
            const event = navigation.emit({
              type: 'tabPress',
              target: route.key,
            });

            if (!isFocused && !event.defaultPrevented) {
              navigation.navigate(route.name);
            }
          };

          const onLongPress = () => {
            navigation.emit({
              type: 'tabLongPress',
              target: route.key,
            });
          };

          return (
            <TabBarItem
              icon={homeIcon}
              isFocused={isFocused}
              onPress={onPress}
              onLongPress={onLongPress}
              options={options}
              key={route.key}
            />
          );
        })}
      </View>
    </View>
  );
};

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    padding: 10,
    paddingBottom: 18,
    backgroundColor: 'red', // I tried with 'transparent' here, but i see a white background instead of transparent
  },
  innerContainer: {
    height: 60,
    backgroundColor: colors.GREY_L_10,
    flexDirection: 'row',
    justifyContent: 'space-evenly',
    alignItems: 'center',
    borderRadius: 50,
    borderWidth: 1,
    borderColor: colors.GREY,
  },
});

export default DashboardTabBar;

As far as I looked in the code I couldn't find any way to make it transparent.

Answer 1

Somewhere else in your code, you have a component that uses your DashboardTabBar component. You should add a tabBarOptions prop with a style object to the Tab.Navigator component, like so:

    <Tab.Navigator
      tabBar={...}
      tabBarOptions={{
        style: {
          backgroundColor: 'transparent',
          position: 'absolute',
          left: 0,
          right: 0,
          bottom: 0,
          elevation: 0, <----to get rid of a shadow problem on Android
        },
      }}>
    { /* ...your screens go here */ }
</Tab.Navigator>

I have successfully done this on both iOS and Android. Personally, it doesn't look good for my app.