React Navigation; use image in header?

Question

I'm using react navigation in a react native project and I want to customize the header with an image.

For a color I can use simple styling, but since react native doesn't support background images I need a different solution.

Answer 1

Update:

Since v2 of the library there's an special option for setting the header background, namely headerBackground.

This option accepts a React component, so when set to an Image component, it will use that.

For example:

export default createStackNavigator({
  Home: {
    screen: HomeScreen
  },
}, {
  navigationOptions: {
    headerBackground: (
      <Image
        style={StyleSheet.absoluteFill}
        source={{ uri: 'https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Hopetoun_falls.jpg' }}
      />
    ),
  }
});

Working example: https://snack.expo.io/@koen/react-navigation-header-background

---

Old answer, for when still using React Navigation v1:

Creating a custom header with an image is actually really simple.

By wrapping the Header with a view and placing an absolute positioned image in that view, the image will scale to its parent size.

Important is to set the backgroundColor of the default header to transparent.

const ImageHeader = props => (
  <View style={{ backgroundColor: '#eee' }}>
    <Image
      style={StyleSheet.absoluteFill}
      source={{ uri: 'https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Hopetoun_falls.jpg' }}
    />
    <Header {...props} style={{ backgroundColor: 'transparent' }}/>
  </View>
);

And then use that component as header:

const SimpleStack = StackNavigator({
  Home: {
    screen: MyHomeScreen,
  },
}, {
  navigationOptions: {
    headerTitleStyle: { color: '#fff' },
    header: (props) => <ImageHeader {...props} />,
  }
});

Which would result in: