Customize Cursor in React App

In this article, I will show you how to create a customized cursor with Reactjs. Having a custom cursor is an interesting and interactive feature that can be added to web applications to enhance the user experience. A custom cursor is essentially a graphical element that replaces the default cursor in a web application. This can be used to create a unique and interactive user experience, as well as add a level of sophistication to the web application.   You should have Nodejs installed on your machine; If not, click [here](https://nodejs.org/en/download/) to download and install Nodejs on your local device. Nodejs installation comes with NPM by default, which we’ll use to install the packages needed for this tutorial. &nbsp; ##step 1 Let’s begin by installing React by running the following command on our terminal: `npx create-react-app project-name` You can replace "project-name" above with the name of your choice. After the template is generated, open the folder with the text-editor of your choice. &nbsp; ##step 2 We will be using the [framer-motion](https://www.framer.com/motion/) library for the animation, so let's install the library by running the following command on our terminal: `npm i framer-motion` &nbsp; ##step 3 Now that we have installed all the dependencies, we need to find a way to track the position of the mouse pointer and store it in the useState hook. ``` import React, { useEffect, useState } from "react"; function App() { const [mousePosition, setMousePosition] = useState({ x: 0, y: 0 }); const handleMouseMove = (ev: MouseEvent) => { setMousePosition({ x: ev.clientX, y: ev.clientY, }); }; useEffect(() => { window.addEventListener("mousemove", handleMouseMove); }, []); return ( <div className="App"> <h1>Hello world</h1> </div> ); } export default App; ``` &nbsp; ##step 4 Let's import motion from framer-motion and render a div element from motion,and then add variant props to the div element. Don't forget to add className to the element for styling. You can also reference the code below. ``` import React, { useEffect, useState } from "react"; import { motion, Variants } from "framer-motion"; function App() { const [mousePosition, setMousePosition] = useState({ x: 0, y: 0 }); const handleMouseMove = (ev: MouseEvent) => { setMousePosition({ x: ev.clientX, y: ev.clientY, }); }; useEffect(() => { window.addEventListener("mousemove", handleMouseMove); }, []); const variants: Variants = { default: { x: mousePosition.x, y: mousePosition.y, }, }; return ( <div className="App"> <motion.div className="cursor" variants={variants} animate="default" /> </div> ); } ``` &nbsp; ##step 5 In this final step, let's style the cursor. Note that the styling depends on your choice. ``` .cursor { width: 50px; height: 50px; background-color: red; border-radius: 50%; pointer-events: none; } ``` Now we have come to the end of this article, I hope you find this article helpful. If so, kindly share this post with more people. You can find the source code on [github](https://github.com/agboolaidris/react-custom-cursor).