react-signature-canvas vs react-canvas-draw
React Drawing Libraries Comparison
1 Year
react-signature-canvasreact-canvas-drawSimilar Packages:
What's React Drawing Libraries?

Both react-canvas-draw and react-signature-canvas are libraries designed for rendering and capturing drawings within React applications. react-canvas-draw is focused on providing a canvas-based drawing experience, allowing users to create freeform drawings, while react-signature-canvas is tailored for capturing signatures, offering a more specialized tool for signing documents or forms. Each library provides unique features that cater to different use cases in web applications, such as art creation or digital signatures.

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react-signature-canvas329,07755317.4 kB8a month agoApache-2.0
react-canvas-draw20,751911-513 years agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-signature-canvas vs react-canvas-draw

Drawing Capabilities

  • react-signature-canvas:

    react-signature-canvas is specifically designed for capturing signatures. It provides a simple interface where users can draw their signature using a mouse or touch input. The library includes features like clearing the canvas, saving the signature as an image, and the ability to customize the canvas size.

  • react-canvas-draw:

    react-canvas-draw allows users to create freeform drawings with various brush sizes and colors. It supports features like undo/redo, saving drawings as images, and even exporting the drawing data in JSON format for later use or sharing. This makes it a powerful tool for applications that require a rich drawing experience.

Use Cases

  • react-signature-canvas:

    Best suited for applications that need to capture user signatures, such as e-signature solutions, forms requiring consent, or any scenario where digital signatures are necessary.

  • react-canvas-draw:

    Ideal for applications that require drawing functionalities, such as collaborative art platforms, educational tools for teaching drawing, or any application that benefits from user-generated visual content.

Customization Options

  • react-signature-canvas:

    While react-signature-canvas is more focused on signature capture, it still allows for some customization, such as setting the background color of the canvas and adjusting the stroke width for the signature.

  • react-canvas-draw:

    react-canvas-draw offers extensive customization options, allowing developers to modify brush styles, colors, and canvas dimensions. This flexibility makes it easy to integrate into various applications with different design requirements.

Performance

  • react-signature-canvas:

    This library is lightweight and performs well for its intended purpose. It is designed to handle quick signature captures efficiently, ensuring a responsive user experience.

  • react-canvas-draw:

    Performance can vary based on the complexity of the drawings and the number of strokes. The library is optimized for smooth rendering, but performance may degrade with very large drawings or on low-powered devices.

Learning Curve

  • react-signature-canvas:

    The learning curve is low, as the library is simple to implement and requires minimal configuration. Developers can quickly integrate it into their applications without extensive setup.

  • react-canvas-draw:

    The learning curve is moderate, as developers need to understand how to manage the drawing state and implement features like undo/redo. However, the API is straightforward and well-documented, making it accessible for most developers.

How to Choose: react-signature-canvas vs react-canvas-draw
  • react-signature-canvas:

    Choose react-signature-canvas if your primary goal is to capture user signatures. This library is optimized for signature input, providing a simple interface for users to sign documents, making it suitable for forms or applications that require user authentication.

  • react-canvas-draw:

    Choose react-canvas-draw if you need a versatile drawing tool that supports freeform drawing, undo/redo functionality, and the ability to save drawings as images. It is ideal for applications requiring artistic input or interactive drawing features.

README for react-signature-canvas

react-signature-canvas

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A React wrapper component around signature_pad.

Originally, this was just an unopinionated fork of react-signature-pad that did not impose any styling or wrap any other unwanted elements around your canvas -- it's just a wrapper around a single canvas element! Hence the naming difference. Nowadays, this repo / library has significantly evolved, introducing new features, fixing various bugs, and now wrapping the upstream signature_pad to have its updates and bugfixes baked in.

This fork also allows you to directly pass props to the underlying canvas element, has new, documented API methods you can use, has new, documented props you can pass to it, has a live demo, has a CodeSandbox playground, and has 100% test coverage.

Installation

npm i -S react-signature-canvas

Usage

import React from 'react'
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'
import SignatureCanvas from 'react-signature-canvas'

ReactDOM.render(
  <SignatureCanvas penColor='green'
    canvasProps={{width: 500, height: 200, className: 'sigCanvas'}} />,
  document.getElementById('react-container')
)

Props

The props of SignatureCanvas mainly control the properties of the pen stroke used in drawing. All props are optional.

  • velocityFilterWeight : number, default: 0.7
  • minWidth : number, default: 0.5
  • maxWidth : number, default: 2.5
  • minDistance: number, default: 5
  • dotSize : number or function, default: () => (this.minWidth + this.maxWidth) / 2
  • penColor : string, default: 'black'
  • throttle: number, default: 16

There are also two callbacks that will be called when a stroke ends and one begins, respectively.

  • onEnd : function
  • onBegin : function

Additional props are used to control the canvas element.

  • canvasProps: object
    • directly passed to the underlying <canvas /> element
  • backgroundColor : string, default: 'rgba(0,0,0,0)'
    • used in the API's clear convenience method (which itself is called internally during resizes)
  • clearOnResize: bool, default: true
    • whether or not the canvas should be cleared when the window resizes

Of these props, all, except for canvasProps and clearOnResize, are passed through to signature_pad as its options. signature_pad's internal state is automatically kept in sync with prop updates for you (via a componentDidUpdate hook).

API

All API methods require a ref to the SignatureCanvas in order to use and are instance methods of the ref.

<SignatureCanvas ref={(ref) => { this.sigCanvas = ref }} />
  • isEmpty() : boolean, self-explanatory
  • clear() : void, clears the canvas using the backgroundColor prop
  • fromDataURL(base64String, options) : void, writes a base64 image to canvas
  • toDataURL(mimetype, encoderOptions): base64string, returns the signature image as a data URL
  • fromData(pointGroupArray): void, draws signature image from an array of point groups
  • toData(): pointGroupArray, returns signature image as an array of point groups
  • off(): void, unbinds all event handlers
  • on(): void, rebinds all event handlers
  • getCanvas(): canvas, returns the underlying canvas ref. Allows you to modify the canvas however you want or call methods such as toDataURL()
  • getTrimmedCanvas(): canvas, creates a copy of the canvas and returns a trimmed version of it, with all whitespace removed.
  • getSignaturePad(): SignaturePad, returns the underlying SignaturePad reference.

The API methods are mostly just wrappers around signature_pad's API. on() and off() will, in addition, bind/unbind the window resize event handler. getCanvas(), getTrimmedCanvas(), and getSignaturePad() are new.

Example

You can interact with the example in a few different ways:

  1. Run npm start and navigate to http://localhost:8080/.
    Hosted locally via the example/ directory
  2. View the live demo here.
    Hosted via the gh-pages branch, a standalone version of the code in example/
  3. Play with the CodeSandbox here.
    Hosted via the cra-example branch, a standalone version using Create React App.