How to implement free drawing on canvas with React?

This demo shows how to implement a free drawing app the "React way" with full vector representation.

Such an implementation should work well for many whiteboard apps. It allows you to simply add undo/redo functions and save the full state to the backend.

Note: It will get slower if you have too many lines in the state. So you will have to do some extra optimizations if you want to enable drawings of hundreds or thousands of lines.

The demo shows how to:

1. Track drawing state using React.useRef for performance
2. Store lines as vector data in React state
3. Handle mouse/touch events for drawing
4. Implement both pen and eraser tools using globalCompositeOperation
5. Create smooth lines with rounded caps and tension

import React from 'react';
import { Stage, Layer, Line, Text } from 'react-konva';

const App = () => {
  const [tool, setTool] = React.useState('pen');
  const [lines, setLines] = React.useState([]);
  const isDrawing = React.useRef(false);

  const handleMouseDown = (e) => {
    isDrawing.current = true;
    const pos = e.target.getStage().getPointerPosition();
    setLines([...lines, { tool, points: [pos.x, pos.y] }]);
  };

  const handleMouseMove = (e) => {
    // no drawing - skipping
    if (!isDrawing.current) {
      return;
    }
    const stage = e.target.getStage();
    const point = stage.getPointerPosition();
    let lastLine = lines[lines.length - 1];
    // add point
    lastLine.points = lastLine.points.concat([point.x, point.y]);

    // replace last
    lines.splice(lines.length - 1, 1, lastLine);
    setLines(lines.concat());
  };

  const handleMouseUp = () => {
    isDrawing.current = false;
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <select
        value={tool}
        onChange={(e) => {
          setTool(e.target.value);
        }}
      >
        <option value="pen">Pen</option>
        <option value="eraser">Eraser</option>
      </select>
      <Stage
        width={window.innerWidth}
        height={window.innerHeight}
        onMouseDown={handleMouseDown}
        onMousemove={handleMouseMove}
        onMouseup={handleMouseUp}
        onTouchStart={handleMouseDown}
        onTouchMove={handleMouseMove}
        onTouchEnd={handleMouseUp}
      >
        <Layer>
          <Text text="Just start drawing" x={5} y={30} />
          {lines.map((line, i) => (
            <Line
              key={i}
              points={line.points}
              stroke="#df4b26"
              strokeWidth={5}
              tension={0.5}
              lineCap="round"
              lineJoin="round"
              globalCompositeOperation={
                line.tool === 'eraser' ? 'destination-out' : 'source-over'
              }
            />
          ))}
        </Layer>
      </Stage>
    </div>
  );
};

export default App;

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