Flex Carousel
A strip of image panels where the hovered or focused one grows and the others squeeze, the caption sliding up inside the open panel.
- Category: Display
- Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
- Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
- Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge
Examples
Flex Carousel
API reference
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
items | { src: string; title: string; subtitle?: string }[] | — | |
expand | number | 4 | How much wider the open panel is. |
gap | number | 8 | |
height | number | 320 | |
defaultIndex | number | 0 | |
className | string | — |
About Flex Carousel
Flex Carousel is a strip of image panels where the hovered or focused one grows and the others squeeze, with its caption sliding up inside.
Flex Carousel is a display component for React 19, styled with Tailwind CSS 4 and animated with Motion. It drops into Next.js, Vite, Remix or Astro through the shadcn CLI as a single file you own.
When to use Flex Carousel
- Destination and travel galleries.
- Product categories.
- Portfolio projects.
- Case studies.
How it works
Each panel's flex-grow animates on a spring, so the layout does the work. Panels are buttons with aria-expanded, so keyboard focus opens them too.
Interactive parts are buttons or links with accessible names, decorative layers are hidden from assistive tech, and everything is reachable by keyboard. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.
Customizing Flex Carousel
Every prop is documented in the API reference above with its type and default. The ones you will reach for first are listed here.
The Customize panel next to the preview lets you change expand, gap, height live, and the Code tab updates to match, so the snippet you copy already carries your values.
- items.
- expand (number, default 4): How much wider the open panel is.
- gap (number, default 8).
- height (number, default 320).
- defaultIndex (number, default 0).
Goes well with Flex Carousel
These display pieces share its tokens and motion language, so they sit together on one page without clashing.
- Tilt Card: A 3D tilt card for React that leans toward the pointer with a moving glare
- Spotlight Card: A React spotlight card: an accent glow follows the pointer across card and border
- Sortable List: A drag-to-reorder React list with lifted shadows and keyboard sorting
- Card Stack: A swipeable React card stack where the next card rises to meet you
- Image Compare: A React before and after image comparison slider you can drag anywhere
Install Flex Carousel
npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/flex-carouselFlex Carousel is part of Charcoal UI Pro. One seat unlocks all 300 Pro components, 107 landing-page sections and 100 full templates, for every personal and client project, with updates included. Add the @charcoal registry once with your access token, then the command above copies flex-carousel.tsx into components/ui and installs clsx, tailwind-merge.
You own the file you install: no runtime package, no lock-in, nothing to keep in sync. Change it however your product needs.
See Charcoal UI Pro pricing · Pro setup
Frequently asked questions
- How much does the active panel grow?
- expand sets how many times wider the open panel is than a closed one; four is a balanced default.
- How do I install Flex Carousel?
- Flex Carousel is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/flex-carousel. It copies flex-carousel.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.
- Is Flex Carousel free for commercial use?
- Flex Carousel needs a Charcoal UI Pro seat, monthly or a one-time lifetime price. A seat covers unlimited personal and commercial projects, including client work, and every future Pro component.
- Does Flex Carousel work with Next.js?
- Yes. It is a client component for React 19 styled with Tailwind CSS 4, so it works in the Next.js App Router and Pages Router, Vite, Remix and Astro.
- Can an AI coding agent install Flex Carousel?
- Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Flex Carousel's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.