Floating Lines
Long thin lines drift across at different depths and speeds with a slow wobble, and the near layers slide in parallax with the pointer.
- Category: Backgrounds
- Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
- Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
- Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge
Examples
Floating Lines
Move the pointer to tilt the layers; deeper lines move further.
API reference
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
count | number | 18 | Lines in an 800×320 box; the count scales with area. |
speed | number | 1 | |
thickness | number | 1 | Base stroke width in px; deeper lines draw thicker. |
color | string | "var(--ember)" | Any CSS colour, including var(--token). |
parallax | number | 1 | Pointer parallax strength; 0 disables it. |
className | string | — |
About Floating Lines
Floating Lines drifts long thin lines across at different depths and speeds with a slow wobble, while near layers slide in parallax with the pointer.
Floating Lines is an animated background 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 Floating Lines
- Minimal SaaS heroes.
- Architecture and design studios.
- Calm about pages.
- Portfolio backgrounds.
How it works
Lines live on depth layers; parallax scales with depth. It runs on a canvas capped at 2x pixel density, pauses when scrolled off screen, and reads its colours from your theme tokens so it follows dark mode.
The whole layer is decorative and aria-hidden, sits behind your content without taking pointer events it does not need, and pauses when scrolled off screen. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.
Customizing Floating Lines
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 count, speed, thickness, color, parallax live, and the Code tab updates to match, so the snippet you copy already carries your values.
- count (number, default 18): Lines in an 800×320 box; the count scales with area.
- speed (number, default 1).
- thickness (number, default 1): Base stroke width in px; deeper lines draw thicker.
- color (string, default "var(--ember)"): Any CSS colour, including var(--token).
- parallax (number, default 1): Pointer parallax strength; 0 disables it.
The example on this page
- Floating Lines: Move the pointer to tilt the layers; deeper lines move further.
Goes well with Floating Lines
These backgrounds pieces share its tokens and motion language, so they sit together on one page without clashing.
- Ember Field: An animated React ember background: glowing embers drift up and flicker as they cool
- Smoke: A slow React smoke background: blurred plumes drifting over dark sections, CSS only
- Aurora: An animated React aurora background: soft light bands drifting across a section
- Grid Beams: A React grid background with beams of light running along its lines
- Meteors: A React meteor shower background: streaks falling diagonally, CSS only
Install Floating Lines
npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/floating-linesFloating Lines 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 floating-lines.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 do I install Floating Lines?
- Floating Lines is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/floating-lines. It copies floating-lines.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.
- Is Floating Lines free for commercial use?
- Floating Lines 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 Floating Lines 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 Floating Lines?
- Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Floating Lines's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.