Orbit Text
Text lit by washes of colour that circle through the letters out of phase. CSS only.
- Category: Transitions
- Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
- Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
- Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge
Examples
Orbit Text
API reference
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
colors | string[] | — | |
duration | number | 6 |
About Orbit Text
Orbit Text lights text with washes of colour that circle through the letters out of phase.
Orbit Text is an UI transition 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 Orbit Text
- Hero headlines.
- Brand names.
- Premium badges.
- Event titles.
How it works
Layered gradients rotate behind clipped text.
The change it animates is also announced to assistive tech, and the motion is short enough never to block what the user wants to do. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.
Customizing Orbit Text
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 text, duration live, and the Code tab updates to match, so the snippet you copy already carries your values.
- colors (string[]).
- duration (number, default 6).
Goes well with Orbit Text
These transitions pieces share its tokens and motion language, so they sit together on one page without clashing.
- Card Resize: A React box that springs to the size of its content
- Notification Badge: A React notification badge that pops in and slides new counts in
- Page Transition: React page transitions: native-feeling push and pop between views
- Error Shake: A React error shake: a decaying head shake for wrong input
- Arrow Link: A React arrow link whose chevron grows a stem on hover, CSS only
Install Orbit Text
npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/orbit-textOrbit Text 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 orbit-text.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
- Will orbit text slow my page down?
- No. The colour washes are layered gradients rotating behind clipped text in CSS, so the browser composites them on the GPU and no JavaScript runs per frame. The text stays real, selectable and indexable.
- How do I install Orbit Text?
- Orbit Text is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/orbit-text. It copies orbit-text.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.
- Is Orbit Text free for commercial use?
- Orbit Text 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 Orbit Text 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 Orbit Text?
- Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Orbit Text's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.