Preview Rail
A large preview over a rail of thumbnails: the frame glides to the chosen one, the preview crossfades with a slight zoom, and autoplay shows its progress in the frame.
- Category: React Image Effects
- Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
- Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
- Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge
Examples
Preview Rail
API reference
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
images | { src; alt; caption? }[] | — | |
autoplay | number | 5 | Seconds; 0 turns it off. |
className | string | — |
About Preview Rail
Preview Rail shows a large image over a rail of thumbnails: the frame glides to the chosen thumbnail, the preview crossfades with a slight zoom, and autoplay shows its progress inside the frame.
Preview Rail is an image effect 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 Preview Rail
- Product galleries.
- Portfolio case studies.
- Property and travel listings.
- Feature tours.
How it works
Thumbnails are tabs with arrow-key navigation. The rail scrolls itself without moving the page, autoplay pauses on hover and focus, and reduced motion turns autoplay off.
Images keep their alt text, controls are keyboard operable, and the effect never hides the content it decorates. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.
Customizing Preview Rail
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 autoplay live, and the Code tab updates to match, so the snippet you copy already carries your values.
- images ({ src; alt; caption? }[]).
- autoplay (number, default 5): Seconds; 0 turns it off.
Goes well with Preview Rail
These image pieces share its tokens and motion language, so they sit together on one page without clashing.
- Parallax Image: A React parallax image that drifts slower than the page as you scroll
- Pixelate Reveal: A React pixelate reveal: images resolve from chunky pixels to full detail
- Image Reveal: A React image reveal: a clip-path wipe uncovers the image as it settles
- Zoom Lens: A React zoom lens: a magnifier follows the pointer over product images
- Ken Burns: A React Ken Burns slideshow: slow pan and zoom crossfading through images
Install Preview Rail
npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/preview-railPreview Rail is part of Charcoal UI Pro. One seat unlocks all 393 Pro components, 112 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 preview-rail.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 Preview Rail?
- Preview Rail is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/preview-rail. It copies preview-rail.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.
- Is Preview Rail free for commercial use?
- Preview Rail 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 Preview Rail 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 Preview Rail?
- Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Preview Rail's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.