Reactour is a React library designed to seamlessly integrate a simple, unobtrusive tour or onboarding experience into your React applications. It’s built with the goal of providing a user-friendly way to guide new users through your application’s key features, improving initial engagement and reducing the learning curve. The core principle behind Reactour is to offer a minimal, non-intrusive experience, avoiding the typical, often overwhelming, pop-up tour modals. Instead, it leverages React’s component system to create tours that are anchored to specific elements within your UI, making them feel more integrated and less disruptive.

The library’s architecture revolves around the `Tour` component, which is the central element for managing the entire tour. You initialize a `Tour` instance, and then you use the `addStep` method to define individual steps within the tour. Each step consists of a `content` prop, which is the text or HTML content displayed to the user, and a `target` prop, which specifies the React element to which the tour is anchored. The `target` prop is crucial; it dictates where the tour marker will appear, allowing you to guide users directly to the relevant part of your application.

Reactour offers several key features to enhance its usability and flexibility. It supports both horizontal and vertical tour orientations, allowing you to adapt the tour’s layout to your application’s design. It also provides a `show` method to trigger the tour’s display, and a `hide` method to dismiss it. Crucially, the library handles the positioning and styling of the tour marker automatically, simplifying the development process. The marker itself is a simple, customizable element – typically a circle – that visually indicates the current step of the tour.

Beyond the basic functionality, Reactour includes features like `stepOrder` to control the sequence in which steps are displayed, and `onStepEnter` and `onStepExit` callbacks, allowing you to execute custom logic when a step is entered or exited. These callbacks provide a powerful mechanism for integrating Reactour with your application’s state management and other components.

Reactour is designed to be lightweight and easy to integrate. It relies on standard React concepts and doesn’t introduce a large bundle size. The repository includes comprehensive documentation, example usage, and a test suite, making it straightforward to learn and implement. The project is actively maintained, with regular updates and bug fixes. It’s particularly well-suited for applications where a subtle, contextual onboarding experience is desired, rather than a full-blown, interactive tutorial. The library’s focus on simplicity and integration makes it a valuable tool for developers seeking to improve user engagement and guide new users through their applications effectively.