React Navigation: Swipe on drawer does not work in Android

I have found the solution. React Navigation depends on the react-native-gesture-handler library. In the Installation section of React Navigation docs, it only says to create link by using the command react-native link. This is enough for iOS. But for Android, you have to edit the MainActivity.java file, so that the gesture handler library can work as expected:

import com.facebook.react.ReactActivity;
+ import com.facebook.react.ReactActivityDelegate;
+ import com.facebook.react.ReactRootView;
+ import com.swmansion.gesturehandler.react.RNGestureHandlerEnabledRootView;

public class MainActivity extends ReactActivity {

  @Override
  protected String getMainComponentName() {
    return "Example";
  }

+  @Override
+  protected ReactActivityDelegate createReactActivityDelegate() {
+    return new ReactActivityDelegate(this, getMainComponentName()) {
+      @Override
+      protected ReactRootView createRootView() {
+       return new RNGestureHandlerEnabledRootView(MainActivity.this);
+      }
+    };
+  }
}

Refer to the documentation: https://kmagiera.github.io/react-native-gesture-handler/docs/getting-started.html

Actually, it's nowhere stated in React Navigation documentation to modify any files, as it is specific to react-native-gesture-handler and not React Navigation. I am keeping the answer here so it may help others.

UPDATE: The latest docs of React Navigation addresses this issue


In the index.js of your project just use gestureHandlerRootHOC:

import {AppRegistry} from 'react-native';
import App from './App';
import {name as appName} from './app.json';
import { gestureHandlerRootHOC } from 'react-native-gesture-handler'

AppRegistry.registerComponent(appName, () => gestureHandlerRootHOC(App));

resource: https://github.com/react-navigation/drawer/issues/105#issuecomment-540667009

Update:

In React Navigation > 5.x

Just put react-native-gesture-handler at the beginning of root index.js

import 'react-native-gesture-handler';