Is there anyway to use native components that not provided by the RN team? For example UICollectionView?
Absolutely! It's a bit more work, but essentially what you will be doing is creating a Native Module, which is essentially what all the built-in React Native components are. Essentially, you need to create a bridge between Javascript and the native Objective-C (or Swift) code. You can also do this with components you build yourself in Objective C/Swift, not just the default native iOS ones.
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I am a newbie to react native.
1.) I need to know if I can create a react native application and import it to Xcode, then add code in swift?
2.) I also need to know if the components I developed with swift can be compiled and run as a Android application?
Yes you can definitely do this, it's pretty common.
No, that swift code will not run on android
To help understand this, all UI code written in React Native is translated into corresponding native languages, everything else stays as Javascript.
Your Swift code cannot be translated back into Javascript that can then run on Android and certainly cannot be translated into Java.
I'm trying to understand how I can do a signature capture in React Native. My App is created with create-react-native-app and Expo and I'd prefer to not have to eject the app to get this functionality to work.
Would it be possible to wrap something like this in a webview? https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad
I've also looked at this project, https://github.com/RepairShopr/react-native-signature-capture but it requires me to eject the app and use react-native link.
Looking for any advice or suggestions on how to implement this feature while keeping my project as straightforward as possible (ideally, using create-react-native-app, but if this isn't possible could someone please explain to me why?)
The way React Native works is that each component available in React Native maps to a native component in the underlying platform.
ie. a <Image /> is an ImageView in Android and a UIImageView.h in iOS.
The Javascript code itself runs in a Javascript thread on each platform and as you use Components in React Native, there's a translation layer that passes information from JS into the React Native bridge that then results in corresponding native components being created.
By default, React Native has included the following components: https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/components-and-apis.html#basic-components which means that only those components come out-of-the-box in React Native. If you want other components, then you have 2 options, either create a "composite" component in which your JS component is written into other JS components or, if your feature needs a native component not yet exposed by React Native, write your own "native" component to expose certain native functionality to your React Native code.
The way Expo works is that they have wrapped React Native and a handful of 3rd party components and built it within their application. The reason why you can't use a 3rd party native component they don't support is because when that component is used, the app itself doesn't have translation code to go from JS to a native Android/iOS view.
So, to do what you're asking, you'd need to find either a "native" drawing component that Expo has included in their platform/app. OR you need to find a "composite" drawing component that is built with other default React Native components (or other components Expo supports).
ie. On Android, I might build this with a Canvas view, but from what I can tell React Native doesn't support that object natively, so I would probably write this myself, etc.
It's hard for Expo to support every 3rd party "native" component out there because React Native is open source and it iterates so fast that most community-built components aren't always up to date or they might conflict with one another.
I am using react-native-signature-capture.
Working properly on both Android and iOS.
I know it's been a while, but there is an interesting article here: https://blog.expo.io/drawing-signatures-with-expo-25d1629ca1ac
Wait, but how?
Using “expo-pixi”, you can add a component that lets you choose your brush’s color, thickness, and opacity. Then when your user lifts her finger, you get a callback. From there you can take a screenshot of the transparent view or get the raw point data if that’s what you’re looking for.
I am bridging React native and Swift Modules. I have completely done that. I am trying to add my existing IOS project and wanted to add in React Native.
For instance, When i create a new project for ReactNative. My Current Project become
ReactNative/ios
Now Is there any way to export the IOS project directly in the folder and make a reference to call from React Native ?
You can bridge native with react native. you can either import modules from either side or create buttons and shift your control to each side.
- You can create a button in RN and call Native module or complete project. please have look at this link
https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/communication-ios.html
Hope this helps. I will be most probably developing a project which allows you to bridge 2 apps by one button with complete documentation.
I've been evaluating React Native as a replacement for Cordova, and was wondering if there is a widely accepted solution for styled text inputs. I'd like to see text inputs rendered in Material Design on Android, and Apple style on iOS.
Do you have recommendations for a specific library, or will I have to write my own/combine multiple libraries? Thank you!
You could check out https://nativebase.io/ it supports platform specific default styling there are others as well like https://react-native-training.github.io/react-native-elements/ and http://www.xinthink.com/react-native-material-kit/ which has consistent styling regardless of platform.
Coming from a Cordova/Sencha Touch background I suggest you try to create your own style using only the default react native components, the reason is that before I was having the same question regarding component library that I could use so that I could target all platform at once, but react native isn't 100% cross platform and learning to style on different platform might give you an idea and feedback with your evaluation, unless your aiming to have a project as soon as possible and that is a different story.
The official documentation for React Native explains how to add React Native views to existing native applications. However, it does not explain how to run React Native code written in JavaScript from a native application, without having to display any React Native component. Does the framework provide a way to do this?
I think reason being, R-N works on top of Native components and not other way round. I have not come across anything that you are looking.