As I know the first priority of React Native is not cross platform. It claims "learn once use everywhere" instead of "write once use everywhere". So there are a few specific components like StatusBarIOS, NavigatorIOS, AlertIOS. Although there are some cross platform alternative components like Navigator, StatusBar, etc, Facebook suggest us to use platform specific version for better performance.
But my question is why don't just wrap the platform specific version inside the universal version in the first place? For example, Navigator, why don't just use NavigatorIOS internally in iOS? Wouldn't it be nicer to keep the performance and make it cross platform at the same time?
Depends on what you mean by
But my question is why don't just wrap the platform specific version inside the universal version in the first place?
I was trying to build a so called cross-platform app. But I ended up writing too many if-else blocks for rendering simplest of platform-specific components. I scrapped the whole app altogether, and tried using better folder structure instead.
I created an src folder in root of the application. And then divided the app into api, views, components. The views and components were further divided into android and ios folders. Inside src folder, I had a main.js which contained Navigator.
This is what I prefer to do! You might want to do something else. That's okay. At the end of this learning experience, I found that Facebook was right. it is not write once use everywhere. It is learn once apply however you want! As long as your app is delivering 60 FPS experience to your user, anything is valid in React Native.
Related
I built an application in React, is there a way that the same code will be used for a website?
I know Instagram is built on React and it also has a website, I wonder maybe you should add some link or something that it will open for me as a website?
Or maybe there is no such way and I have to build a website separately?
First off all, If you have written any code which is related to native functionality, then it can be challenging.
If you have only worked with views, images, and some of the basic functionality.
It can be done with react-native-web you can easily migrate your project to react-native-web.
If you project is created with expo they already provide react-native-web support.
Option 2: If you have some of the code you want to share and some is that you don't want to share or can't share.
You can use renderProp or customHooks pattern to reuse your logical code and seperate your view for react-native and react js apps.
If you want to reuse your views too, you can do those with primitives.
you can use styled-component primitives for that.
https://medium.com/react-native-training/sharing-code-between-react-web-and-react-native-applications-7f451af26378
You can get some idea here as well.
we working with expo and using mapview, however, there are many restrictions in react native maps, as we are planning to implement turn by turn navigation. Integrating Mapbox would have been the best option, however we do not think it’s best to eject the project as expo doesn’t still support Mapbox. Although, I came across a package, react native maps navigation, I would like to know if anyone has been able to successfully implement it in their project and it functioned properly, and also know if there are any drawbacks that comes along with it. I am asking this because the author says “Please note that this module is usable but still under heavy development. Some properties and/or component names might change without notice.”
Kindly give your suggestions and advice. Thanks
Mapbox works very well in a react-native projects and recommend to use this service for your project but effectively, it don't works with expo so for me, you should eject your project to use it.
I paste here some packages I used for a GPS project (The last one is to get the current position of an user)
react-native-mapbox-gl/maps
mapbox-sdk
react-native-geolocation
Hope that could help you
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.
Some cross-platform tools (like Xamarin native and RubyMotion) allow the development of two separate views for Android and iOS, while keeping the business logic shared for both of them. Others (like Apache Cordova or Xamarin.Forms) share both UI and business layer, with the option to use platform-specific overrides when necessary.
What is the state of the interpreted JavaScript frameworks (NativeScript, React Native or Appcelerator)? Are they all focused on creating single UI with platform overrides, or do they allow creating two separate views for each platform? For example, is it possible to create a view using Fragments in Android, but a different view on iOS (since Fragments do not exist there)?
Cordova uses WebView, that mean GUI level will be the same for both Android and iOS but different per Device version. In case of Android each client has own Chronium version and it can break UI behaviour. So developers use Crosswalk to set fixed Chronium version. (extra 20M to your application).
BTW Ionic that uses Cordova architecture uses native behaviour per platform. For example for Android Tabs located at the top, on iOS - at the bottom
On other hand Xamarin (C#), React-Native(JS) and NativeScript(JS) call native APIs. They don't use WebView but generate Native code.
For example if you create button - it will look different: on Android - material theme, on iOS - iPhone theme
Anyways, the bottom line is: everything depends on resources and time. If you want to build application fast, with the same view - I would go on Ionic2+ Angular2 + Cordova.
If you you have more time - go on React-Native or NativeScript (Still has poor documentation) or Xamarin (C#).
React-native's slogan is Learn once, write everywhere. So, you can choose what suits your needs, you can:
Share UI between platforms.
Share Only business logic.
So, the answer for react-native is yes. You can create separate UIs or you can share it.
Since you are writing components, one way of separating this logic is to write component.android.js and component.ios.js and the platform loads the appropriate one for you. Note that you can also do that programmatically.
You can see that in action in the official f8 app made by facebook using react-native
As far as I've searched it appears to be impossible to load modules (=plugins/libraries?) dynamically (I'm very new to React Native..).
What I'd like to accomplish is to let the user of the app load additional functions as she/he desires.
Example:
A user wants to add a music plugin to the app.
Intuitively, I'd long for something like dynamic library loading. The user would fetch the library, it'll be loaded into the code and can then be executed. However, in React Native it seems like there are only modules that can be loaded?
Alternatively, I'd hope that auto-updating the app would allow to add modules "on-the-fly" ( https://github.com/aerofs/react-native-auto-updater or www.npmjs.com/package/react-native-hot-load ). But I fear that this is only for JS and data content?
The ability to dynamically add functionality to the app is an essential part of the app. I have no previous experience worth mentioning in mobile app development.
Question: Is it possible to dynamically add functionality (also native in nature) to React Native apps?
If not, would there be a workaround?
EDIT: I have found the following repository on github: https://github.com/yusefnapora/react-dynamic-linking-example .
Unfortunately, without any description. I have no idea about Objective-C, but the repo name sounds promising. Anybody knows what its purpose is?