Get started with React Native: An introductory guide

In the fast-paced world of mobile app development, the demand for cross-platform solutions continues to soar. With users spanning across diverse platforms like iOS and Android, developers face the daunting task of creating and maintaining separate codebases for each. This not only consumes valuable time and resources but also poses challenges in ensuring consistent user experiences across different platforms. Here's where React Native shines as a beacon of efficiency and innovation. Offering a solution to the complexities of native app development, React Native enables developers to build mobile applications using a single codebase, seamlessly bridging the gap between iOS and Android platforms.

In this introductory guide to React Native, we'll explore why this platform stands out among its counterparts and how it addresses the real-time challenges faced by developers in today's ever-evolving landscape of mobile app development. We'll also start developing your first Android app using React Native, providing you with the tools and knowledge needed to begin your mobile development adventure.

React Native: A leading cross-platform development platform#

React Native stands out cross-platform development frameworks, offering developers a powerful toolset to build high-performance mobile applications. With its innovative approach, React Native enables the creation of applications that seamlessly run on both iOS and Android platforms, while maintaining a native-like user experience.

Its popularity stems from its ability to leverage familiar web development technologies, such as JavaScript and React, allowing developers to write code once and deploy it across multiple platforms. As a result, React Native significantly reduces development time and costs while providing a consistent and responsive user interface. Its robust ecosystem of libraries, tools, and community support further accentuates its position as a leading choice for developers seeking efficient and scalable cross-platform solutions.

React Native’s showcase: Some popular apps #

React Native has been utilized by numerous renowned companies to develop some of the most popular mobile applications available today. Here are some of the famous mobile apps developed using React Native:

• Facebook (including Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram): As the creators of React Native, Facebook has implemented the framework in various parts of their own apps, including Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. These apps showcase the power and versatility of React Native in creating large-scale, feature-rich applications.

• Walmart: Walmart, one of the world's largest retail chains, utilized React Native for its mobile app development. The use of React Native allowed Walmart to deliver a consistent user experience across both iOS and Android platforms while optimizing development efficiency.

• UberEats: UberEats, the food delivery service by Uber, used React Native for its mobile app development. This choice enabled UberEats to rapidly deploy updates and new features while ensuring a smooth and responsive user experience for its customers.

• Pinterest: Pinterest, the popular visual discovery platform, employed React Native for its mobile app development. By using React Native, Pinterest was able to accelerate its development process and maintain a consistent user interface across different platforms.

• Discord: Discord, a communication platform popular among gamers and communities, adopted React Native for its mobile app development. React Native allowed Discord to deliver a seamless and intuitive messaging experience to users on both iOS and Android devices.

A Hello World example in React Native#

The journey of mastering a new programming language or framework is synonymous with the iconic “Hello World” program. It symbolically serves as the beginning of a developer's career in this new language. In the image below, you'll see the classic "Hello World" Android application in React Native:

Application code#

Let's look at the application code for our “Hello World” example in React Native. Below, you'll find the code snippet that demonstrates how to create a basic React Native application that displays the famous Hello World message. Take a closer look at the code to understand how React Native components are used to achieve this simple yet foundational functionality.

The code for our "Hello World" application begins with importing necessary libraries and components. Firstly, we import React from the react library, essential for converting JSX into JavaScript, ensuring smooth compilation and execution of our application. Additionally, we import React Native components, essential for building the application's user interface. The View component, like HTML's <div> tag, serves as a main container, grouping child components seamlessly. Complementing this, the Text component provides a means to display textual content throughout the application.

In combination with these components, we use the style attribute to enhance the visual appeal of our application. This attribute enables us to apply various styling properties such as fontSize, color, flex, backgroundColor etc., facilitating customization and refinement of the application's appearance. In the above code, the flex property plays a crucial role in defining the child component's area. With alignItems and justifyContent properties, we can align components both vertically and horizontally within their container, ensuring a cohesive and visually appealing layout.

How can you build and run this Hello World app?#

Surely, if you have been to this page, you want to create, build, and run your first app in React Native on your own. Don’t worry, this blog will provide you with two essential steps to begin crafting your own apps in React Native. 

Step 1: Prerequisites for React Native Development#

If you're just starting out in programming or web development, it's important to have a basic understanding of a few key technologies and skills before diving into React Native development:

• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): A basic understanding of CSS is useful for styling React Native components, helping to create visually pleasing and user-friendly interfaces.

• JavaScript Fundamentals: A good grasp of JavaScript basics is necessary for React Native development, as it serves as the foundation of the framework.

• React Framework: React is a JavaScript library known for its effectiveness in crafting user interfaces. With React Native, its capabilities extend to mobile app development. It's beneficial to be familiar with React concepts like components, props, state, and lifecycle methods, as they are essential for React Native development.

Step 2: Setting up the environment#

Setting up the development environment is the first step towards building React Native applications. Whether you choose Expo or React Native CLI, configuring your development environment is extremely important. In this section, we'll explore the setup process for both Expo and React Native CLI, highlighting their respective advantages, limitations, and steps to install and run a basic “Hello World” app. We'll also introduce the Educative platform as an alternative for beginners seeking a hassle-free learning experience without the need for extensive environment setup. Let's dive in and get your development environment up and running efficiently.

Expo#

Expo is a free and open-source platform for building React Native applications. It provides a set of tools and services that streamline the development process, allowing developers to focus on building features rather than dealing with complex configurations.

Why use Expo to build React Native apps?

Expo simplifies the development workflow by abstracting away the complexities of native code compilation and configuration. It offers a wide range of pre-built components, APIs, and services, making it ideal for rapid prototyping, testing, and deployment of React Native applications.

Steps to install and run Hello World app in Expo

1. Install Expo CLI globally: npm install -g expo-cli

2. Create a new Expo project: expo init my-project

3. Navigate to the project directory: cd my-project

4. Start the development server: expo start

5. Scan the QR code with the Expo Go app on your mobile device or run the app in an emulator to view the Hello World app.

Caveats

While Expo offers convenience and simplicity, it also comes with certain limitations. Expo projects rely on managed workflow, which means you may encounter limitations when integrating native modules or accessing platform-specific APIs not provided by Expo.

React Native CLI#

React Native CLI (command line interface) is the official toolchain for building React Native applications. It provides more flexibility and control over the development process compared to Expo, allowing developers to customize their projects and access native functionality directly.

Why use React CLI to build React Native apps?

React Native CLI is suitable for developers who require more control over the development environment, need to integrate custom native modules, or want to access platform-specific APIs not available in Expo. It provides a more traditional development experience similar to native mobile app development.

Steps to install and run Hello World app in React Native CLI

• Install Node.js and npm: Download and install Node.js

• Install React Native CLI globally: npm install -g react-native-cli

• Create a new React Native project: npx react-native init MyProject

• Navigate to the project directory: cd MyProject

• Start the development server: npx react-native start

• Run the app on an emulator or connected device: npx react-native run-android (for Android) or npx react-native run-ios (for iOS).

Caveats

While React Native CLI offers more flexibility, it also requires developers to handle native code compilation and configuration manually. This can be more complex and time-consuming compared to Expo's managed workflow.

The Educative platform#

If you are new to mobile application development using React Native and want to learn, Educative would be the valuable choice. Unlike Expo or React CLI, you do not need to set up any development environment or external devices to run and test applications. Everything required is ready to use, allowing you to focus on learning and building React Native applications seamlessly.

Happy learning !