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React Native: Intro to Layout and Styling

These are the notes accompanying my talk about React Native at BarcelonaJS (November 2019).

Who am I

Mozafar

  • Twitter @kabaros (Politics > Tech)
  • Work at Glovo/Barcelona since September 2019 <- Hiring!
  • MigraCode Barcelona <- Check them out!
    • Previously Volunteer/co-founder of CodeYourFuture Glasgow
  • My commercial React Native experiences: Kindaba, Finmo, Dawa, Madrasa (under construction)

Why React Native?

  • It is React
    • Learn once, Write anywhere
    • all our knowledge of building components, state management, testing applies
  • Performance (and native feel)
    • The Native, the JS and the bridge
    • Read about Hermes - the new JS engine optimised for RN.
    • Read this blog post for an overview of RN architecture and the performance tweaks added.
  • Development experience
    • Fast Refresh (live reload + hot reload)
    • Debug with Chrome Dev Tools
  • Layout with familiar technology (for web devs)
  • OTA updates (ex-codepush, appcenter)
  • It's not only startups and small companies using it

Why not React Native?

  • It is React
    • If you haven't used React, then it is not necessarily easier
  • It is Learn once, Write anywhere not Write once, run everywhere
  • Performance
    • It is still not native
    • Long lists can become an issue if you don't take care
  • Navigation/Routing
  • Getting Started: Expo vs CRNA vs react-native
    • tldr; just use React Native CLI
      • npx react-native init BarcelonaJS
      • cd BarcelonaJS and npx react-native run-anroid (or npx react-native run-ios)
      • Check out the new React Native Doctor - a tool to help you with setting iOS and android dev
    • (opinion) The documentation for Getting Started as it implies that Expo is the best way to Get Started. While Expo is indeed quick to get going, you will hit its limit too soon.
    • You can play with Snack - a CodePen-like tool for React Native - to quickly get a feel of building apps with RN and test them on your phone.
    • For your real app, do check Ignite at least for ideas on how to structure a big app.
  • Linking native libraries (when it goes wrong)

Layout in React Native

  • Yoga is an open-source, cross-platform layout library that implements Flexbox.
    • Flexbox (with few differences)
  • Expressive layout library, not implementing all of CSS.
    • No support for styling properties that have no impact on layout
  • RTL is first-class citizen
  • Play on https://yogalayout.com/playground

Styling in React Native

  • All of the core components accept a prop named style

  • You can create styles in three ways: Inline styles, JS objects, or using StyleSheet.create

  • All dimensions in React Native are unitless, and represent density-independent pixels.

    • This blog post has a general useful explanation of pixels, points and resolutions

  • All text has to be inside a component

  • Style inheritance is limited to text subtrees (no cascade)

  • You can pass an array of styles - the last style in the array has precedence, so you can use this to inherit styles.

Scaling Styles

  • Use StyleSheet.create
    • StyleSheet.create optimises memory allocation of style objects and their transfer between the Native <> JS bridge
  • Don't overuse overriding styles with arrays.
  • (Opinion): Keep the styles with the component. Don't separate in component.style.js file.
  • Create a component "CustomText" that encapsulates Text and use this component across your app
    • Same for ScreenView (a top-level wrapper around View to use in different Screens)
    • Even when you use a component Library like React Native Elements or Native Base. It is worth it to wrap the Library's Text component and use the wrapper
  • Theming techniques
    • Abstract your Fonts, Metrics, Colors in shared modules to start with. Don't litter the components for a lot of magic numbers for styling.
    • Look at Ignite for inspiration about what should go there in these "theme" files.
    • Components' libraries such as React Native Elements have more sophisticated theming. Check it out for ideas.
  • Scaling font sizes
    • Use a scaling function
    • The idea is implemented in this library (but it's simple enough to just do it yourself)
  • Android vs iOS
    • Use Platform.select
    • Use component.android.js and component.ios.js if differences are more significant than a small style change
  • Styled Components in React Native