• React Native ranks 6th in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2021 with 14.51% votes. 

Source

• Giants such as Facebook, Skype, and SoundCloud Pulse chose the React Native framework to build their apps.
• 14.85% of installed apps among the top 500 apps in the U.S. are built with the React Native framework.

You’re convinced that the React Native framework is a big deal. However, before you go and hire a React Native developer to build your app, read this article.  

In the next five minutes, the article will discuss 7 ways to improve the performance of a React Native app. The comprehensive guide will discuss:

• How steering clear of ScrollView to render huge lists optimizes the performance of a React Native app
• How steering clear of unnecessary renders optimizes the performance of a React Native app
• How steering clear of passing functions inline as props optimizes the performance of a React Native app
• How steering clear of arrow functions optimizes the performance of a React Native app
• How steering clear of implementing bulk reducers optimizes the performance of a React Native app
• And much more

If you’re someone who is hiring React Native developers, you’ll know what to look for in them to make the best recruit. If you’re a React Native developer, you’ll know what to do to achieve React Native performance optimization.

Without further ado, let’s begin.  

7 ways to improve the performance of a React Native app 

1. Never use ScrollView to render huge lists

If you want to display items in React Native with scrollable lists, you have two options – ScrollView and FlatList components.

ScrollView is easy to implement. However, it’s also one of the biggest reasons behind the React Native Android slow performance. The issue shows up even more when the number of items on the list is huge. 

Thus, you’d do better to use FlatList to handle large amounts of data in the list format. The component displays a scrolling list of changing but similarly structured data. The component works best with long lists of data where the number of items changes over time.  

Source

However, note that the items in the FlatList component are lazy-loaded. Thus, the feature can make the app use an excessive or inconsistent amount of memory.

2. Steer clear of unnecessary renders

Steering clear of unnecessary renders is a great way to reduce the overall rendering overhead. 

The reason behind this is when you avoid unnecessary renders, a component uses the previously cached properties and renders the JSX view returned by the functional component only once even when the component receives the same set of properties multiple times.   

You can achieve the same by using React.memo. The feature handles memorization.

Here’s an example for you to understand this better.

In the example, the Animal component comes with a state variable called leg count. The variable is updated with a number that’s associated with each pair whenever the button is pressed.

When the button is pressed, the WildAnimal component gets re-rendered. The function happens even though the text property of the component doesn’t change with render.

React.memo can optimize the process by wrapping the contents of the WildAnimal component with itself. 

Source

3. Steer clear of passing functions inline as props

Never pass a function inline when you need to pass a function as a property to a component. The reason behind this is doing so makes the parent re-render a new reference. The process creates an additional function.

Thus, the child component re-renders without the props changing. 

Instead, declare the function as a class method or as a function inside a functional component. The process helps the references get rid of any possibility of across re-renders. 

Source

4. Steer clear of arrow functions 

If you’re asking “How to check the performance of a React Native app?” checking if you’re using arrow functions is a great way to measure the same.

Arrow functions result in unnecessary re-renders. 

That’s why you shouldn’t use arrow functions as callbacks in your functions to render views. Furthermore, the arrow function allows each render to generate a new instance of that particular function.  

Therefore, whenever reconciliation happens, the React Native framework compares a difference. The framework never reuses old references if the function reference doesn’t match, thus avoiding unnecessary re-renders. 

Source

5. Steer clear of implementing bulk reducers

A brilliant React Native performance KPI is not implementing bulk reducers.

You should always update only the references that need to be updated. If an item comes with the same value as before, you don’t need to save a new reference for the same as it’ll create useless renders.

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Thus, if you’re not using Redux with rematch and/or normalize or if you’re writing reducers yourself to an extent, always mutate only the objects that you need to. 

Furthermore, when you re-fetch a list of items from the network and save it in the reducer, here’s what the process will look like: 

Source

6. Enable the RAM format

You can achieve the same in both Android and iOS platforms. 

Enabling the RAM format on the iOS platform will create a single indexed file. Afterward, the React Native framework will load one module at a time. 

Furthermore, enabling the RAM format on the Android platform will create a set of files for each module on its own. You can force Android to create a single file similar to iOS as well. However, using several files needs less memory on Android and offers better performance.

Edit the build phase “Bundle React Native code and images”. Before

../node_modules/react-native/scripts/react-native-xcode.sh add export BUNDLE_COMMAND="ram-bundle":

To enable the RAM format in Xcode.

Source

To achieve the same on Android, edit the android/app/build.gradle file. Before the line apply from: “../../node_modules/react-native/react.gradle”, add or amend the project.ext.react block:

Source

Note that if you’re using the Hermes JS engine, you won’t need RAM bundles. When the framework loads the bytecode, the mmap makes sure that the entire file doesn’t get loaded.

7. Opt for uncontrolled inputs

A key difference between React Native performance vs React performance is that uncontrolled inputs in React Native increase the performance; a phenomenon that’s the opposite in React.

The reason behind this is that controlled inputs in the React Native framework lead to rendering glitches while updating the view. 

Use uncontrolled inputs. All you need to do to achieve that is remove the value property. Whenever you modify an uncontrolled input, there’ll be no state changes and thus there’ll be no re-renders.  

Source

Ways to improve the performance of a React Native app – upskill to stay on top of your game

Glassdoor confirmed a React developer in the U.S. earns $95,641 per year on average. Furthermore, the highest-paying React developers in the U.S. earn $149k. 

Thus, the job is a lucrative one. Now that you know the 7 ways to improve the performance of a React native app, you can stay ahead of the game. Read more:

• Free Open-Source CRM Software For Small Business
• AI-Generated Roles and Permissions to Flatlogic Generator
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• Exploring the Future of AI Web App Generators
• AI Web App Generator to Make Apps in Minutes

The post How to Improve the Performance of a React Native App? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

How to choose the right React Native UI Components for Mobile App Development? 

Choosing the right React Native UI components for your mobile app development project is essential for delivering a great user experience. It’s important to consider the features you need, the design of the components, and the performance of the components. 

• Consider the features, design, and performance you need 
• Consider the cost of the components 
• Do your research and read reviews from other developers 
• Consider how easy the components are to implement and integrate 
• Consider the ease of use of the components 
• Consider the compatibility with existing technologies 
• Look at the level of support provided by the component creators  

Here is our list of the best React Native UI components for mobile app development. With these components, you can create an engaging and intuitive user experience for your mobile app development projects. 

React Native Elements

GitHub Stars: 23.1k

License: MIT

React Native Elements is one of the most popular React Native UI components available. It provides an easy-to-use and customizable set of components for mobile app development. This library also provides several UI elements such as buttons, text inputs, and more. The advantages of using React Native Elements include the fact that it is open-source, it is lightweight, and easy to use, and it provides a wide range of components for building mobile apps. Furthermore, the library is well-documented and has a large community of developers who can help with any issues you may have. 

Key features:

• Easy-to-use components: React Native Elements provides ready-to-use components that can be used in any project. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Elements supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Customization: React Native Elements offers a wide range of customization options for users to tailor their components to their own needs. 
• Design System: React Native Elements provides a comprehensive design system that includes a range of UI elements, icons, typography, and more. 
• Extensibility: React Native Elements is highly extensible and can be used to create custom components. 
• Documentation: React Native Elements includes detailed documentation to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native UI Kitten 

GitHub Stars: 9.4k

License: MIT

React Native UI Kitten is a UI component library that provides customizable components for mobile app development. The library provides a wide range of components such as buttons, text inputs, lists, cards, and more. The advantages of using React Native UI Kitten include its modern design, its ease of use, and its compatibility with other React Native libraries. Furthermore, the library is well-documented and has a large community of developers who can help with any issues you may have. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native UI Kitten is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native UI Kitten supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Customizable: React Native UI Kitten comes with a range of customizable themes and components, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their own needs. 
• Design System: React Native UI Kitten provides a comprehensive design system that includes a range of UI elements, icons, typography, and more. 
• Extensibility: React Native UI Kitten is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native UI Kitten offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Paper 

GitHub Stars: 10.1k

License: MIT

React Native Paper is a UI component library based on Material Design. It provides an easy-to-use and customizable set of components for mobile app development. This library also provides several UI elements such as buttons, text inputs, lists, cards, and more. The advantages of using React Native Paper include its modern design, its simplicity, and its compatibility with other React Native libraries. Furthermore, the library is well-documented and has a large community of developers who can help with any issues you may have. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Paper is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support. 
• Customizable: React Native Paper comes with a range of customizable themes and components, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their own needs. 
• Design System: React Native Paper provides a comprehensive design system that includes a range of UI elements, icons, typography, and more. 
• Extensibility: React Native Paper is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Paper offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Vector Icons

GitHub Stars: 16.3k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with a wide range of icons for React Native apps. It includes popular icon sets such as FontAwesome, Material Design, Ionicons, and more. It also comes with an icon generator that allows developers to quickly create custom icons for their app’s UI.

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Vector Icons is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Vector Icons supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Customizable: React Native Vector Icons come with a range of customizable icons, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their own needs. 
• Compatibility: React Native Vector Icons are compatible with React Native, Expo, and web platforms. 
• Extensibility: React Native Vector Icons is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Vector Icons offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Navigation 

GitHub Stars: 21.9k

License: MIT

React Native Navigation is a library that provides navigation components for mobile app development. It has components such as navigation bars, side menus, and more. It is well-documented and has a large community of developers who can help with any issues. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Navigation is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Navigation supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Navigation: React Native Navigation provides a range of navigation components, allowing developers to easily implement navigation into their apps.
• Screen Management: React Native Navigation provides advanced screen management capabilities, allowing developers to manage screens, transitions, and more.
• Extensibility: React Native Navigation is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Navigation offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Calendar 

GitHub Stars: 8.2k

License: MIT

This component allows developers to easily create calendar views that can be used in their apps. It includes features such as event scheduling, calendar views, and more. It also comes with an intuitive API and customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a calendar view that fits their app’s UI.

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Calendar is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Calendar supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Calendars: React Native Calendar provides access to calendars, allowing developers to easily access and manage user calendars. 
• Events: React Native Calendar provides access to calendar events, allowing developers to easily access and manage user events. 
• Extensibility: React Native Calendar is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Calendar offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Maps 

GitHub Stars: 13.7k

License: MIT

This component provides developers with a way to integrate Google Maps into their React Native apps. It comes with an intuitive API and a wide range of features, such as turn-by-turn navigation, traffic information, and more. It also comes with customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a map view that fits their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Maps is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Maps supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Maps: React Native Maps provides access to maps, allowing developers to easily access and manage user maps. 
• Directions: React Native Maps provides access to directions, allowing developers to easily access and manage routes and directions. 
• Extensibility: React Native Maps is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options.
• Documentation: React Native Maps offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Material Design 

GitHub Stars: 145

License: MIT

React Native Material Design is a UI component library based on Google’s Material Design. It provides components with modern, customizable design and ease of use. React Native Material Design provides components such as buttons, text inputs, lists, cards, and more. The advantages of using React Native Material Design include its modern design, its simplicity, and its compatibility with other React Native libraries. Furthermore, the library is well-documented and has a large community of developers who can help with any issues you may have. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Material Design is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Material Design supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Design System: React Native Material Design provides a comprehensive design system that includes a range of UI elements, icons, typography, and more. 
• Platform-Specific Components: React Native Material Design provides platform-specific components for Android and iOS, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their platform. 
• Extensibility: React Native Material Design is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Material Design offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Image Picker

GitHub Stars: 7.8k

License: MIT

This component allows developers to easily select images from the device’s photo library. It provides a simple API, allowing developers to quickly integrate image selection into their app’s UI. It also comes with a customizable design system, allowing developers to quickly create a consistent look and feel across their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Image Picker is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Image Picker supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Customizable: React Native Image Picker comes with a range of customizable components, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their own needs. 
• Camera: React Native Image Picker supports access to devise cameras for taking photos and videos. 
• Image Cropping: React Native Image Picker supports image cropping, allowing developers to easily crop and resize images. 
• Documentation: React Native Image Picker offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Modal 

GitHub Stars: 5k

License: MIT

This component provides developers with a way to create modal views in their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a modal view that fits their app’s UI. It also comes with a built-in animation system, allowing developers to easily create animated modal views. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Modal is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Modal supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Customizable: React Native Modal comes with a range of customizable components, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their own needs. 
• Animations: React Native Modal supports a range of animations for modal transitions. 
• Accessibility: React Native Modal supports accessibility features, allowing developers to create models that are accessible to all users. 
• Documentation: React Native Modal offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Video 

GitHub Stars: 6.4k

License: MIT

This component allows developers to easily embed video content into their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API, allowing developers to quickly integrate video playback into their app’s UI. It also comes with customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a video player that fits their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Video.js is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation.
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Video.js supports both Android and iOS platforms.
• Customizable: React Native Video.js comes with a range of customizable components, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their own needs. 
• Video Player: React Native Video.js provides a full-featured video player for playing back videos from a variety of sources. 
• Extensibility: React Native Video.js is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Video.js offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Chart Kit

GitHub Stars: 2.4k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with an easy way to create interactive charts and graphs in their React Native apps. It comes with an intuitive API and a wide range of chart types, such as bar charts, line charts, and more. It also comes with customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a chart view that fits their app’s UI.

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Chart Kit is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Chart Kit supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Customizable: React Native Chart Kit comes with a range of customizable components, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their own needs. 
• Chart Types: React Native Chart Kit supports a range of chart types, including line, bar, pie, and scatter charts. 
• Extensibility: React Native Chart Kit is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Chart Kit offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Material Kit

GitHub Stars: 4.8k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with a wide range of React Native UI components that are based on Google’s Material Design. It includes components such as AppBar, BottomNavigation, Card, Dialog, Drawer, Divider, and more. It also comes with a customizable design system, allowing developers to quickly create a consistent look and feel across their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Material Kit is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Material Kit supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Customizable: React Native Material Kit comes with a range of customizable components, allowing developers to tailor their UI to their own needs. 
• Design System: React Native Material Kit provides a comprehensive design system that includes a range of UI elements, icons, typography, and more. 
• Extensibility: React Native Material Kit is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Material Kit offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native FBSDK

GitHub Stars: 3k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with an easy way to integrate Facebook’s SDK into their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and a wide range of features, such as authentication, sharing, and more. It also comes with a customizable design system, allowing developers to quickly create a consistent look and feel across their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native FBSDK is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native FBSDK supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Authentication: React Native FBSDK allows developers to easily implement Facebook authentication into their apps. 
• Graph API: React Native FBSDK provides access to the Facebook Graph API, allowing developers to access user data and post content to the platform. 
• Extensibility: React Native FBSDK is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native FBSDK offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Animations

GitHub Stars: 24.1k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with an easy way to create animation effects for their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and a wide range of animation types, such as fade, slide, and more. It also comes with customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create an animation view that fits their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Animations is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Animations supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Animations: React Native Animations provides a range of animations, allowing developers to easily create custom animations for their apps. 
• Animation Libraries: React Native Animations provides access to animation libraries, allowing developers to easily access and use pre-existing animations. 
• Extensibility: React Native Animations is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Animations offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native WebView

GitHub Stars: 5.2k

License: MIT

This component allows developers to easily embed web content into their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a web view that fits their app’s UI. It also comes with a built-in JavaScript bridge, allowing developers to quickly integrate web content into their React Native apps. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native WebView is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native WebView supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• WebView: React Native WebView provides a WebView component, allowing developers to easily embed web content into their apps. 
• Browser Support: React Native WebView supports a range of browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. 
• Extensibility: React Native WebView is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native WebView offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Maps SDK 

GitHub Stars: 1.6k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with an easy way to integrate the Google Maps SDK into their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and a wide range of features, such as turn-by-turn navigation, traffic information, and more. It also comes with customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a map view that fits their app’s UI.

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Maps SDK is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Maps SDK supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Maps: React Native Maps SDK provides access to maps, allowing developers to easily access and manage user maps. 
• Directions: React Native Maps SDK provides access to directions, allowing developers to easily access and manage routes and directions. 
• Geocoding: React Native Maps SDK provides access to geocoding services, allowing developers to easily convert street addresses into coordinates. 
• Documentation: React Native Maps SDK offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Camera

GitHub Stars: 9.6k

License: MIT

This component allows developers to easily integrate the device’s camera into their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a camera view that fits their app’s UI. It also comes with a built-in image capture system, allowing developers to quickly capture images in their React Native apps. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Camera is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Camera supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Camera: React Native Camera provides access to devise cameras, allowing developers to easily capture photos and videos. 
• Live Previews: React Native Camera supports live camera previews, allowing developers to easily display a live camera feed in their apps. 
• Extensibility: React Native Camera is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Camera offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Gesture Handler 

GitHub Stars: 5.2k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with an easy way to handle gestures in their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and a wide range of gesture types, such as tap, pinch, and more. It also comes with customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a gesture view that fits their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy to install and use: React Native Gesture Handler is easy to install and use, with a simple setup process and intuitive documentation. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native Gesture Handler supports both Android and iOS platforms. 
• Gestures: React Native Gesture Handler provides access to gesture recognition, allowing developers to easily implement gesture-based interactions with their apps. 
• Event Handlers: React Native Gesture Handler provides access to event handlers, allowing developers to easily respond to user interactions. 
• Extensibility: React Native Gesture Handler is highly extensible, with a wide range of customization options. 
• Documentation: React Native Gesture Handler offers detailed documentation and tutorials to help developers get started quickly and easily.

React Native Push Notifications 

GitHub Stars: 6.5k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with a way to easily add push notifications to their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and a wide range of features, such as local notifications, remote notifications, and more. It also comes with a customizable design system, allowing developers to quickly create a consistent look and feel across their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy Setup: Setting up push notifications for React Native apps is relatively straightforward. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native push notifications are supported across both iOS and Android platforms. 
• Rich Notifications: Rich notifications allow developers to create interactive notifications with images, buttons, and more. 
• Customization: Developers can customize the push notifications to their liking, making them more engaging and personal. 
• Automation: Automated push notifications can be used to send messages to users based on certain triggers. 
• Improved Engagement: Push notifications can help increase user engagement by providing relevant and timely information to users.

React Native Background Fetch 

GitHub Stars: 1.2k

License: MIT

This library provides developers with a way to execute code in the background in their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and a wide range of features, such as background data synchronization, background process scheduling, and more. It also comes with a customizable design system, allowing developers to quickly create a consistent look and feel across their app’s UI. 

Key Features:

• Easy Setup: Setting up background fetch for React Native apps is relatively straightforward. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native background fetch is supported across both iOS and Android platforms. 
• Automated Updates: Automated background fetch can be used to retrieve data from a server or API in the background at regular intervals. 
• Customization: Developers can customize the background fetch to their liking, making it more efficient and powerful. 
• Improved Performance: Background fetch can help improve the performance of the app by allowing it to fetch data in the background. 
• Improved User Experience: Background fetch can help improve the user experience by ensuring that the app is always up-to-date with the latest data.

React Native Loading Spinner 

GitHub Stars: 1.5k

License: MIT

This component provides developers with a way to add loading spinners to their React Native apps. It provides an intuitive API and customizable styling options, allowing developers to quickly create a loading spinner view that fits their app’s UI. It also comes with a built-in animation system, allowing developers to easily create animated loading spinners.

Key Features:

• Easy Setup: Setting up a loading spinner for React Native apps is relatively straightforward. 
• Cross-Platform Support: React Native loading spinner is supported across both iOS and Android platforms.
• Customization: Developers can customize the loading spinner to their liking, making it more visually appealing and engaging.
• Improved User Experience: Loading spinners can provide users with feedback about the progress of a task, helping to improve the user experience. 
• Improved Performance: Loading spinners can help improve the performance of the app by providing a visual cue that the app is working. 
• Flexibility: Loading spinners can be used in a variety of contexts, including when loading content, performing calculations or sending requests to the server.

Summing Up

In conclusion, React Native UI components are a key part of mobile app development and can help developers create stunning mobile apps that are user-friendly and responsive. These components can help make outscource app development faster and easier, and provide developers with a range of features and benefits. We hope that this article has helped you understand more about the best React Native UI components for mobile app development. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know in the comments section below.

The post Top 10+ Best React Native UI Components for Mobile App Development appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

The React Native solution was used in the development of Facebook Ads, Instagram, Pinterest, Skype, Airbnb, Yeti Smart Home, Uber Eats, and many more. The projects speak for themselves.

With the development of React Native technology and gaining more and more trust from the community, tools began to appear to facilitate and accelerate development based on the technology – such as ready-made React Native libraries and UI components.

This guide aims to review the most sought-after React Native UI component libraries available to web developers. Before we delve into these libraries, it’s crucial to understand what React Native is: a platform conceived by Facebook to make mobile application development both faster and more cost-effective. Today, React Native stands out as one of the premier solutions for crafting cross-platform mobile applications, demonstrating its significance in the realm of business software where efficiency, scalability, and cross-platform compatibility are paramount.

What is a React Native UI component?

React Native UI component stands as a modular piece of the user interface puzzle, empowering React developers to craft native mobile applications employing the same methodologies utilized for web app development. These components facilitate the creation of high-performance, native mobile apps through a declarative coding approach familiar to those experienced with React’s web development paradigm. The arsenal of React Native UI components encompasses a variety of elements, including buttons, text inputs, pickers, segmented controls, and navigation bars, each contributing to a cohesive and interactive user experience. By leveraging these components, developers can bridge the gap between web and mobile app development, streamlining the process to produce business software solutions that are both efficient and engaging across platforms.

Why use React Native UI component library?

Much like React itself, React Native encourages you to build your UI using isolated components. React Native UI Component libraries and UI toolkits help you save time and build your applications faster using a pre-made set of components.

React Native UI Kit is a very useful thing. It’s a set of ready-made interface elements (and sometimes APIs) you can use when creating your application. Thus, you can release an MVP project in a matter of weeks, saving time on the development of interface components and concentrating on the business logic itself. Of course, there are a lot fewer UI Kits for React Native than there are for React.js, but all of these existing ones are made by professionals, each in the same style.

How to choose a React Native UI component?

To choose a library or an already written application with ready-made React Native UI components, you can use the following decision-making criteria:

• Price
• Easy to start
• Popularity (stars on GitHub)
• Quality, support, and service speed
• Performance
• Design
• Ease of use
• Documentation

Top React Native UI components

Let’s move on to our React Native UI components list. While choosing the following tools we have kept in mind things like trustworthiness, price, documentation, and other important factors one uses for evaluating software.

React Native Starter Kit

Website: https://flatlogic.com/templates/react-native
GitHub stars: 1k
Price: Free, $99.95, $449.95
License: Mozilla Public License 2.0
Demo: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.reactnativestarter.app
Type of support: Dedicated support via email
Documentation: Full documentation

React Native Starter is a mobile application template that contains many ready-to-use components and pages, including theme support.  The product is a mobile application template with lots of built-in components like a sidebar, navigation, form elements, etc – all you need to start building your mobile app faster. You won’t spend lots of time building your app from scratch.

This starter kit is perfect for eCommerce applications, offering lifetime updates and support. The design itself is clean, modern, and eye-catching. Trends like color gradients and simple curves are also there.

Key features:

• Supports iOS and Android;
• 16 pre-built components;
• Chat application;
• Multiple color schemes;
• Selection of UI elements;
• Modular architecture;
• Easy analytics integration (GA, Firebase, etc);
• Sign in/signup screens;
• 6 Color Themes;
• Simple customization (using themes and plop generator);
• Built without Expo.

React Native Elements

Website: https://react-native-elements.github.io/react-native-elements/
GitHub stars: 22.2k
Price: Free
License: MIT
Demo: https://expo.io/@monte9/react-native-elements-app
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

React Native Elements is a cross-platform React Native UI toolkit that puts together several great open-source UI components made by developers. Here’s what the library’s authors state: “The idea with React Native Elements is more about component structure than actual design, meaning less boilerplate in setting up certain elements but full control over their design”. This seems appealing to both new developers and seasoned veterans.

The package includes a whole basket of components such as pricing, badge, overlay, divider, and platform-specific search bars. They are easy to use and quite customizable. The props for all the components are defined in one central location, which makes it possible to easily update or modify components. Additionally, it can serve as a platform connecting small teams developing commercial React Native apps with open-source contributions.

If you’re going to design an application that looks universal across platforms, this is a perfect option. The documentation clearly explains how to customize the available components with simplicity, and comes with a set of beautiful icons.

Key facts:

• All-in-one UI kit;
• Supports iOS and Android;
• Supports Expo;
• Comprehensive documentation;
• A decent list of small components like avatars, buttons, form elements, icons, typography, and sliders;
• Complex elements like pricing, rating, card, search bar, checkbox, and list items.

NativeBase

Website: https://nativebase.io/
GitHub stars: 13.9k
Price: Free
License: Apache License 2.0
Demo: https://expo.io/@geekyants/nativebasekitchensink
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

NativeBase is a collection of essential cross-platform React Native components: a good place to start building your app. The components are built with React Native combined with some JavaScript functionality with customizable properties. NativeBase is fully open-source and has 12,000+ stars on GitHub.

When using NativeBase, you can use any native third-party libraries out of the box. The project itself comes with a rich ecosystem around it, from useful starter kits to customizable theme templates. Here’s a nice starter kit: the template acts as a wrapper on most of the native React components (such as buttons, text fields, views, keyboard views, list views, etc), and enriches them by adding extra functionality (e.g. rounded corners, shadows, etc).

What it offers:

• Easy component styling;
• Wide range of component options;
• Use any native third-party libraries;
• Import custom components;
• Intuitive component structure;
• 3 preset themes (Platform, Material, and CommonColor);

Lottie Wrapper for React Native

Website: https://github.com/react-native-community/lottie-react-native
GitHub stars: 15k
Price: Free
License: Apache License 2.0
Demo: –
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

Lottie is a mobile library that parses Adobe After Effects animations natively on mobile. It works by exporting animation data in JSON format from an After Effects extension, BodyMovin. This extension is bundled with a JS player to render animations on the web.

Lottie libraries and plugins are available for free. You can also use the curated collection of animation files to make your apps attractive and interesting. The animation files are small in size and are in vector format, meaning that you won’t experience any impact on your app performance. At the same time, it can spice up your UI and make it more visually appealing.

React Native Vector Icons

Website: https://oblador.github.io/react-native-vector-icons/
GitHub stars: 13.5k
Price: Free
License: Apache License 2.0
Demo: –
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

This library is a set of customizable icons for React Native with support for NavBar/TabBar/ToolbarAndroid, image source, and full styling. The library provides pre-made bundled icon sets out of the box, and here are full examples of all the icons in the library.

The package supports TabBar and Toolbar Android, as well as the image source and multi-style font. It draws on React Native’s animated library combining it with an icon to create an animated component.

React Native Gifted Chat

Website: https://github.com/FaridSafi/react-native-gifted-chat
GitHub stars: 11.6k
Price: Free
License: MIT License
Demo: –
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

React-native-gifted-chat offers fully customizable components, multiline text input, avatars, copying messages to the clipboard, attachment options, etc. Written with TypeScript, it includes fully customizable components that help load earlier messages, copy messages to clipboards, and more. There’s an InputToolbar too, helping users skip the keyboard.

To enhance the user experience, it enables Avatar as the user’s initials, localized dates, multi-line TextInput, quick reply messages (bot), and system messages. There’s support for Redux too.

React Native Mapview

Website: https://github.com/react-native-community/react-native-maps
GitHub stars: 13.1k
Price: Free
License: MIT License
Demo: –
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

One of the React Native component libraries that offers map components for Android and iOS is React Native Mapview. Here, common features on any map (such as markers and polygons) are specified as children of the Mapview component.

There’s a lot you can do to customize the map style. You’ll be able to change map view position, track region/location, and make points of interest clickable on Google Maps. You can enable zooming in to specified markers or coordinates or even animate them. If you assign an animated region value to the prop, Mapview can utilize the Animated API to control the map’s center and zoom. Unless you specify custom markers, default markers will be rendered.

UI Kitten – React Native UI Library 

Website: https://akveo.github.io/react-native-ui-kitten/
GitHub stars: 9k
Price: Free
License: MIT License
Demo: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.akveo.kittenTricks
Type of support: Dedicated support for the paid version
Documentation: Full documentation

React Native UI Kitten – a React Native implementation of the Eva Design system. It offers a set of about 20 general-purpose components styled in the same way to take care of visual appearance. There are a lot of standalone components available as well. The library is based on the Eva Design System, containing a set of general-purpose UI components styled similarly.

UI Kitten stores style definitions separately from business logic. UI elements are styled in the same manner. This concept is similar to CSS, where style classes are separate from the code.

Shoutem

Website: https://shoutem.github.io/
Price: Free
License: MIT License
Demo: –
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

Shoutem is an app-building platform that works by using extensions or modular building blocks, somewhat like building a website with plugins on WordPress. Extensions include galleries for photos and videos, products, events, restaurant menus, and more.

Shoutem offers many mobile back-end services such as analytics, user authentication, layouts, push notifications, and more. Also, there are many well-coded themes for you to use and customize.

This open-source UI toolkit helps you design professional-looking solutions. Each component has a predefined style and can be composed with others. These predefined components are elegant but seem a bit more biased towards iOS-style guidelines. Along with components, it comes with basic Animation that is suitable for using its own UI toolkit and themes to build amazing React Native applications.

Key features:

• 20+ UI components;
• Variety of app themes;
• Parallax effects;
• Transition animations;
• Large extension library.

React Native Paper

Website: https://reactnativepaper.com/
GitHub stars: 9k
Price: Free
License: MIT License
Demo: –
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

React Native Paper is a cross-platform UI component library that follows the Material Design guidelines. Global theming support and an optional Babel plugin to reduce bundle size are also there.

Paper is cross-platform and works on both web and mobile. There are components and interactions to suit almost every use-case scenario. Most details, including animations, accessibility, and UI logic are taken care of. 

Here are the main features of Paper: it follows material design guidelines, it works on both iOS and Android following platform-specific guidelines and it also has full theming support.

React Native Material Kit

Website: http://xinthink.github.io/react-native-material-kit/
GitHub stars: 4.7k
Price: Free
License: MIT License
Demo: –
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

Inside the React Native Material Kit, there are buttons, cards, range sliders, and text fields. You’ll also see spinners and progress bars to display loading, as well as toggles for switches, radio buttons, and checkboxes.

React Native Material Kit provides a complete Material Design solution for the UI and is better maintained than other UI kits available for React Native. It works great even on an iOS device by giving an accurate Android UI feel. It does provide an API to develop your customized components.

Key facts:

• Material Design-based components;
• Dynamic components that are not available in some frameworks;
• Advanced API to build custom components.

Nachos UI Kit

Web-site: https://avocode.com/nachos-ui
GitHub stars: 2k
Price: From 15$ per month
License: MIT License
Demo: –
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Full documentation

Nachos UI provides over 30 UI components that are available in plug-and-play mode. It does provide some nice-looking components that can be customized. 

The product facilitates customizable UI components that work on the web. It also provides Jest Snapshot testing and uses a prettier. The components were coded using Avocode, which is a fully-featured platform for sharing, hands-off, and inspecting Photoshop and Sketch designs.

Key features:

• 30+ pre-coded UI components including typography, radio, spinner, slider, card, etc.;
• React Native Web support.

Material Kit React Native

Website: https://www.creative-tim.com/product/material-kit-pro-react-
native/
GitHub stars: <1k
Price: Free, $149
License: MIT License
Demo: https://demos.creative-tim.com/material-kit-pro-react-native/
Type of support: Dedicated support for the paid version
Documentation: Full documentation

Material Kit React Native offers a free native app template with Material Design built with the Galio framework. It’s easy to use, including 100+ handcrafted elements like buttons, cards, navigation, and inputs. All components can take on color variations by making changes to the theme. Additionally, there are five customized plugins and five example pages.

Features:

• Built over Galio.io;
• 200 handcrafted elements;
• Five customized plugins;
• Five example pages.

React Native Material UI

Website: https://github.com/xotahal/react-native-material-ui
GitHub stars: 3.7k
Price: Free
License: MIT License
Demo: https://github.com/xotahal/react-native-material-ui/blob/master/docs/Demo.md
Type of support: Community support via GitHub issues
Documentation: Limited documentation

The React Native Material UI offers about 20 components for React Native. The components include action buttons, avatars, subheaders, drawers, dividers, toolbars, and more. These components are highly customizable and use Material Design in their construction.

The components are self-supporting and will integrate (and only integrate) the styles they need to display. They are independent of any global stylesheets. Material-UI is developed for mobile-first application UI design.

Some of the free UI Kits for product teams you may also check here.

Conclusion

These are the best React Native UI Kits on the market we’ve selected for you. The most advanced solutions, such as the React Native Starter Kit or NativeBase, are presented in the first part. In the second part, we have collected projects you can integrate into your existing project as a good addition. 

All of these tools make your development much faster and more convenient. We recommend you do your analysis before choosing the best library for your project. This way you will know for sure what suits your project and needs better.

If you’d like to integrate a library into your existing React Native project, or if you plan to create a cross-platform app from scratch, be sure to contact us.

Flatlogic

We strive to simplify the complexity of the web app development process and we’ve built a tool that helps with it. The Flatlogic Platform allows you to create a fully working full-stack CRUD app in minutes, you just need to choose the stack, design, and define the database model with the help of an online interface and that is all. Preview generated code, push it to your GitHub repo, and get the automatically generated REST API docs. Try it for free!

Bonus!

Well after publishing the article, we came across a couple more React Native UI component libraries that we thought were criminal to overlook. Here they are!

RNUI (React Native UI Library)

• Website: https://wix.github.io/react-native-ui-lib/
• GitHub: https://github.com/wix/react-native-ui-lib
• GitHub stars: 4.4k
• Demo: https://snack.expo.dev/@ethanshar/rnuilib_snack?platform=ios&supportedPlatforms=ios,android
• Documentation: https://wix.github.io/react-native-ui-lib/docs/getting-started/setup

This is as self-explanatory a name as it gets. React Native UI Library is commonly known as RNUI or RNUI lib. This was generously implemented by Wix. And when such a major platform makes something their library of choice, you can guess that support and maintenance are never an issue. RNUI supports React Native versions starting with 0.65, which can be handy when transitioning to a newer version. It sports 20+ components. These components are customizable and some can be integrated for a more seamless operation.

When we took a second look at the React Native UI Library, we thought we hadn’t given it justice the first time. It’s a potent component collection, with its 4k stars on GitHub backing it up. Give it a try!

Ignite CLI

• Website: https://www.npmjs.com/package/ignite-cli
• GitHub: https://github.com/infinitered/ignite
• GitHub stars: 13.7k
• Demo: https://npm.runkit.com/ignite-cli

As the CLI in Ignite’s name implies, the main thing the creators offer is the command-line interface. But don’t let that lead you astray. Ignite comes with components, not only in React Native. It boasts over 12 thousand stars on GitHub and serves as a boilerplate collection for both React Native and Expo.

Here’s a summary of what Ignite comes with:

• React Native
• React Navigation 6
• Reactotron-ready (and pre-integrated with MST)
• TypeScript
• Expo and Expo Web support
• AsyncStorage (integrated with MST for restoring state)
• MobX-React-Lite
• MobX-State-Tree
• applesauce (to talk to REST servers)
• Flipper-ready

Suggested articles

• React Native Starter is Updated
• React Native vs. Ionic: What Cross-Platform Framework is the Best?
• How To Use React Native Flatlist [Guide]

The post Top 14+ React Native UI Component Libraries [2024 Editors’ Choice] appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

Navigating through the vast ocean of React Datepickers to pinpoint the perfect match for your project might seem overwhelming. With an abundance of options, each boasting unique functionalities and perks, the stakes are high as the choice of Datepicker can profoundly influence the success and usability of your project.

Recognizing this, we’ve delved deep into the world of React Datepickers to bring you Flatlogic’s curated selection of standout choices. But before we unveil our picks, let’s briefly explore what makes a React Datepicker a critical component for your business software and web applications.

What is a React Datepicker 

Generally speaking, a Datepicker is a GUI widget that allows the end user to see and select days, months, years, etc. from the calendar. It also sometimes includes the possibility of choosing both date and time or only time. In that case, such widgets are, totally unsurprisingly, called date and time pickers, and time pickers respectively. Thus, React Datepicker is a Datepicker that is built on a React basis. 

Looked at in a more practical way, a React datepicker is a lot more than just a tool. It is a way to simplify the end-user experience when using your site or app and to make it more convenient. Let’s delve into some tangible advantages of implementing this widget, highlighting its role in not only facilitating date selection but also in elevating the overall usability and functionality of business software and web applications.

The Benefits of React Datepicker

If used on a browser version of a site, a React Datepicker allows users to set or choose the date with only a mouse and removes the necessity to write down the date. And giving the end user an option is always a nice touch as they should have something they don’t need rather than need something they don’t have.

Having a React Datepicker will simplify the visual presentation of available date options. For example, if the date is unavailable for choosing, the widget will simply not provide the possibility of choosing said date;

Using a React Datepicker eliminates the chance that the end user will select any nonexistent dates, such as February 30^th or, more realistically, September 31^st;

Many React Datepickers allow a choice of date ranges, thus, conveniently narrowing down the choice for the end user;

React Datepickers solve the problem of date format confusion. This point might need a little elaboration. For example, an end-user has put down the following date – 01/02/24. Does this date mean January 2nd, 2024, or February 1st, 2024? A React Datepicker solves the problem and visually shows you and our hypothetical end-user what day of what month and in which year the hypothetical end-user has chosen. So, as you can see, a date picker might seem like a small and inconsequential widget, but it provides convenience to both the user and admin. And, as we’ve already mentioned while its presence might go unnoticed, if required, its absence would cause a negative reaction. That being said, we suggest having a closer look into the inner workings of a React Datepicker with an example of the stages of one such widget development.

How to create a basic React Datepicker

The process of creating a simple React Datepicker consists of the following stages:

1. Creating a new React App;
2. Installing Datepicker in React App;
3. Installing Bootstrap UI Framework;

And, that’s it. Of course, in this instance, we are talking about the simplest version of such a widget. And even in this case, you have quite a creative space for UI Framework tinkering. So, now it’s time to get an even closer look into each of the stages. 

Creating a new React App

This point is just what it says on the tin. You use the “create-react-app” command to set up a new program. At the end of this stage, you get the following lines of code:

npx create-react-app react-datepicker-app

cd react-datepicker-app

To check the app at this point, localhost:3000 is the location.

Installing Datepicker in React App

The next step is installing a Datepicker into your app. You can do this via both npm and yarn.

To install a datepicker via npm – use the following line of code: npm install react-datepicker –save

To do it via yarn, use the code as follows: yarn add react-datepicker

Installing Bootstrap UI Framework

The third and final step in creating a basic React Datepicker is adding the Bootstrap intuitive ready-made styling that will also serve as a powerful tool for front-end development. You can also do it via both npm and yarn.

The line of code for npm is npm install bootstrap –save

And for yarn, it goes like this: yarn adds bootstrap

Bear in mind the necessity of having a CSS format file with your stylings or any downloaded stylings of your choosing.

Of course, such a simply created date picker might not meet all of your requirements. That’s why we suggest using any of the entrees from our following list. After all, why not use an already-made template for your app, if it suits your requirements perfectly or almost perfectly, with the possibility of making changes to it?

Top React Datepickers to Consider for your next project

1.     react-datepicker

Let’s, first of all, get the classic out of the way. react-date picker is one of the most popular date pickers on the market today. There is a downside to consider, which is that in its standard form, the react-date picker is in English. So, if your next app or project is not in English, it will require a bit of tinkering around with to change. Nonetheless, it is simple and reliable and you can never go wrong with a classic.

2.     Material-UI date and time pickers

High-quality date and time pickers that are included in one of the world’s most popular component libraries – Material-UI. Better yet, Material-UI, being a nice component library, has already separated its selection of date and time pickers into a package.

But this is not the only reason it is on this list. Material-UI date and time pickers are also neat, beautifully designed widgets that use dialogue windows and/or inline popovers to provide the possibility of selecting separate dates. And, as a nice little touch, current dates are indicated by a different color and type weight.

3.     React Material Admin Full Datepicker

This date picker can be described as exceptionally stylish and smooth-looking. By coming along as a part of use React Material-UI Admin & Dashboard Template, it can serve as an organizer for any kind of task management. Using it for your next project by itself or as a part of the ADT would be a smart thing to do.

4.     Airbnb react-dates

Airbnb hasn’t become one of the most used travel-related projects by cutting corners. Although we cannot claim that it is perfect in any way, what we can say with certainty is that Airbnb’s react datepicker is sleek and accessible, as well as mobile-friendly, which is always good. And, it should be mentioned, that Airbnb react-dates is trying to differentiate the formula by not fully relying on CSS, but rather on react-with-styles.

5.     Carbon design date picker

Due to being created by IBM, Carbon Design React date picker is one of the most thought-through widgets on the market today. This component library is tried, tested, polished, and constantly maintained to answer to the highest industry standards. The whole system stands on three pillars: a simple date input, calendar pickers, and a time picker. However each pillar is strong enough to hold on its own, so there is a possibility to use each component independently. A must-see. Or, to be more precise, a must-try.

6.     React Rainbow datepicker

Another library entry is on our list. React Rainbow datepicker is packed to the brim with different colorful and high-quality, tested, accessible, and eye-catching components. There are over 80 of them in this library. Each one can be downloaded individually via the link below and each one of them can, no doubt, certainly become a beautiful addition to your project.

7.     Sing App React Datepicker

A date picker entry comes as a part of a React Admin Dashboard Template. It retains all the factual usefulness and overall stylishness while adding a bunch of useful features that come with being a part of ADT. And, as you can see from the picture, it also allows for task highlighting on the overall dialogue window. In summary, Sing App React Datepicker is beautiful and more useful than most other date pickers. What is awesome about this datepicker, is that it can contain event data.

9.     react-datetime-picker

React-datime-picker is a two-for-one offer. Created by Wojciech Maj, these date pickers also include the preinstalled time picker and neither of them relies on moments. Instead, it provides quite a flexibility that allows for creating anything from decade pickers to numbered weeks, which might come in handy in some specific situations.

10.     react-big-calendar

This date picker would be most useful if used as an organizing tool or event calendar, as it uses flexbox over the classic tables-ception approach. It is based on React and is compatible with the latest browser versions. Also, react-big-calendar includes the possibility of custom stylings and the inclusion of SASS files is a cherry on the cake.

11.  Light Blue React Node.Js Datepicker

This product also comes as part of the whole React Admin Dashboard Template (which comes with a full Node.JS Backend). But Light Blue React Node.Js Datepicker also doubles by being a time picker, as it allows users to choose a particular time for each of the highlighted tasks. And, by pulling those duties, this date picker is a must-try for your next project.

12.  react date range picker

React date range picker is a useful React component that can be a nice addition to any app! It allows the user to choose a date range inside an opening calendar. It is small in size, occupying only 18 kilobytes of space, and relies on date-fns.

13.  Ant design datepicker

This date picker’s design is so smooth and elegant that we can only compare it to the sharply dressed aesthetic of the Roaring 20’s ladies and gentlemen. It also doesn’t do any harm that this datepicker is part of a well-known and popular design library. If you’re not used to working with MomentJS, you can always replace it with a lib of your choice. But, not considering that, Ant Design datepicker is an all-around cool and beautiful date and time picker.

14. React Fancy Calendar

React Fancy Calendar is a fully featured calendar component for React applications. It supports multiple views, dynamic data, and various customizations, such as minimum and maximum dates, disabled dates, and custom date styling. It also provides an API with event hooks and methods for developers to easily interact with the calendar. The calendar also supports internationalization and localization, enabling users to customize the calendar in the language of their choice.

React Native Datepickers

React Native DatePickers are also commonly used web components available for iOS and Android, TimePickerAndroid, and DatePickerIOS. Here is one of the most popular repositories with React Native date picker widely known among developers. A full list of React native libraries may be checked here.

React Bootstrap Datepickers

Just from scratch, we can offer several popup calendars/datepickers for React (using Bootstrap): react-bootstrap-datetimepicker or react-bootstrap-daterangepicker, and the React-Bootstrap based date picker itself. They work well with React 0.14.x and 0.15.x and start running with:

npm install react-bootstrap-date-picker

We could also recommend using FullCalendar which integrates perfectly with React. Fullcalendar matches the functionality of FullCalendar’s standard API. Fullcalendar documentation is wholly described and presented here.

Recap

In conclusion, we would like to say that even though a date and/or time picker might seem inconsequential, bear in mind the simple truth that the best and biggest things, be it a site, an app, or a building are all made up of tiny, seemingly inconsequential things. And that makes them beautiful at the end of the day. So, choosing the right little things is the right passage to create something great and meaningful. And, as always, feel free to read our other articles!

About Flatlogic

We do our best to help our clients find the best web templates and provide custom web development services of high quality. We’ve carefully created more than 50 admin templates, web and mobile dashboard templates, and website themes for dozens of companies worldwide. The biggest value for us is our people and their positive experience. If you have some questions regarding our website templates or custom development, please drop us a line at our forum to get an instant reply from our support team.

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The post Top 12+ React Datepickers to Use in 2024 appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

The ubiquity of lists in applications, from shopping lists in note apps to more complex data displays in business software, underscores their fundamental role in organizing and presenting information in a clear, accessible manner, essential for user experience and functionality.

JavaScript offers a map function to build a list, since React.js is JavaScript-based the way to work with lists is similar. On the other hand, React Native is supposed to render native elements both for Android and iOS, so it has a different way of building lists. The most generic option to display a scrolling list of data in React Native was using ScrollView. Today two options are available to represent lists of data: FlatList and SectionList. 

React Native accelerates the process of building apps across different platforms, thanks to the possibility of reusing most of the code between them. FlatList is a component that looks great both on iOS and Android. Let’s get to know it better.   

Basics of React Native Flatlist

FlatList is a component responsible for the display of a list with similar data objects. The display of every element has an identical format and uses a common stylesheet. The data goes in a structured and scrollable manner. 

FlatList uses ScrollView component to render elements, however, it comes without pure performance issues of ScrollView and with some additional features out of the box that allow us to build a better UI and make the development process easier. 

The FlatList component comes into play when you need to display a long scrollable list of items. 

There are two required props for React Native FlatList component – data and renderItem. 

The data prop is the data that is displayed in the FlatList component. The type of data can be any from starting an array of numbers to an array filled with JSON objects that you fetched through API. 

The renderItem prop is a function that takes every item object from the data prop and renders them into the list component. If you want your data to display with special styling, you can do this within the renderItem or refer to the method through the renderItem the prop that creates styling for you (an example: renderItem={this.RenderStyling}). 

There are a bunch of optional props that can be helpful in development. You can find a full list of them in the official documentation, we mention some of them we are going to use further in the article. 

The list of props :

• ItemSeparatorComopnent renders an element between each item and serves for visual separation of items in the list. It isn’t rendered at the top and the bottom of the list. 
• KeyExtractor is a function that uses unique keys of items from the data to track updates and only re-render the items that have been changed. This keyExtractor is a custom implementation of the filed named key in a data item. It is also used to track the reordering of the items. 
• ListHeaderComponent is an element that renders at the top of the list. It is mostly used to add a search line at the beginning of the list. 
• ListFooterComponent is a component that is rendered at the bottom of the list.  
• Pull to refresh is implemented by using onRefresh and refreshing props. 
• Infinite Scroll is implemented by using onEndReached and onEndReachedThreshold props. They allow to rendering of items from the next page in the list and implement lazy loading. 
• initialNumToRender prop sets the initial amount of items to render. It’s used to boost the speed of the first render. 

The alternative FlatList is a SectionList component. SectionList has recently appeared and is used to add a list of sections with headings for every group of items in the list. It may be useful only if need headings and items in the list are divided into logical groups, otherwise use FlatList.  

Why React Native Flatlist is great?

There are some benefits FlatList has:

• The function renders native blocks exactly for mobile platforms. 
• FlatList doesn’t require a lot of code. It needs only two props to start and you don’t have to make a fancy style to render the list of items – just use renderItem props and you are good to go. 
• FlatList is great for performance especially when you deal with a large array and you don’t know the exact number of the items that will render in one list. Displaying large data sets during one render is bad for performance, and React Native FlatList only renders elements that are visible on the screen and only updates items that have been changed.

How to implement React Native FlatList

The full code with the final result you can find here:

Let’s look at how we get that result step by step.

Start with importing all the necessary staff we have mentioned in the previous chapter. We need React and some methods from react–native. 

import React from 'react';
import { StyleSheet, Text, View, SafeAreaView, FlatList, Platform, SafeAreaProvider} from "react-native"; 

Consider that you have a data array with Marvel heroes, where every hero has its unique serial id (these numbers are just serial keys and don’t imply the ranking of heroes). 

const MarvelList = [
  {id: 1, name: 'Black Panter'},
  {id: 2, name: 'Black Widow'},
  {id: 3, name: 'Captain America'},
  {id: 4, name: 'The Collector'},
  {id: 5, name: 'Doctor Strange'},
  {id: 6, name: 'Hawkeye'},
  {id: 7, name: 'Heimdall'},
  {id: 8, name: 'Hela'},
  {id: 9, name: 'Hulk'},
  {id: 10, name: 'Iron Man'},
  {id: 11, name: 'Loki'},
  {id: 12, name: 'Nick Fury'},
  {id: 13, name: 'Falcon'},
  {id: 14, name: 'Wanda Maximoff'},
  {id: 15, name: 'Shocker'},
  {id: 16, name: 'Spider-Man'},
  {id: 17, name: 'Thanos'},
  {id: 18, name: 'Thor'},
  {id: 19, name: 'Valkyrie'},
  {id: 20, name: 'Vision'},
  {id: 21, name: 'Vulture'},
  {id: 22, name: 'War Machine'},
  {id: 23, name: 'Winter Solder'},
  ];

That array will become the first required props of the React Native FlatList. 

Now, to render the list, we create a component called Marvel and declare a style for our future list so the scroll would not intersect with the future header:

const Marvel = () => {
      return (
        <SafeAreaView style={styles.separateHero}>
        </SafeAreaView>
        )
    }
const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  separateHero: {
    height: '100vh' 
},
});
export default Marvel

Use FlatList

Then useFlatList component from react-native to display the list of Marvel Heroes. We pass the array of data with Marvel heroes via the data prop. And then use renderItem prop to render the content. The renderItem function gets heroes’ names from the array and renders a list component with all names from our array. To turn that into life we need to declare a renderItem function that would be passed as the second required prop to FlatList. 

Import…
const renderItem = ({item}) => {
  return <View><Text>{item.name}</Text></View>
}

const Marvel = () => {
      return (
        <SafeAreaView style={styles.separateHero}>
          <FlatList
            data={MarvelList}
            renderItem={renderItem}
            />
        </SafeAreaView>
        )
}

export default Marvel

ItemSeparatorComponent

Add a line between list items to separate them. Use ItemSeparatorComponent prop to add a line between list items that is a view component with a special ‘separator’ class in the stylesheet.  We also include a new prop in the Flatlist component called ItemSeparatorComponent. 

Import…
const Marvel = () => {
      return (
        <SafeAreaView style={styles.separateHero}>
          <FlatList
…
            ItemSeparatorComponent={
              Platform.OS !== 'android' &&
               (({ highlighted }) => (
                 <View
                    style={
                       styles.separator
             }
…
    />

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  separator: {
    height: 1,
    width: "100%",
    backgroundColor: '#ff0000',
  }
});

KeyExtractor

There are unique identifiers for every hero within FlatList. The IDs must be string type, not number. 

To use them we create a function MyKeyExtractor that extracts a unique key of every element from the MarvelList array, by which FlatList can update these elements most effectively, for example, when you delete one element somewhere in the middle of the list. 

In the Flatlist component we write an additional line of code that calls keyExtractor props. 

Import…
const myKeyExtractor = (item) => {
  return item.id
}

const Marvel = () => {
      return (
        <SafeAreaView style={styles.separateHero}>
          <FlatList
…
            keyExtractor={myKeyExtractor}
…
    />


export default Marvel

Header

It is a component at the top of the list. The sequence of steps to add a header is the same as adding the separator. 

We define a function renderHeader that renders the interface of the header we need. And then pass the function for rendering to React Native FlatList component as a Header. Besides this way, you can header by using ListHeaderComponent prop and with the help of the state.  Additionally, in the stylesheet we define two new styles for the whole header and text inside it. 

Import…
const Header = () => {
  return (
    <View style={styles.header}>
      <Text style={styles.headerText}>
        Marvel list
      </Text>
    </View>
  )
}


const Marvel = () => {
      return (
        <SafeAreaView style={styles.separateHero}>
	    <Header />
          <FlatList
…
    />

const styles = StyleSheet.create({

    header: {
      backgroundColor: 'red',
      width: '100vw',
      height: 45,
      justifyContent: 'center',
      alignItems: 'center',
      marginBottom: 20
    },
    headerText: {
      color: '#fff',
      fontSize: 18
    },
});


export default Marvel

Footer

To add a footer you need to do the same steps that you made with the header. We add a footer component, write two more classes in the stylesheet for the footer and the text for it, then add our Footer to the Marvel component. An alternative to adding the footer is to use listFooterComponent. 

Import…
const Footer = () => {
  return (
    <View style={styles.footer}>
      <Text style={styles.footerText}>
        Thanks for reading!
      </Text>
    </View>
  )
}


const Marvel = () => {
      return (
        <SafeAreaView style={styles.separateHero}>
          <FlatList
…
    />
          <Footer />
const styles = StyleSheet.create({
    footer: {
      backgroundColor: 'white',
      width: '100vw',
      height: 45,
      justifyContent: 'center',
      alignItems: 'center',
      bottom: 0
    },
    footerText: {
      color: '#000',
      fontSize: 18
    }
});

export default Marvel

Pull to refresh

To add pull to refresh two props are required – refreshing and onRefresh. The first prop is an indicator of the type of boolean that tracks whether the view should be updated or not. onRefresh is a function responsible for loading new data and updating the items in FlatList. onRefresh comes into play when the refreshing prop is set to true. 

To implement the pull to refresh option we need to use the useState hook and declare the handleRefresh function that updates the state of the component. Then add handleRefresh function in FlatList component. 

Import…
const Marvel = () => {
const [refreshing, setRefreshing] = React.useState(false)

    const handleRefresh = () => {
      setRefreshing(prevState => !prevState)
    }

      return (
        <SafeAreaView style={styles.separateHero}>
          <FlatList
…    
            onRefresh={handleRefresh}
/>

export default Marvel

Examples of React Native FlatLists

Facebook 

Facebook team has developed the React Native, so there is nothing strange they have used this technology in Facebook app development. Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide with 2,7 billion monthly active users. Social networks belong to that type of app where lists are extremely demanded. Since the number of users is very high and the app generates millions of gigabytes of data every month, the app has to perform great to provide fast rendering. And if you are a user of Facebook app you may have noticed that your list of contacts works fast. 

Instagram

Instagram is the most popular photo and video-sharing app with 1,2 billion monthly active users. The app was released on market on April 3, 2012, and then Facebook acquired it on April 9 the same year. All further development was carried out by the Facebook team. React Native technology showed its strengths again, so today Instagram has grown to the fifth-biggest social media platform worldwide. It unites people from all over the world from small businesses to big ones, news organizations to cultural institutions, celebrities, photographers, and musicians. 

Facebook Ads Manager

Facebook Ads Manager is a business tool to create Facebook ads and manage them. Since Facebook is the most popular social media platform, it became a very huge digital advertising platform. Here Facebook Ads manager comes to play, it allows to manage Facebook and Instagram ads: upload them, set budgets, monitor results. All these opportunities are collected inside a small React Native-based app.

Shopify

Shopify is a subscription-based software that allows anyone to set up an online store and sell their products. Shopify is just a store builder or a tool to sell your products with over 1 million Shopify users. The team of developers chose to work with React far away in 2018 when they rewrite their app Arrive and developed Shop App. They continued that acquaintance with React Native and are consistently embedding React Native in their apps. 

Conclusion 

We have built a list of Marvel heroes in this article using React Native Flatlist. If you want to learn more about that component we highly recommend referring to the official documentation and real examples like the one we made. Hope the article was helpful, thanks for reading.  

Do You Want to Learn More About React Native?

• React Native vs. Ionic: What Cross-Platform Framework is the Best?
• How To Create React Native Airbnb-Like App
• Top React Native UI Component Kits
• React Native VS Flutter: The Key Differences Every Mobile App Developer Should Know in 2021

The post How To Use React Native Flatlist [Guide] appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

We have decided to try our best in putting to rest the question “React Native vs Ionic: which one is a better framework?”. React Native is an open-source mobile application framework created by Facebook, Inc. Its usability lies in the sphere of app development for such operational systems and platforms like Android, Android TV, iOS, macOS, tvOS, Web, Windows, and UWP. Basically, it is a framework that allows you to build different kinds of apps using nothing more than the ever-universal programming language, known as JavaScript.

And, as it is based on the same design as React, it also makes it possible to compose a rich mobile UI from declarative components by using the same fundamental UI building blocks as regular iOS and Android apps. The end result is hard to distinguish from any apps built with Java or Objective-C.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the advantages that React Native has (not comparing it to Ionic in any way for now).

React Native saves time and money

The justification for this advantage is the fact that, by having its code as cross-platform as it can be, React Native allows maximum compatibility between different operating systems, mainly – Android and iOS. So, in practical meaning, it allows you to save both time and money by not redeveloping the same app to suit the OS. React Native also helps to optimize maintenance and updating of the product, which can be twice as hard when done in other ways.

React Native apps generally perform at a faster rate

The reason for that is the fact that due to the programming language optimization for mobile devices. Also, React Native apps mostly use the power of the graphic processing unit, also known as GPU, instead of using the central processing unit, also known as CPU. The combination of the two upper-mentioned facts allows React Native-built apps to work at a faster rate than the ones built with cross-platform hybrid technologies. To get more in-depth about React Native’s overall performance – follow the link.

React Native has a low learning curve, if you’ve ever used React

We have already touched upon this advantage a little, but let us elaborate. As it has the same design and interface as React, React Native eases the process of acclimatization for developers, who haven’t worked with it before. It also simplifies the work inside the developer team in case one developer forwards the project to his or her colleague.

React Native’s code is movable and copyable

In case React Native is, after all, not your particular cup of tea or it is necessary to move your app to another development framework, there is no problem in doing so. Codes started in React Native, are easily movable and copyable. This fact only increases React Native’s flexibility and usefulness as a tool.

React Native allows for high code changing visibility

This framework has a very useful feature, called “live reloading” / “hot reloading” that allows a developer to see the changes made to the code in a separate window simultaneously with changing it. Thus, React Native creates a real-time feedback tool, which can be extremely useful.

Now, let’s take a look at some disadvantages that React Native has (once again, not comparing it to Ionic. That we will do a little bit later).

React Native is still in beta

Mainly, this means that, despite its popularity, React Native has quite a number of various issues with package compatibility or debugging tools. So, in a way, it can take much more time to use it for developers unfamiliar with this framework, as it will require time for troubleshooting.

React Native lacks a number of custom modules

Although the majority of the most popular and used modules are available and ready-to-use, there is still a possibility that you want to find a custom module, needed for particular tasks. Or, you would find them, but they would be incomplete and unfit for use. Fortunately, such occasions are a rarity.

And now, having discussed the pros and cons of the React Native, let’s move on and do the same honors for its adversary in this pairing – Ionic.

A brief guide into Ionic

So, once again, the first question to answer here is what exactly is Ionic? The answer is ever simple: Ionic is an open-source software development kit created in 2013. Its main purpose is hybrid mobile apps development and more than five million different apps use Ionic. The peculiar thing here is that being, in layman terms, a Node Package Manager module in its heart, Ionic requires installing Node.js to function fully. Basically, it is a part of a grand JavaScript ecosystem, which also means that it’s able to allow the use of a library of native iOS and Android components. Thus, Ionic is able to provide developers with UI elements that are platform-specific.

Check the pros and cons of the Ionic outside of any comparisons. Firstly, to turn the standard order upside down and keep it fresh, let’s start with the disadvantages of this software development kit.

Ionic may lack suitability when it comes to heavy apps performance

The reason for such a con is the fact that Ionic uses WebView to render any applications. This way, when dealing with native apps and heavier apps (here, Snapchat would be a great example, as it uses augmented reality), Ionic would take a hit and your apps would be cordially slower. The major player in this instance is the process of rendering any and all graphic elements via a browser, which takes several steps to start. The more steps to take – the slower the loading time will be. After that, we should also take into consideration Cordova callbacks and CSS animations loading. Nevertheless, Ionic deals with standard programs just fine, so, if your app does not use any heavy-to-render aspects, you might not even come face to face with this con.

Ionic is a software development kit that is dependent on plugins

Ionic is a part of the JavaScript ecosystem. This means that to access the full native functionality of this kit, you would have to use plugins such as Cordova and Capacitor. But there is just no way that all the needed plugins already exist, also the plugin library is quite humongous. So, there might come a day when instead of simply finding the needed plugin, you would have to develop the plugin on your own. The reason is that Ionic is not capable of implementing native plugins without transforming them into JavaScript. So, there is no possibility of native code in its initial appearance.

Ionic does not feature any “hot reloading” possibilities

Although, as of now, such a feature seems standard in software engineering, Ionic simply doesn’t have it. It takes time to implement the changes, refreshing the whole app to show you the changes made. This fact, even though seemingly innocuous, can drastically slow down the speed of development.

Ionic might not be the most secure system

This con is less of a con in itself than a possibility of a pitfall. Since its fourth version, Ionic does not contain any built-in code uglificators, thus making it easy for hackers to read. But, as we’ve already said, this problem might not even be a problem if your app is not possible to reverse engineer or if you use Angular CLI or older versions of Ionic.

Ionic is sizable

This software development kit allows you to write your app using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which is nice. It also means that there is a lot of code and additional libraries, plugins, dependencies, and other needed stuff. This makes your apps much heavier than they would be if they were native. But, as always, if you are willing to do a little tinkering around and delete the unnecessary things, such as unused styles, fonts, and images, you would be able to make Ionic smaller in size.

That’s a shortlist of the most important drawbacks Ionic possesses. Now, let’s take a closer look at the pros of this SDK.

Ionic has quite a wide range of plugins and integration capabilities

You can always integrate a number of tools with Ionic if you think that what you gain from it is not enough. If you want to know what type of plugins and technologies could possibly be integrated into the SDK – look no further than its official website. Moreover, the site gives you the ability to access the upper-mentioned editions right from it. Although, there is a little catch to consider: some of the tools can only be accessed with the Enterprise version of Ionic, and that requires payments to use Premier plugins and tools. But, on the other hand, there is a list of the Cordova plugins, that is also integrable and conveniently sorted into the platform availability list (you can find it following this link). Or, if you prefer Capacitor to Cordova or you cannot find the plugin needed, you can also use those. Also, the full procedure can be a little trickier at times.

Ionic is a single codebase across various platforms

Angular framework, Apache Cordova, as well as using HTML 5, CSS, and JavaScript – those are the basis of Ionic’s built. That’s why it allows developers to build mobile apps by themselves, without side help from native devs. Anyone remotely knowledgeable about such things as web technologies and Angular would be able to create fully functional applications with Ionic. Thus, the cost of development and codebase maintenance is reduced. But wait, there is more. Ionic’s nature also quickens the development-to-market gap on both iOS and Android, eases maintenance by having built-in browser instruments and debugging tools, and raises the transformational availability of your app. Considering this particular advantage we conclude: developing apps within a single codebase is cheaper and faster compared to native development.

Ionic’s learning curve is quite low

JavaScript is, no doubt, one of the most widely spread and popular programming languages. Ionic is easy to learn and use if you are already acquainted with JavaScript. Moreover, the process of hiring outsourced devs is simple due to simpler hiring criteria. However, having an outsourced native developer would be a big plus. After all, Ionic doesn’t compile the whole app into a native language, but instead compiles UI elements, using Cordova or Capacitor plugins for the rest of the functionality.

Ionic has a wide range of UI elements and quick prototyping

Ionic is quite successful in mimicking the overall feel, look, and flair of native apps. The reason for this is the UI component library, full of ready-made elements and components to build GUIs or for the purpose of customization. When you add web components to this already awesome brew you get a quickened UI logic development process as well as native look retention with no additional costs.

With this, we finish looking at React Native and Ionic separately. Now we get to the all-out war! Well, there will be no violence involved, but, nonetheless, we would use sheer comparison to declare which framework would emerge victorious, when meeting face-to-face.

Pros of React Native in comparison to Ionic

In this part of the article, we will discuss the spheres, where React Native outshines Ionic and explain why we declared so. Enough introductions, let’s get down to it.

Set of languages

Ionic uses the following set of languages: HTML5, CSS, JS. It also needs Cordova to gain access to management on native platforms.

React Native, on the other hand, uses JavaScript and lets developers write some components on Swift, Objective-C, and Java. By using some native modules and libraries in React Native apps, we can deal with operations such as visual or video editing.

Thus, we can speak of the broader functionality of React Native before Ionic and a better overall language set.

Performance and productivity

When discussing the cons of Ionic, we’ve already touched upon this one – slow productivity resulting from rendering applications using WebView. React Native does not have such a flaw. In fact, it’s quite similar to native frameworks in that regard, as it renders all the elements of the code into a native API. It also allows using native modules that, also unable to be used between different platforms, provide high performance.

And although Ionic makes the testing process in the browser faster, Ionic has much lower performance overall due to using web technologies. Ionic is only slow in comparison to React Native, though. It is perfectly adequate for most use cases.

If we compare the productivity of both frameworks, React Native will win with ease.

Graphic User Interface

There is a saying that goes: “greeted by clothes – escorted by the mind”. And, no matter how unjust it might seem, this is also true to our discussion. GUI of the app should be easy to use and eye-pleasing, as users start judging as soon as they click on the app’s icon.

Ionic loses pretty hard to React Native in that regard, as it doesn’t use any native elements at all and just renders everything into HTML and CSS, using Cordova after that to polish the feel of the nativity. Angular components should also be mentioned in that regard.

React Native, on the other hand, has modules tied to the native UI controllers. That makes them just as convenient for the users, as native applications do. In addition to that this framework uses ReactJS’ library. And that marginally simplifies the UI development process.

So, when it comes to GUI, React Native gets the cake and eats it too.

Marketability and community

Even though it can be hard to imagine, marketing also concerns our theme. And, in that regard, React Native once again topples Ionic.

But, to be honest, React Native, probably, topples each and every opponent when it comes to market recognition and community. And Ionic comes in strong second place. Although Ionic lets developers make native mobile apps fast and has strong community support and a great marketplace, React Native marginally eases launching React projects. It also uses the ever-popular React library and JavaScript programming language.

These facts allow React Native to take the top spot in this category.

Access to native device functions

This category is an important one if we talk about our current world because most modern apps use a ton of native functions, such as a camera or GPS. And if your framework allows for easier and more convenient access to native functions – you have a leading spot.

Thus, we can declare React Native a winner in this category. Its huge set of third-party packages and built-in APIs and the overreliance on those third parties can be a drawback. And yet the sheer quantity unexpectedly outweighs the quality in this aspect.

Ionic, on the other hand, relies heavily on Cordova and Capacitor for native functions’ access. They do give a great number of packages and they do allow access to, for example, the phone’s camera. But the functionality might be somewhat lacking.

In conclusion to this point, sometimes the more – the merrier.

Popular apps on the framework’s basis

Nice and simple category. Facebook, Instagram, UberEats, AirBNB at the beginning, and many more use React Native. Ionic is used by JustWatch, Pacifica, Nationwide, etc.

And, also subjective, we cannot but give this category to React Native, as brand-wise they win.

Cons of React Native in comparison to Ionic

Now let’s talk about the points, where Ionic takes the crown, compared to React Native

Multifunctionality

When it comes to code reusability, Ionic is a beast. The whole idea of the packed web applications provides the upper-mentioned reusability. And that’s not mentioning the library of adaptable components. Those automatically adjust to the platform on which the app is launched at the time.

React Native provides only a basic set of components, although also compiling for native conditional settings. But it is only a basic set, which means that there would be a lot of additional work adjusting the app for the style of both platforms.

That’s why React Native loses this round to Ionic.

Template libraries

React Native has plenty of embedded components, but time to stylize them manually should also be added to the mix. And that’s not mentioning their non-adaptability. This fact constitutes the need to fit into your code, where you already have to choose styles and widgets according to the conditions.

Ionic wins in this aspect by being a huge set of pre-created and pre-styled components by itself. We should also mention that the compiler, responsible for the native apps, is a part of the Ionic set.

One more point into the Ionic’s pocket.

Ecosystem and Third Party Libraries

React Native takes root in JavaScript and React and that’s an ecosystem by itself. It also has quite a viable system and community. But there is a downside – you would be reliable from the system as React Native only includes basic functions. Its ecosystem is not as good as others and tends to be volatile.

Ionic also uses JavaScript, which means you can use any framework that also uses it. It is especially visible in comparison to Angular. However, it does just as well, if not better, in connection with Vue and React. As all of them are quite popular, you can find thousands of threads on StackOverflow or Ionic’s site that will help deal with any problem.

Ionic takes this category by storm.

Summarizing the pros and cons and conclusions to have

What we conclude with might be considered cliché. But all and all, there is no clear winner between React Native and Ionic. It all depends on the functionality of your product. If you need to create an app that looks and feels native, but really isn’t – React Native is probably the best option. If you need to create a maximum productivity app that only looks native – Ionic is here for you.

Suggested Articles

• How To Make Your First React Native App
• How To Create React Native Airbnb-Like App
• Top React Native UI Component Kits
• React Native vs Flutter: The Key Differences Every Mobile App Developer Should Know in 2021

The post React Native vs. Ionic: What Cross-Platform Framework is the Best? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

Choosing between these super popular frameworks, React Native or Flutter, may be a tricky task. It all depends on what for – and how – you’re using these UI frameworks when building your mobile app. Flutter and React Native are both open-source frameworks for writing native mobile apps from scratch.

We’ve gathered the most crucial points to compare Flutter and React Native, and your question, which one is better, will be fully explained in this guide.

Developed by Google, Flutter is a framework built to suit Google’s development tasks. And, thanks to this fact, Flutter has gained popularity. In contrast, React Native is like an adaptation of all existing technologies for mobile web development. If you’re familiar with both of the technologies,  both of the frameworks, you could have heard an opinion that Google tried to absorb the best aspects of React Native to create their own tool. 

Someone has compared Flutter’s Dart to such high-level programming languages as C#, Kotlin, or Java. At the same time, he has some features of JavaScript. But keep reading to see the whole picture of the mobile development market.

What is React Native?

React Native is a well-known cross-platform framework used for building mobile apps, using popular JavaScript language. It appeared a long time ago, in 2015. So, deciding to start coding in React Native you will undoubtedly find your support in the face of professional JS engineers. 

Provided by Facebook, such leaders as Discord, Tesla, Shopify, Pinterest, Delivery Hero, Walmart, Baidu, Bloomberg, UberEATS, Vogue, Soundcloud, Skype, use in their apps React Native technology for their modern and interactive UIs.

One of the core features of React Native is Expo. Expo is a free and highly useful way to embed and run React Native projects for web, iOS, and Android platforms. 

React Native developers tend to use Flux or Redux state containers when working with the architecture of an application. React Native functions don’t produce side effects that return what the views look like at any point in time. 

Also, React Native is loved for the highly convenient transition from React to React Native thanks to one ecosystem and really huge community of professionals. 

What is Flutter? 

Flutter is a UI toolkit for web and mobile app development, broadly used for making dynamic, responsive, and open-source applications from a single codebase. Flutter was created by Google in May of 2017 for building cross-platform applications.

Flutter apps are written in the Dart programming language, the object-oriented and class-based language mainly for building fast and powerful apps with control over the rendering stack. Dart is really easy to learn, its syntax is really similar to Js. Flutter is loved for its developer friendliness and beautiful widgets within Flutter’s technical architecture. Btw, Flutter is utterly embraced by Material Design. Such huge products as Google Adwords, Realtor.com, Alibaba, Tencent, and Hamilton apps were made with Flutter. 

At first, Flutter was made for OS, and Android development, but later Flutter was released for desktop and all the other popular platforms. One of the crucial points of Flutter is clean UI interfaces of the apps which will run smoothly on Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and Windows, and the web. That can be equal to 6 products with a single codebase. It is a faster, and easier way in terms of long-lasting project development. The evident minus of the cross-platform tools is that they have many limitations in terms of implementation and performance.

In Flutter, you work with widgets, stateless and stateful. Widgets are the same as components in React Native. But, Flutter widgets are not adaptive, so you have to perform platform-specific adaptation manually. The main architecture of Flutter is BLoC (Business Logic Component). Well, what is BLoC? Business logic, also called domain logic, is the way of your entities to be in relation to the business problem that you’re trying to change. All the business logic components (BLCs) are separate and prepare the frontend data for sending to the backend and prepare the backend data for display in a visual application component (VAC). In other words, BLoC is like an intermediator, responsible for managing the relations between its components: widgets submit events; other widgets respond. The main plus of BLoC is that it helps to separate the presentation layer from the business logic that enhances the coding and testing process.

Flutter supports Hot reloading, which allows you to re-execute your application with the newly made adjustments, thus speeding up development. Flutter is officially supported on Android Studio, IntelliJ Idea, and Visual Studio Code.

So, What is in Vogue Then?

We have checked three well-known platforms, StackOverflow and Statista to learn the most popular technologies and the trends in web development. Yes, tastes differ and surely, this is quite a subjective graphic, but still.

StackOverflow 

The survey asked developers about their most loved frameworks. As you see, Flutter is at the forefront of this survey movement with 68,8% of supporter votes, compared to React Native’s 57.9%.

Statista

Statista shows a few other statistics about the usage of popular cross-platform frameworks for making software, proving that React Native was the leading mobile framework in 2019 and 2020 used by one-third of mobile app developers

But, take a quick overview of these two technologies, just offhand, and then analyze the key points of React Native and Flutter which should be evaluated in 2021.

Table of comparison

React Native and Flutter Similarities 

Both frameworks have much in common like clear UI and native features inside, they are conducive to code reuse and have hot reloading options. It saves development time significantly; as you see the bugs of UI at once, and because you don’t need to recompile the app every time.

Note, however, hot reloading in React Native is available only when you extend React Component. If you work with your own base classes, you should change the .babelrc file. 

But when it comes to accessing the deep functionality of Android, Flutter is for native apps. React Native is ultimately mature, and can easily cope with progressive web apps. 

Criteria of Evaluation

1. Performance
2. Code organization
3. Documentation
4. Development time
5. Testing points
6. Debugging instruments

Performance

React Native

React Native gives web apps a native look and near-native performance. A React Native application is made of two different parts: the JavaScript codes and the Native codes. React Native developers try their best to improve and optimize app performance in order to reduce the need for manual code fixing. RN is better than hybrid app frameworks like Ionic and Cordova. Some typical FAQs relating to React Native performance you may also check here.

Flutter 

Flutter doesn’t use a web view or native controls of the operating system. In Flutter you create widgets with the help of a Skia rendering engine. So, the Flutter apps compiled with this Arm C./C++ library, provide really high performance. But, Flutter depends on the packages ecosystem, i.e. the more packages you add, the larger app you get. 

Btw, here are some tips to make your app more lightweight:

• Compress inner PNGs and JPEGs
• Remove odd packages/plugins/resources
• Minimize resource imported from libraries
• Support a limited number of screen densities

Code Structure  

React Native

React Native code structure, styling is a lot direct with JavaScript that allows creating MVC just from scratch. RN has an intuitive architecture that is compared to React. How to set up the development environment for RN? The simplest way is to use Expo or React Native CLI. Expo is a free tool that allows you to develop and deploy RN applications with native code writing. 

Flutter

Get started with Flutter through the main.dart file. This file is highly important because it will execute the code for iOs and Android. The main. should hold very little code and only serve as an overview to an app. The widget being run by the runApp function should be a StatelessWidget, and the widget itself should be as simple as MaterialApp, CupertinoApp, WidgetsApp in a BlocProviderTree. 

Documentation

React Native

React Native has in-depth documentation, where thoroughly explained how to get started with create-react-native-app command, how to use native modules or create platform-specific components, and other hot points in cross-platform development. React Native got almost 95k stars on GitHub. 

• https://dev.to/t/reactnative
• https://twitter.com/reactnativecomm?lang=en
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/react.native.community/
• https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-windows#-react-native-for-windows

Flutter 

Flutter also has a detailed library of documentation. Despite being younger than React Native, Flutter’s community is also growing and being maintained by enthusiasts. Flutter has 120k stars on GitHub.

• https://dart.dev/community
• https://dev.to/t/flutter
• https://twitter.com/FlutterComm
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/fluttercommunity/

Development Time

React Native

Coding with React Native is no doubt faster thanks to several third-party libraries which optimize the design process. Plus, custom libraries really speed up the development. Surely, it all depends on several factors, such as the developer’s expertise, as well as app scalability and functionality.

Here are several examples of  third-party libraries  may be found here:

1. React Native Gesture Handler
2. React Native Material UI
3. Native Base; (Cross-platform UI components for React Native)
4. React-Native-UI-Kitten
5. Axious; (HTTP client for the browser and Node.js)
6. React Native Maps 

Flutter

Building complex UI elements, you will have to add separate code files for different OS platforms. Rough estimates show that it takes around 250-400 person-hours to develop a common cross-platform app on Flutter.

Start working with Flutter after loading and decompressing the full package. Use pub.dev to get more libraries. Build, test and deploy your mobile app automatically with such servers as Bitrise or CircleCI. And in case you face some difficulties, refer to the Flutter community, helping each other to code faster and easier. 

Testing: Make Sure Your Code Works Well

Let’s single out the following four categories of UI testing:

1. Unit testing tests (also known as component/or widget testing for Flutter) for each function, method, or class;
2. Functional testing which refers to a specific function, class, or method;
3.  Integration testing (for testing a significant part of an app)
4. Acceptance testing (end-user testing)

React Native

For instance, for Windows, you can use Performance Monitor to get started from the debug menu. It’ll be displayed in your app over the opened screen. For testing iOs apps on React Native, you may use Appium. 

Flutter

Testing in Flutter is automated and split into Unit-, Widget-, and Integration tests. How to proceed?

1. Create an independent test unit; 
2. Try making a single test or a test case;
3. Run the full test suite.

Plus, while testing the Flutter app, you will need 2 separate libraries for dart tests and flutter tests. This means you can’t run the tests from the submodules from your integrated development environment, like Eclipse, Intellij Idea of Android Studio.

Debugging

Flutter

Linter for Dart is a package that deserves close attention as a hand-picked and community-driven collection for making clean code. We will also advise Analyzer for embedding, as it provides a rich library that performs static analysis of Dart code. Plus, you may proceed with the most well-known ones:

• Flutter inspector, to explore Flutter widget trees
• DevTools, a suite of performance and profiling tools that run in a browser
• Android Studio/IntelliJ, and VS Code

Other debugging tools for Flutter are well-represented here.

React Native 

Let’s think broader, first off you should define the two types of bugs, development errors, and production errors. Don’t try to fix everything in bulk, use breakpoints.

The first tool that comes to our mind if speaking about debugging stuff for React Native, is react-native-debugger, an official debugger of React Native with Redux DevTools and React Inspector. Plus,

• reactotron, — for inspecting and debugging your macOS, Windows, and Linux apps
• Flipper, very simple and clear mobile app debugger with a log viewer, layout inspector, and network inspector

Several other essential tool for troubleshooting, may be found in the official documentation by Expo.

React Native: Pros and Cons

The clearest advantage of React Native is that it uses JavaScript that is known by everyone unlike Flutter, where you should know all the ropes of Dart.

React Native is a good instrument for creating minimal viable products. Why? Again, because of JavaScript which is easy, known, and loved by everyone. Though, in the long run, we would suggest using TypeScript instead of JavaScript.

React Native has been on the market longer, which means it has a big community, libraries, and solutions.

Similar code base between React and React Native, that is, if you have a web app, it will be much easier to make a mobile app.

React Native allows for Swift, Java, Objective-C, or to write native modules responsible for the smooth handling of complex operations like video playback or image editing.

In React Native, you need to write your design styles from scratch, or you can find ready designs, which are in spades.

Fewer ready-made components

Flutter: Pros and Cons

Flutter has a multi-tier architecture that is good for quick UI customization. It may help you animate components like video, text, and visuals 

UI separation from the native controls

Flutter 2.0 version

Recently Flutter was updated with a broad range of new target platforms like web and desktop from a single code base.

No support from web browsers

No guarantee, due to its newness and insufficient time to prove itself

Flutter applications are huge, approximately 3 times larger than a native iOS or Android app

Flutter has a bit messier styling due to the separation between template styles and data in a Dart life

Talent shortage

React Native Example

Frankly speaking, React Native is evidently more popular and has more demand in the mobile app development community compared to Flutter. And this is not a surprise. At Flatlogic, we closely use React Native to help web developers cut down development time by using templates. For instance, React Native Starter UI kit got tens of positive reviews and became our favorite one in the family of Flatlogic templates to help coders. It was curated by real professionals and a highly experienced team of React developers.

We used Babel, React, Flow, Redux, and Ecmascript 6 to build React Native Starter UI kit. It is crammed with neat UI components like a profile page, calendar application, chat application, signin/signup screens, charts. Moreover, React Native got:

• Modular architecture
• Analytics integration with Google Analytics, Firebase, etc.
• Pixel perfect stylish design
• Sketch files
• Detailed library
• Easy customization and UI-testing
• 6 color schemes

How to Choose, What if I’m Not a Newbie in Developing?

If you have HTML, CSS, and JS background, then start with React Native. It will be 100% easier for you to dive deeper and build an Android or iOs app.

If you’re familiar with Java or C++, then Dart will seem you a piece of cake.

React Native and Flutter Average Salary Rate (USA)

Just for the record, we have checked the average annual income of Dart and React Native Developers according to the talent.com. The numbers are really impressive.

Conclusion

React Native is a common choice for apps with ordinary functionality like eCommerce stores, chat platforms or social media, food delivery apps, expense trackers, or book trackers.

If you need to build an app for a large business with a large customer base, use React Native, as a proven, consistent and reliable way to make a modern and optimized go-to app with fewer bugs for single-app pages.

Flutter is good for the projects like healthy lifestyle apps or sleep or mood trackers where the functional side is more important than super chiseled design. So, it may become an option for real-quick startup apps with a limited budget.

If you need a cross-platform app with well-described documentation, then Flutter will fit your needs. The widespread device support combined with fast development make it an ideal framework for developing mobile apps.

But, there is still the risk of developing a relatively raw project, because Flutter is still improving its functionality and is not 100% completed. We recommend you wait for the official release of the stable version.

Btw, every year Flutter developers organize an event called the FlutterClock, this is kinda a contest and a big event in the IT industry where engineers have an opportunity to share their knowledge and resolve design problems using the Flutter UI kit. 

React Native vs. Flutter: Rumors and Guesses

Flutter is robust, but Dart can hardly become the new Js, to help building both sides of your app. Why? The answer is perfectly straightforward, let’s ask ourselves:  

What you can build with JavaScript: web pages, web servers, desktop ad embedded apps, rest APIs, and others; 

What you can do with Dart: Flutter apps.

And, don’t forget about support and maintenance that are integral after you release your app; app maintenance certainly requires some extra budget and priceless time.

Do you share our view? If no, please leave your view here, we will be happy to discuss it on our forum.

If you still have doubts about which technology to choose, give us a shout and our top-notch developers will provide you with advice on what suits your future project better.

About Flatlogic

We’re all about delivering simple, elegant, and logical graphic design solutions which stay true to the intended meaning. Check our blog for tips on web development and check our videos on YouTube.

Do You Want to Learn More About React Native? Check Our Related Articles:

• How To Make Your First React Native App
• How To Create React Native Airbnb-Like App
• Top React Native UI Component Kits
• React.Js Vs. React Native. What Are The Key Differences And Advantages?

The post React Native vs. Flutter: The Key Differences Every Mobile App Developer Should Know [Guide for Beginners] appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

React and React Native are two open-sourced technologies for building user interfaces. They both were developed by Facebook and gained great recognition among frontend developers for their opportunities to create interactive UIs. In the article, we describe these two technologies and explain their differences. 

React or ReactJS is a JavaScript library that is used for building user interfaces especially for the web. React uses declarative programming, that allows developers to design a simple view for every state and then delegate the responsibility of keeping the app views consistent while you have to worry only about the state.

Check out React Admin Templates!

• Redux
• Login and Logout screens
• Google Maps Integrated

React is a component-based library which means that you can build several reusable components and then use them for building the complex UI of the app, while React takes care of the rendering of UI components. Applications built with React can change data in separate parts of the page without a full page reload. It provides support for both the frontend and server-side.

React Native is a framework for building native cross-platform applications for Android and IOS using React. React Native compiles native code that allows you to create truly native mobile apps with natural user experience for Android and IOS. 

Check out React Native Starter!

• Sketch files included
• Designed by professional UX/UI experts
• 6 premium themes for any use case

Developing with ReactJS is no way like developing mobile apps with React Native, and they serve different purposes. React Native is used for building native mobile applications, while ReactJS is for building interactive web pages for the web.

React Native was customized to build desktop apps for Mac and Windows (see GitHub repository for macOS and windows), but first of all, that framework was designed to power mobile apps development.

Some facts about ReactJS:

Ranked 2nd and 1st on StackOverflow Developer Survey Results in 2020 in the categories Most Loved and Most Wanted Web Frameworks respectively. 

Ranked 2st as the most popular Web Framework among professional developers in 2020.

From 2016 till 2019 (the latest survey) ReactJS Ranked 1st on Awareness, interest, and satisfaction ratio rankings.

In 2020, React has 157 k stars on GitHub, making it the #2 most popular JavaScript project after the Vue library. 

There are about 1 004 379 websites using React all around the world.

60 608 developers on StackShare have stated that they use React In 2020.

About 9 000 companies reported that they use React in their Tech Stack, including Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Netflix, Instagram, Amazon, Twitter.  The median of React developer salaries in the USA is 120 000 $ per year. The most skilled developers get up to 160 000 $ per year. 

Some facts about React Native:

React Native is in the 5th place on StackOverflow Survey 2020 in the category of other most popular frameworks, libraries, and tools among professional developers. 

React Native goes with 90,5 k stars on GitHub. 

About 1400 companies stated they use React Native in the development.

The most known mobile apps that were built using React Native are Skype (before React Native was replaced by Electron in June 2020), Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Bloomberg, Discord, Tesla. 

 13,5 k developers on StackShare noted that they use React Native in 2020. 

The average salary in the USA for React Native developers is 121,875 $ a year. The most experienced developers can claim up to 200 000 $ per year.  

React vs React Native – key differences

How to start and what you need

Since React is a JavaScript library, all you need to start work with it is to plug React library in the HTML page in <script> tag:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/react@16/umd/react.development.js" crossorigin></script>  
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@16/umd/react-dom.development.js" crossorigin></script>

That’s all. https://reactjs.org/docs/add-react-to-a-website.html Then you can create your first React Component and add it to your HTML website.  

The only other thing you need to work with big projects is a bundler. If you use for new projects instruments like a create-react-app command, Next.js, or Gatsby framework, you will already have a configured Webpack to bundle your application. Otherwise, you will need to configure a Webpack yourself. 

Bundlers compile all imported files with code into one large and complex file. Besides Webpack there are other bundlers such as Rollup or Browserify. 

React-Native is a framework, so you need an installed development environment like Xcode for iOS or Android Studio for Android. 

Depending on your development OS you need to install additional tools like Node, the React Native command-line interface, a JDK, Watchman, etc. After that, you can start a new project just with one line in the React Native CLI. To see the created app you should either run a mobile simulator or use your own devices. 

Since you install a full-fledged framework it comes with a lot of developer tools out of the box such as Hot reloading which allows you to inject new versions of the files that you edited at runtime keeping the app running. That becomes especially helpful if you are tweaking the interface. 

The migration from ReactJS to React Native is not a complicated thing. If you are familiar with React and JavaScript it takes several months to get used to the React Native framework and build your first native app, it is just a different way of using React. 

The base of technologies

ReactJS is just JavaScript (and TypeScript a little), there are no additional things you need to know. Your skills in JavaScript allow you to become a good React developer in a few hours when you get acquainted with the technical documentation. React focuses on one thing: building interactive User interfaces for the web via JavaScript. 

React Native is a framework that uses React.JS for building mobile user interfaces. It comes with all the advantages that React.js brought you and uses declarative components just like React. 

But React Native is not a pure JavaScript framework, it also contains Java, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++ code. That fact is essential because the diversity of used languages allows us to build native components that are in fact native. Let’s find out what it means. 

React Native bridge or how we get native components

React uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Keeping that in mind we have two options on how to create a cross-platform app:

• To make a universal design that looks the same for all platforms.
• To create a unique design for each platform, that means different sets of code, different DOM, stylesheets, animations, styles, etc. to keep native user experience while using the app.     

If we want to build a native app with React and chose the second option we use ReactDOM.Render () command and try to mimic native elements, but the result usually feels a little off because of the small details in UI that feel wrong. 

In contrast, React Native doesn’t try to mimic native elements, it creates a bridge between the Native Language and the JavaScript code. It calls the native functions and components inside a mobile environment. React Native has an access to all native views and components, and to about 70 specific device APIs by default. It leverages native tools for rendering views of the platform from which the app was run. 

As a result, when we write with React Native, we build native UIs. After the compilation of the code all views in JavaScript become native components. Thus we create UIView instances as if we use platform-specific languages (Java or Objective C). 

But how does React Native create native instances? 

Nowadays we work with compilers that have been designed to target their own specific platforms. Thus the compiler of Java / Kotlin code targets the Android platform, the compiler of Obj-C / Swift targets the iOS platform. These compilers work just great because they were developed for a specific purpose (to create optimized artefacts for a certain platform). React Native also has such a purpose: it uses existing compilers to create native UIs.

React Native makes a connection between two realities, JavaScript and Native. 

If we need to manage communication between two different languages/platforms we use interoperable languages, such as JSON or XML. React Native provides such a bidirectional and asynchronous communication between JavaScript and Native elements with the bridge concept. Even though the technologies are different, they can communicate. 

The bridge is built in C/C++ and can be run on any platform or OS. It means that you can run JavaScript code inside a C/C++ program, inject variables, functions, and declare globals to enhance existing code. That, in turn, provides JavaScript the opportunity to communicate with native reality and trigger actions in the C/C++ world. 

So, our JavaScript code uses existing compilers and generated native components and interfaces with native features. That is why React Native developers claim “Write once use everywhere” – you write the code in JavaScript and then use it on different platforms just like if you write with native languages. We speak not only about the mobile environment but about building desktop applications as well. 

One more significant thing to know is that you don’t need to write the whole code in JavaScript. Sometimes it’s better to write components directly with native languages. Some reasons for that:

• You have a feeling, that the communication through the bridge slows the app down and you want to improve the performance of the app. It is a rare case, however, sometimes happens.
• In cases when implementation in JavaScript takes hundreds of lines of code, while with native languages the code is no more than a hundred.

Virtual DOM

DOM (document object model, also known as real DOM) is a tree-like object model for an HTML webpage. Objects are HTML elements like <div>, <html>, <body>, etc. When we want to update the page, we also need to generate a new DOM, which in turn leads to a full page reload. In other words, if an app gets new information and wants to display it to users, it has to reload the whole webpage and refresh the model. The problem of real DOM is that it wasn’t designed to create dynamic UIs. Using JavaScript and libraries like jQuery helps to solve the problem with dynamic rendering, but it leads us to a new problem with app performance. Thus, there was no simple solution that allowed us to create dynamic apps and keep a high level of performance. 

React has changed the rules of the game and brought us such a thing as virtual DOM, an abstract copy of real DOM. Virtual DOM can refresh the separate parts of the page without the need for the full page reload. 

React has a copy of the real DOM structure. When changes occur, it tracks the differences and updates the browser’s displayed DOM in places that are not match the saved virtual copy without influencing the rest of the UI. 

That is why React is awesome at creating dynamic user interfaces. 

Furthermore, virtual DOM is about the efficient re-rendering of the real DOM. React doesn’t check all the values in a data structure at a regular interval, it instead knows when and where to re-render the app because it observes the state of your components. React can simply track state change events and then queue up re-rendering.

So the virtual tree is re-rendered only when the state changes. It allows us to avoid a lot of unnecessary tree updates and keep the app performance high by updating elements with an altered state. For other diffs of the tree, if nothing has changed, we do nothing. That occurs behind the scene: we don’t have to do manual DOM manipulations, we don’t have to check the previous DOM state, we don’t have to re-render the entire page every time some components change. We need to declare what we want from the user interface and React takes care of the rest. 

React makes it possible because it was developed in such a way that reconciliation and rendering are separate phases. The reconciler computes which parts of a tree have changed, while the renderer is responsible for updating the app based on that information.

And this is where we come to React Native. Since React Native is based on React, it has similar opportunities including efficient re-rendering of the app. But both React and React Native use their own renderers while sharing the same reconciler, provided by React core. React Native uses native APIs for Android and iOS to render components on mobile while React utilizes HTML and CSS markup for the web. 

The syntax

When you use React you write in JavaScript. Then React.js renders Html-like components with tags like <p>, <div>, <h1>, etc. You can optionally use a special syntax extension for JavaScript that is called JSX. JSX is a syntax that looks like a template language that doesn’t separate logic and markup. That means that you put markup in JS, which may seem incorrect at first glance, but React claims that this practice is not as bad as it looks like. After compilation, there will be no JSX code, only regular JavaScript functions and objects. 

When you use React Native you have to familiarize yourself with its specific syntax. Instead of rendering Html-like components, React Native renders native components with tags like <view>, <text>, <image>, etc. Here is a code sample to display “Hello, world!” for React and React Native: 

For ReactJS

function tick() {
      const element = (
            <div>
                  <h1>Hello, world!</h1>
            </div>
      ReactDOM.render(element, document.getElementByID(‘root’));
}
setInterval(tick, 1000);

For React Native:

Import React from 'react';
Import {Text, View} from 'react-native';
const HelloWorldApp = () => {
      return (
            <View>
                  <Text>Hello, world!</Text>
            </View>
      )
}
Export default HelloWorldApp;

React Native doesn’t use HTML and therefore it is not used for web development. Instead, with React Native you can develop apps for mobile (iOS, Android), smart devices (watches, TVs), augmented reality, and more, because used in React Native tags like <View>, <Text> compiles into native languages. 

However, that also means that you can’t use any libraries that render any kind of HTML, SVG, or Canvas.  

One more thing to know about React Native is that all container elements are Flex containers by default. To manipulate content inside the containers there is a bunch of different options for Flex layouts like justifyContent, alignItems, alignSelf, etc. You don’t need to write code for content management, just take Flex options and use them. 

Building responsive apps using Flexbox can be strange a little if you work with CSS before, but Flex layout is quite a simple and convenient thing to use once you got a basic understanding of how it works. 

You can use Reactjs or React Native either to develop an app from scratch or to add a single view or component to existing applications. 

No animation and CSS

We’ve already mentioned that React Native doesn’t use HTML. Well, React Native doesn’t use CSS either.

React Native uses StyleSheet API to style components. And it looks similar to CSS, but not exactly the same. Here is an example:

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
     ExampleView: {
     flex: 1,
     justifyContent: “center”,
     borderRadius: 50/2,
     backgroundColor: '#000'
     },
});

To get options we used to (such as style override) we need to look for alternative solutions than CSS offers. For example, you can override background color in the previous code sample by adding a subcomponent like that:

<Subcomponent passedStyle={{ backgroundColor: '#fff' }} />

And then apply it to the element:

<Image
style={[ styles.ExampleView, this.props.passedStyle ]}                  
...
/>

However, if you really need CSS or you just like the way it works, you can use styled-components that allow you to write actual CSS code if JS files. After compilation CSS text converts into a React Native stylesheet object.   

Furthermore, without CSS there is no standard way to animate your components. With React Native you have to learn a new tool that is called Animated. Animated is a library that provides smooth and fluid animation where you can combine serial and parallel animation, handling gestures and other events, and do pretty crazy things in general. It is similar to a very popular JavaScript library Velocity.js. 

Animated works outside of React, directly updating native components. React Native also offers to use the native driver that allows performing the animation on the UI thread without having to go through the bridge on every frame.

Components

React is a component-based library. A component is a JavaScript class or function that returns a React element and declares how a certain part of UI should look like. There are two types of components in React.js: function components and class components. When you use function components you write JavaScript functions: 

function Welcome(props) {
      return <h1>Hello, {props.name}</h1>;
 }

You can also define the same component with ES6 classes:

class Welcome extends React.Component {
      render() {
      return <h1>Hello, {this.props.name}</h1>;
      }
}

You can write an app with the same functionality using both types of components. Class components have much more feature than function components, however, it’s easier to read the code written with functional components, the code contains fewer lines, and there is a slight boost in the app performance.  

React Native comes with Native Modules and Native components from which developers build apps. 

Native UI components are ready-to-use widgets that either is a part of the platform or are available as third-party libraries. If you need a certain component, you can look for that in UI explorer. You can also create your own component and then reuse it in different parts of the app. 

A Native Module is just a set of javascript functions that give access to platform API when React Native doesn’t have that required module yet or when React Native doesn’t support a native feature that you need. To build your own module you can use some tools that help to start:

• https://github.com/brodybits/create-react-native-module – allows to create a native view component with a single command;
• https://github.com/react-native-community/bob – a CLI to set a simple example modules for Android and iOS.

SEO

Developers use Reactjs to make web apps, which means you have to keep SEO optimization in mind. However, the main feature of Reactjs is to provide dynamic user interfaces, that is the content of web pages changes depending on user actions. Google bot is not a user. Even though it can run scripts and hence to see the valuable information that gets our app higher in Google search results, we need to help Google bot to index our web page correctly. 

Reactjs and its community can offer several tools and libraries to improve the SEO of the app. 

• React snap – a third-party library that pre-renders pages of the app into static HTML files. 
• React is about both client-side and server-side rendering. The second option is especially valuable for SEO, however, it takes more time to write the app with server-side rendering. 
• React Router is a routing library the keeps the URL in sync with what’s being displayed on the page. 

On the other hand, React Native has nothing to do with web and SEO. It’s all about building native UIs. 

Navigation

If you work with Reacjs, you must be familiar with the react–router library that provides the navigation on click events. That library gained the second breath after React Router 5 release when the useHistory hook appeared.

However, you can’t use react-router with React Native. To manage the transition between multiple screens React Native team developed a totally unique library Navigator. Besides that library, there is another library React Native Navigation that provides 100% native platform navigation on iOS and Android for React Native apps. 

Storage

React uses local storage while React Native uses AsyncStorage by default (but has some libraries that help to save the data locally). 

Local storage on the web means that data has no expiration date and will persist after the browser window is closed. 

When we speak about AsynStorage on iOS, it is backed by native code that stores small values in a serialized dictionary and larger values in separate files. On Android, AsyncStorage uses either RocksDB or SQLite based on what is available.

Mostly it’s enough to have AsyncStorage option when developing with React Native, but some apps may require to keep data on the device, here you get several options: 

• To use special libraries to store data on a device like Realm or SQLite.
• If you are using Redux, you can use redux-persist. 

Conclusion

In the article we found out the differences between React and React Native, and here is a brief comparison list:

• To start work with React you need to plug the React library on the HTML page. For React Native you need an installed development environment like Xcode for iOS or Android Studio for Android. 
• React helps to create dynamic single app applications effectively with virtual DOM, while React Native is focused on building native mobile applications thanks to bridge technology. 
• The base of React is JavaScript (and TypeScript a little), the base of React Native is mostly React itself, but it also contains Java, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++ code 
• React.js renders html-like components with tags like <p>, <div>, <h1>, while React Native renders native components with tags like <view>, <text>, <image>
• To style components React Native uses StyleSheet instead of CSS when React uses CSS. 
• To animate components React Native uses a special library Animated. 
• Both React and React Native use reusable components to build complex UIs. 
• There are libraries for Reactjs to improve SEO, while React Native has nothing to do with web and SEO
• To manage navigation between screens there are react-router for React and Navigator for React Native. 
• React uses local storage while React Native uses AsyncStorage 

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The post React.js vs. React Native. What are the Key Differences and Advantages? appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

Read more info about React Native Starter here.

We have extended the list of features for this mobile template. The novelties include the following:

• blog,
• bottom navigation,
• calendar,
• menu,
• modal,
• and many more.

See all the changes here!

The way to the existing version of React Native Starter started several years ago when Flatlogic launched something new, a mobile starter kit that bootstraps the development of a mobile application  – React Native Starter. And soon, this product gained its popularity among followers of the popular website specialized in sharing and discovering modern tech products – ProductHunt. 

Later in 2019, we seriously revised the product and practically rebuilt it from scratch. For example, we added plop generator and removed Expo. Such a renewal inspired a great interest in IT-community. The product began to appear in various software development articles. For instance, Codeinwp source included React Native Starter in the top 10 free React Native templates to kickstart app development. This way React Native Starter has carved out its niche among the top of demanded IT-products. 

Then after Facebook, a creator of React Native, made an update to version v0.63.0, our team updated React Native Starter to version v3.3.02. 

And now, at the beginning of autumn 2020, we are announcing an update to the new version – v.4.0.0.

One of the characteristics of React Native Starter is that it’s the first of all a mobile template. It means that this product already has integrated working components. What is more, React Native Starter can be used either for Android and iOS applications. So, you don’t have to create a separate app for Android hiring Java or Kotlin developers and another app for iOS inviting Swift or Objective-C coders. In general, React Native appeals to many companies due to increased developer productivity and faster time to market. For these reasons, React Native, as well as React Native Starter, are so popular nowadays.

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The post React Native Starter is Updated (v.4.0.0.)! appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.

MORE INFO
GITHUB

• Podfile for IOS was updated
• @react-native-community/cli was added

How many types of mobile applications do exist? What is the difference between them? What is a template for mobile applications? Let’s figure it out right now.

Basically, there are three main types of mobile applications (apps): web apps, native apps, hybrid apps. 

Web apps are designed adaptive to mobile devices. It’s easy to manage such apps, nevertheless, it’s not convenient to launch them – you need to run a browser and type the URL into the address bar. You will not find any adaptive application in the app stores, because web apps can’t be submitted there.

Native apps are built using native programming languages. They are faster, and more intuitive than web apps. Furthermore, native apps can interact with the device utilities, such as geolocation, a camera roll, Bluetooth. At the same time, all these features of native apps tell us that native apps are more expensive than web apps.

Hybrid apps are defined as a combination of web and native apps, so hybrid apps incorporate the features of the first two mobile application types. Hybrid apps, like web apps, are cheaper, but slower and less interactive than native apps. It’s easy enough to build a hybrid app by means of HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Similar to native apps, hybrid apps have almost full access to devices utilities, they constitute themselves as a single app for all platforms, and they can be published in app stores.

Have you heard about app templates? These are multifunctional templates, which are already equipped with UI components. Due to such templates, you don’t have to build a mobile app from scratch spending a large amount of money on development. A more profitable way is to purchase a template and adapt it to your business needs.

React Native Starter is an example of a powerful mobile app template with a bunch of outstanding features, such as tons of ready-to-use-components, various UI elements and color schemes, modular architecture, simple customization. By the way, recently we have made a major update of React Native Starter. If you haven’t checked out our template yet, be sure to do so, because you will definitely love it.

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The post React Native Starter is Updated (v3.3.0) appeared first on Flatlogic Blog.