Five Essentials to Develop Best Applications on React Native

There are many tutorials and guides about how to build an app on React Native. While most of the content available on the internet guides developers step by step, there are not too many pieces listing out tools that aid the development process. Knowing your resources well is the key to development.

Only by understanding the armory, developers can transform their applications. There are developers that dedicate their skills towards betterment of the application development. These developers come up with third party tools and resources that expand and optimize the capabilities of React Native. The ecosystem includes a lot of stakeholders. The difference between a good application and a great application often does not lie in the coding or development process. The tools used for the development alone can define the quality of the end product. 

Brief on React Native

Before moving on to knowing the right resources for an ideal React Native project, let us briefly understand what React Native is actually all about. React is a JavaScript library and React Native is a framework that is built with JavaScript as its default language and React as its default library. It is named Native because it has a unique capability to develop mobile apps for both Android and iOS using a single code base. 

React as a JavaScript library was developed by Meta, formerly known as Facebook Inc. The primary aim to build this library was to have the same set of codes that can power apps across both leading operating systems. A concept like this was not encouraged earlier since the frameworks and codes for developing apps for both Android and iOS are completely contrasting. 

React Native powers some of the world’s leading apps. It powers its parent company Meta’s products like Facebook app, Microsoft’s office tools apps, Ecommerce giants like Shopify & Wallmart and apps of many more prestigious brands. Here are some key benefits of using React Native.

Commonality 

The building components of applications across both platforms are common. Coding components like View, Text and Image are common between applications of both platforms. These are the basic coding components that respond to UI blocks.

Compatibility

Developers can use the same set of codes for apps on both Android as well as iOS. Apart from building an app from scratch, a standard React Native app development service can also offer updating and editing functionalities on an existing app using React’s codes since most applications are written in JavaScript.

Fast Reviews

All your changes in React are saved in real time. This means that you no longer have to wait for your application to load the changes. React has what they call “Live Loading” or “Hot Loading” that shows the effects of the changes developers made on another window in real time while they are actually making those changes. 

Time Saver 

Since the coding process only happens once and the same code base can be used for apps across platforms, it saves a lot of time for both developers as well as businesses. The app only needs one code base which makes the maintenance of the app easier too. All this hence amounts to a lot of cost saving.

React Native Essentials

Developers need to cover a certain set of essentials in order to complete the whole funnel. If you are a React Native developer, knowing the programming language may not be enough for your clients. You need to offer a complete solution that involves design, backend, hosting and maintenance. 

Here are some essentials that React Native developers must have in their armory.

UI 

User interface plays a huge role in today’s times. The overall attention spans on the internet are shortened and this is just one of the many downsides of rising competitiveness. One of the biggest elements in a user interface of any application is the icon. Icons are tiny little scalable vectors. There are plenty of libraries out there to download popular vectors for icons. 

Other than icons, developers also need to put emphasis on the fonts. Fonts these days have become very intuitive and the flip side of it is that the app pages take longer to load because of that. Choosing the right fonts and that too without them affecting the loading time is the key. There are many popular sources to download fonts for your app. Most of these websites show real time previews and offer downloads of whole font families.

There are whole bundles of UI elements out there as well. For instance, all apps have forms in common for user authentication or registration. There are libraries of exciting formats of these forms. React also has its official UI Toolkit that developers can use. The best thing about these bundles is that you can completely customize the size, shape and color of all the UI elements. 

Resources

Another important essential for a React Native developer is to have resources to build the applications upon. Developers often prefer full-stack frameworks that offer both the frontend as well as the backend optimization. The best practice to rate any framework that you may come across is to check its GitHub repository. 

These frameworks offer everything from setting up UI elements, writing programs, sending push notifications and publishing content on the app. The difference between a standard editor and a framework is that an editor only offers coding features and support while frameworks offer everything from coding to design. There are many popular IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) that developers commonly use. These editors offer features like code suggestions, auto complete, auto correct and color coding of different elements of a code. All of this helps developers write strong and lean codes. 

Backend

Once the app is developed, it is essential that it performs all its tasks aptly. Some of these tasks need regular interaction with data. Hence developers need a database management system and a platform that supports the regular interactions between the app and the database. This is the backend process that needs to be taken care of very intensively. 

Leaders in this department are Amazon Web Services, Heroku and Google Firebase. If the app does not need a separate building of a backend or database management system, then using these popular tools is the best option. Some of these tools, like Firebase, also offer great backend and database integration support to web applications as well. 

Testing

Testing is a very crucial aspect of an application’s development. To test all the programs and to ensure that they perform the functionalities developers have assigned them, a suitable testing library is needed. React Native works best with Meta’s own testing library called Jest. It offers features like unit testing, code coverage, mocking components etc. 

Other than Jest, there are many popular testing libraries available out there. It is highly recommended to add at least one testing library in a project to ensure that the quality standards of the application are met. 

Deployment

Modern day developers are also very much equipped with the post development diligence. What is different here for React Native apps is that both Android and iOS have different guidelines for deployment. Developers will need developer accounts in both cases. iOS however charges an annual fee of $99 to enroll developers in their developers program and Android has a lifetime charge of $25 to host an app.

The deployment involves proper documentation of the app and a description that is convenient for users to understand and necessary declarations in case your app involves third parties like ad servers or tracking agents. Along with the documentation, developers also need to submit high quality screenshots of their app and the most common pages to enlighten the users more about the app.

These five aspects are the main building blocks of any app on React Native. Checking these tick boxes will pretty much help any developer have a smooth project lifecycle. 

Conclusion

React Native addresses a problem that not too many have ever tried to. It takes a lot of technological brilliance to allow an app to have the same code base on two contrasting platforms. The backing of a giant like Meta surely helps, but the key is its open source nature. The collaboration with other frameworks and tools has enhanced the capabilities of React Native. Because of these collaborations, developers are able to leverage on cross-platform development tools. The lean nature of the apps and the sheer convenience at maintenance makes React a strong contender for the throne and we may see the coronation sooner than we’d think.