Consider These 10 Things While Developing Mobile Apps with React Native

React Native is one of the best and robust frameworks to work with, especially if the goal is to develop a mobile app that will be cost-effective and consumes less amount of time. In addition, it offers cross-platform app development, which means that its code is reusable and will be accessible on multiple platforms like Android and iOS.

A lot of different organizations and corporations utilize this framework for the development of their respective applications. To name a few are Skype, UberEats, Instagram, Walmart, etc. 

If you are considering developing your app by using React Native technology, then make sure to read this writeup till the end, as it will guide you through the limitations and the advantages of using this innovative framework to build a robust mobile application.

If you are new to app development and want a software company to help you develop your mobile application, many organizations offer mobile app development in Canada.

We will now look into the top ten things to consider when developing a mobile application using React Native framework.

Let’s dig in!

Why Use React Native?

React Native offers cross-platform application development. But it is not the only framework that provides this feature. Other technologies like WebView also offer cross-platform development.

Many developers access this tool to create applications with lesser expectations, and these applications function just fine. But, when it comes to high-end functionalities and handling of complex data structures, WebView fails. React Native proves its robustness and efficiency by using the underlying components and giving a native feel to the application. It also offers fast development, which makes it a popular choice amongst developers.

Setting Up the Navigation Library

React Native is around for a long time, but still, it needs to come up with a more effective solution or a replacement for the existing navigating component. Furthermore, while developing apps using React Native, most developers rely on the solution provided by the community. Therefore, picking a suitable navigation library is necessary right from the beginning of the project that fits your requirement accordingly.

Two libraries React Native offers: JavaScript navigators and Native navigators. JavaScript navigators offer convenience in setting up the library. Whereas, Native navigators strive towards achieving performance-oriented results. It is up to the developer now which navigation library is more suitable for their project as each provides various distinctive features.

When to Use Expo-Kit?

Expo-Kit is an open-source library that helps in creating apps with a native touch. But it also comes with limitations, as React Native does not back third-party packages with custom native modules. So, ultimately you will have to get rid of it.

The best application of Expo-Kit is when you want to develop an app quickly with the help of the create-react-native-app tool or when you want to build an app whose requirements are wholly fulfilled by using the Expo-Kit.

React Native Style

React Native Style is an alternate to CSS but does not quite work similarly as efficiently as CSS. So, you might end up with some discouragement. It lacks the inheritance property, the cascading that CSS provides, and a few other functionalities deficiencies.

Nevertheless, there are always alternates to such shortcomings. Every system has flaws in them. What matters the most is how do you overcome those problems. And React Native is very flexible in that regard. The trick is if you keep your components compact, meaning that by having the styles and the user interface fixed on the same page, there is a good chance that you won’t face any substantial issues while developing, and you will be good to go.

App Development for Different Screen Sizes

Whenever you develop an app, it is kept in mind that it will be operational on different devices with different screen sizes. So, to overcome this obstacle, either we design different UX/UI for devices with variant screen sizes, or one product is applicable for all the screen sizes.

Now ideally, the former is a better way to do it, but it is time-consuming and heavy on the production budget. Therefore, developers opt for the latter, especially when developing a game. There are different tools for adjusting content according to different screen sizes like Dimensions API, or you can use other helpful third-party packages like React Native Responsive UI, etc.

Performance-Friendly

React Native is known for its short and fast-paced development cycle. It helps the developers to finish the project before reaching the deadline. All of its components are time-friendly and do not interrupt the development process with loading time. 

One of its features is hot reloading which enables the developers to stay updated with UI content. The way hot reloading works is that when the developer codes, the effect it has on the app development is visible immediately, and because of this, the development time decreases drastically.

Building App with Animations

Animations are always a good idea for an interactive user experience. But when it comes to React Native, the developers should be considerate regarding the usage of animation. It may not be competent enough in that counterpart. 

That does not mean you can’t work with animations using React Native; you need to be careful with it. A good tip will be testing animation effects on a device rather than on an emulator. Emulators are not reliable with their feedback and can be troublesome in the future.

It is a good idea to set use NativeDriver: true for better performance. However, animated values use a mechanism in which they are only compatible with one driver. So, the recommendation is to use Native Driver as the sole driver for animations on different values.

CSS-in-JS 

CSS-in-JS is a technique that styles components with JavaScript. After parsing JavaScript, CSS gets generated and is attached to the DOM. This way, CSS is abstracted to the component level, and as a result, JavaScript is in charge of describing the styles in a declarative and maintainable fashion.

Instead of using Stylesheet.create method and pure coding JavaScript, it is better to use the styled-components library as it gives a better CSS experience and makes the JSX looks more semantic.

Code Reusability

One of the prominent advantages of using React Native is code reusability. It is very convenient for the developers to update a project even on different platforms simultaneously. In addition, it makes finding and fixing bugs very easy.

Due to the easy usage and flexibility, converting a web project into a mobile project is seamless and effortless.

Few Other Things to Consider

There are few other things we can look into while considering using React Native as a tool for developing a cross-platform project:

• React Native does not support DOM elements. As of now, we are working with native components.

• It does not support percentage values for all of its properties. If a percentage value is given to a property, then it may misbehave.

• Flex is by default supported by React Native. It makes working with React Native easy. 

Author Bio:

Hamza Iqbal Digital Content Producer for the software development company. He develops and implements content strategies for Cubix, along with aligning business goals with content marketing activities. He actively contributes articles related to digital and content marketing.