React Native Template Project

During our time developing mobile apps we have gathered some experience and preferences in architecture and libraries. We decided to gather it all in one project to share it with all community. So we created this template. We found out and combined the patterns and libraries to make a robust app that works properly on both platforms: Android and iOS.

Read article here

The template project interacts with Github API and covers major user flows:

1. Login flow. Simple example of fields validation, storing token and so on.
2. Several tabs with list of items. One in two apps definitely has list of some items or several tabs with lists.
3. Item details Screen. Example of simple screen with some data.
4. Logout. To clear state, navigate to certain screen, etc.

Get Started

If you have not yet installed React Native, you can use this tutorial.

Use git clone to get project. Then go to the root folder of project and install all node modules using npm install command.

Run on Android

1. You have to connect hardware device using ADB or run emulator.
2. Invoke react-native run-android command.

Run on iOS

1. You have to get Xcode installed on your machine.
2. Invoke react-native run-ios command.

Frameworks we suggest using if you need this in your app

1. Navigator: https://reactnavigation.org/

2. Strings localization: https://github.com/stefalda/ReactNativeLocalization

3. Networking: rx-fetch + rxjs

4. Maps: https://github.com/airbnb/react-native-maps

5. Permissions: https://github.com/yonahforst/react-native-permissions

6. Image picker: https://github.com/ivpusic/react-native-image-crop-picker

7. OpenGL: https://github.com/ProjectSeptemberInc/gl-react-native

8. Fabric: https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-native-fabric

9. Icons: https://oblador.github.io/react-native-vector-icons/

10. UI components: https://nativebase.io/

11. Dialogs: https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-native-popup-dialog

Our guidelines and some recommendations

1. Architecture: Redux + saga https://github.com/redux-saga/redux-saga

2. Code style: https://github.com/airbnb/javascript

3. Versioning: packadge.json - we freeze versions of the libraries during project development, unless we really need the feature or bugfix from newer version

4. Use formatting tabulation of 2. Needs to be changed in WebStorm settings

5. Add all component props to propTypes. It adds safety, shows you what props available, and allows IDEA/WebStorm to autocomplete them. https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/typechecking-with-proptypes.html

6. Use redux-immutable to create immutable store. Redux FAQ: Immutable Data

   import { combineReducers } from 'redux-immutable';
   import loginReducer from "../reducers/loginReducer";
   import rootReducer from "../reducers/rootReducer";
   import listReducer from "../reducers/listReduser";
   
   const combinedReducers = combineReducers({
       root: rootReducer,
       login: loginReducer,
       list: listReducer,
   });
   

   redux-persist can't work with immutable state. So, we have to use redux-persist-immutable.

   import { autoRehydrate, persistStore } from 'redux-persist-immutable'
   import { applyMiddleware, compose, createStore } from "redux";
   const sagaMiddleware = createSagaMiddleware();
   const store = createStore(
       combinedReducers,
       initialState,
       compose(applyMiddleware(sagaMiddleware), autoRehydrate({log: true})));
   persistStore(
       store,
       {
           storage: AsyncStorage,
           blacklist: ['root'],
       }
   );
   

7. Antipatterns:

   • Do not use setState() in componentWillMount()
   • Do not perform any logic in render() function
   • Do not use indexes of an array as its keys
   • Do not validate forms with redux store
   • Do not perform any logic in reducers
   • Do not perform too much dispatches
   • Do not rely on JS single thread
   • Do not use x-index a lot
   • Do not use ListView, use FlatList instead
   • Remove console.log() calls
   • Do not use object literals in render()
   • Reduce render() function calls
   • Use InteractionManager.runAfterInteractions() to perform any hard stuff
   • Use requestAnimationFrame to perform animations
   • Extend React.PureComponent as much as possible
   • Use shouldRasterizeIOS
   • Use renderToHardwareTextureAndroid
   • Do not perform any logic in componentWillMount()
   • Use useNativeDriver
   • Don't use toJS() with immutable to avoid creation unnecessary object.

8. Project structure:

   • android
   • ios
   • node_modules
   • index.android.js
   • index.ios.js
   • …
   • app
   • actions
   • login-actions.js
   • sign-up-actions.js
   • …
   • components
   • Login.js
   • SignUp.js
   • …
   • reducers
   • loginReducer.js
   • signUpReducer.js
   • …
   • resources
   • strings.js
   • colors.js
   • dimens.js
   • styles.js
   • store
   • configureStore.js
   • api.js
   • app.js
   • const.js

   The screenshots of our template project