Nilas[1] is using React with Atom Shell to build a native desktop mail client for all three major platforms on top of their API. Awesome stuff!
Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
21–30 of 175 posts
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#22This is awesome news. I've been working on a desktop application using React, node-webkit and browserify and it's been a great development experience. Being able to leverage web technologies to build native apps has been a huge time saver. However, I'm relying on the NodeJS components in order to do things like access the file system and fork commands. I'm wondering how React Native will handle this functionality. Wi…
Currently working on something similar (minus browserify) -- I don't think React should try to get into the doing-everything game.
That said, their success (over something like node-webkit + react) will definitely depend on how well they match and integrate the native APIs.
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#23Extremely excited about this!
I tend to prefer native interfaces over web interfaces, but found it really bothersome to have to work with native toolkits. There's stuff like tint2 (https://github.com/trueinteractions/tint2), but it's still not stable enough, IMO.
This is HUGE. I'm extremely excited to try this out. Being able to write the interface with JS/JSX, and then switch between JS and native code as you see fit or the need arises is truly the best of both worlds. For a lot of problems JS is not your bottleneck, but if it does become your bottleneck you can rewrite it natively!
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#24What does this mean? Can't you use any javascript tech to build native apps with nwjs or cordova? Edit: looks like this isn't hybrid as I assumed but truly native
I am pretty confused as to what this actually does. How can it be native?
Instead of having React render to the DOM it renders to Native views. Be it iOS, or Android.
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#25I'm a big ReactJS fan, however isn't moving React to native a bit like old school windows message loop ?
Yes, the whole system is just basically component rendering (react) + a message bus oriented architecture (flux). The architecture is not novel, but I think the big change between React Native (or whatever they're going to call it) and any actual native application is the same difference between approaches like Cordova (formerly known as PhoneGap) and node-webkit. Platform independence.
The problem with "old school windows message loop" is the "windows" part (not because I don't like windows, "mac" or "linux" or "freebsd" or "solaris" could all go in there). Why haven't we abstracted presentation (functionality is a harder/more nuanced proposition).
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#26This is awesome news. I've been working on a desktop application using React, node-webkit and browserify and it's been a great development experience. Being able to leverage web technologies to build native apps has been a huge time saver. However, I'm relying on the NodeJS components in order to do things like access the file system and fork commands. I'm wondering how React Native will handle this functionality. Wi…
Currently working on something similar (minus browserify) -- I don't think React should try to get into the doing-everything game. That said, their success (over something like node-webkit + react) will definitely depend on how well they match and integrate the native APIs.
Doing everything is a side effect of the architecture.
"The virtual dom is an implementation detail of React.js. React Native demonstrates that many rendering contexts are possible."
This was kind of the exciting point all along :). DOM just happens to be the output of a function that people are most interested in at the moment. but people have been talking about using it with canvas and other stuff, too. It's a generally-useful way to map functional data to render-trees.
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#27Hi, I'm Jordan from the React team. I'm happy to answer any questions about React Native, but @vjeux will be giving a more thorough talk tomorrow that you won't want to miss (if you're at ReactJSConf), so I might wait for him to answer some of them.
This is not the DOM. This is not a web view. If you know ReactJS, you can build native apps with React Native.
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#28Very promising! As a (past) Titanium developer, FB Groups being in the wild for a while comes as a relieve to my hears.
I'd bet Angular going Native first, though, I guessed it was coming with 2.0
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#29"I say with confidence as a former UIKit author: React's model for the UI layer is vastly better than UIKit's. React Native is a huge deal."
https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/status/560511204867575808
Re: Use ReactJS to Build Native Apps
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am pretty confused as to what this actually does. How can it be native?
Instead of having React render to the DOM it renders to Native views. Be it iOS, or Android.
I doubt it would happen at runtime in iOS/Android, though? They would need to ship a JS interpreter that gets run on application startup, parse the React files, instantiate the native controls and create a bridge between them back to the JS interpreter?
Well on second thought I guess Appcelerator Titanium does something similar. So it's native UI only, but with the added overhead (JS interpreter + bridge, larger binary size, slower startup, etc.).