I bet someone is planning to write a Markdown editor using React Native. Maybe a text editor is a good test if React Native app can be as good as native app.
Introducing React Native [video]
71–80 of 193 posts
Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#72I wish they'd go into more detail on why they can't make an app like paper in the browser environment. They mentioned something about Web Workers being crippled and later on explained how their framework puts JavaScript in it's own thread by default. I'm also wondering why in their experience no one ever comes close to native widgets when imitating them in a Web apps.
Indeed. If I look at Slack which I believe is actually a wrapped HTML5 on iOS + Android it looks already very good. But it doesn't have a lot of gestures+animations+images, so that might be the difference.
iOS version is also a native app. As they look almost identical to web version, lots of people assume it's HTML5.
Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#73Just a minor quibble; I think the speaker is a bit too negative about faux-native apps, especially with React. For example, see this demo by Pete Hunt: https://medium.com/@floydophone/building-a-real-time-frosted...
The demo doesn't render on Safari on iOS 8. :-\
Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#74I understood that the native react serializes the ui "DOM" to some format and sends it to the native process. Will the native rendering engine be open source and/or will the protocol be open/specified ? This could be handy for embedded targets.
Yep, you've got the gist of it. We render the app in JS, React creates this view hierarchy (still in JS), this is serialized and sent over the bridge (asynchronously) to the native engine who then creates the equivalent native view hierarchy and renders it.
The source code for the iOS native engine (and the JS infra, and some examples) will be given to attendees of React.js Conf tomorrow (Jan 29). The iOS and Android versions of React Native will be open sourced soon! :)
Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those mobile Javascript frameworks uses the DOM. React native won't.
It's not about DOM. UIKit is pretty sofisticated to build layer to translate JS to native code. It needs years of work and constant update.
Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#76What about native APIs like in-app purchases, push notifications, ads SDKs, GameCenter ?
Will we be able to access those ?
Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#77I wish they'd go into more detail on why they can't make an app like paper in the browser environment. They mentioned something about Web Workers being crippled and later on explained how their framework puts JavaScript in it's own thread by default. I'm also wondering why in their experience no one ever comes close to native widgets when imitating them in a Web apps.
Indeed. If I look at Slack which I believe is actually a wrapped HTML5 on iOS + Android it looks already very good. But it doesn't have a lot of gestures+animations+images, so that might be the difference.
I've already asked them this question. Slack is native.
Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#78I wish they'd go into more detail on why they can't make an app like paper in the browser environment. They mentioned something about Web Workers being crippled and later on explained how their framework puts JavaScript in it's own thread by default. I'm also wondering why in their experience no one ever comes close to native widgets when imitating them in a Web apps.
with gpu-accelerated css transitions, requestAnimationFrame, virtual dom and web workers, the experience can be damn close. he makes it seem like "no comparison", this is provably false at least for the apps he demoed. for games, native is still necessary. what react offers beyond performance though, is definitely awesome. imo, the talk comes off a bit like a sales pitch at a pep rally.
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Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#79I'm part of the group that thought "what the hell?" when I first saw the React syntax - but seeing this has completely changed my mind and I'm really looking forward to picking up React as soon as possible.
If this delivers on its promises (no reason to assume it won't, seeing as it's already being used in large apps) then it's going to change the mobile development landscape.
It sounded like they may even be hinting at in-browser testing the way they were knocking on provisioning profiles and perhaps maybe even some sort of live-reload development tool? I'm really interested in seeing what kind of tools Facebook will make available along side the core React Native project. Mind you, this is a huge gift even if they don't have any fancy tools to go along with it.
Really excited, thanks FBOS team.
Re: Introducing React Native [video]
#80What about native APIs like in-app purchases, push notifications, ads SDKs, GameCenter ? Will we be able to access those ?
Jing said there's full binding and easy access to any native service