React Native – How To Implement Animations Using The Animated API In React Native ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in this article (How To Implement Animations Using The Animated API In React Native ?).

In this article, We will learn how to implement animations using the animated api in react native platform. Animation is an important part of user experience design. It serves as feedback on user actions, informs users of system status, and guides them on how to interact with the interface.  This article demonstrates the practical implementation of Animations in React native application. The recommended way to animate in React Native for most cases is by using the Animated API.

A famous quote about learning is :

” He who laughs most, learns best. “


So Let’s begin.


Animation Methods

There are three main Animated methods that we can use to create animations:

  1. Animated.timing() — Maps time range to easing value.
  2. Animated.decay() — starts with an initial velocity and gradually slows to a stop.
  3. Animated.spring() — Simple single-spring physics model (Based on Rebound and Origami). Tracks velocity state to create fluid motions as the toValue updates, and can be chained together.

Along with these three Animated methods, there are three ways to call these animations along with calling them individually. We will be covering all three of these as well:

  1. Animated.parallel() — Starts an array of animations all at the same time.
  2. Animated.sequence() — Starts an array of animations in order, waiting for each to complete before starting the next. If the current running animation is stopped, no following animations will be started.
  3. Animated.stagger() — Array of animations may run in parallel (overlap), but are started in sequence with successive delays. Very similar to Animated.parallel() but allows us to add delays to the animations.


1. Animated.timing()


1.1 Animated.timing Basic Example

The first animation we will be creating is this spinning animation using Animated.timing().

// Example implementation:
Animated.timing(
  someValue,
  {
    toValue: number,
    duration: number,
    easing: easingFunction,
    delay: number
  }
)

This type of infinite animation can be useful to use when creating loading indicators, and is one of the more useful animations that we’ve used in many of React Native projects. This concept can also be used to create infinite animations of other types such as scaling up and down or some other type to indicate loading.

To get started, we need to either start with a new React Native project or with a blank existing React Native project. To get started with a new project, type react-native init and the name of the project in the folder in which we will be working in and then cd into that directory:

react-native init animations
cd animations

Now that we are in this folder, open the index.js  file. Now that we have a new project created, the first thing we will need to do is import AnimatedImage, and Easing from react-native below View that is already being imported:

import {
  AppRegistry,
  StyleSheet,
  Text,
  View,
  Animated,
  Image,
  Easing
} from 'react-native'

Animated is the library we will be using to create the animations, and ships with React Native.

Image is needed so we can create an image in our UI.

Easing is a module that also ships with React Native. It allows us to use various predefined easing methods such as lineareasequadcubicsinelasticbouncebackbezierinoutinout, and others. We will be using linear as to have a consistent linear motion. We will have a better idea of how to implement them after this section is finished.

Next, we need to set an initial animated value for our spinning value. To do this, we will set the value in our constructor:

constructor () {
  super()
  this.spinValue = new Animated.Value(0)
}

We declare spinValue as a new Animated.Value and pass in 0 (zero). Next, we need to create a spin method and call this method on componentDidMount to get it going when the app loads:

componentDidMount () {
  this.spin()
}
spin () {
  this.spinValue.setValue(0)
  Animated.timing(
    this.spinValue,
    {
      toValue: 1,
      duration: 4000,
      easing: Easing.linear
    }
  ).start(() => this.spin())
}

Here, this spin() method does the following steps:

  1. Sets this.spinValue back to zero
  2. Calls the Animated.timing method and animates this.spinValue to a value of 1 with a duration of 4000 milliseconds and an easing of Easing.linearAnimated.timing takes two arguments, a value (this.spinValue) and a config object. This config object can take a toValue, a duration, an easing method, and a delay.
  3. We call start() on this Animated.timing method, and pass in a callback of this.spin which will be called when the animation is completed, basically creating an infinite animation. start() takes a completion callback that will be called when the animation is done. If the animation is done because it finished running normally, the completion callback will be invoked with {finished: true}, but if the animation is done because stop was called on it before it could finish (e.g. because it was interrupted by a gesture or another animation), then it will receive {finished: false}.

Now that our methods are set up, we need to render the animation in our UI. To do so, we need to update our render method:

render () {
  const spin = this.spinValue.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 1],
    outputRange: ['0deg', '360deg']
  })
  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <Animated.Image
        style={{
          width: 227,
          height: 200,
          transform: [{rotate: spin}] }}
          source={{uri: 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/images/1198519/reactjs.png'}}
      />
    </View>
  )
}

Here, the render() method does the following steps:

  1. We create a variable named spin. In this variable we call interpolate() on this.spinValueinterpolate() is a method that is available to be called on any Animated.Value. interpolate is a method that interpolates the value before updating the property, e.g. mapping 0–1 to 0–10. So in our example, we need to map 0 (zero) degrees to 360 degrees numerically, using the numbers zero to one, and this method easily allows us to do this. We pass in an inputRange and outputRange array, and pass in [0,1] as the inputRange and [‘0deg’, ‘360deg’] as the outputRange.
  2. We return a View with a style of container, and an Animated.Image (React logo) with a heightwidth, and a transform property in which we attach our spin value to the rotate property, which is where the animation takes place:
transform: [{rotate: spin}]

Finally, we have the container style to center everything:

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    alignItems: 'center'
  }
})

That’s it, the animation should be working now!

The final code for this animation with a working example is :

index.js

import React, { Component } from 'react'
import {
  AppRegistry,
  StyleSheet,
  Text,
  View,
  Animated,
  Image,
  Easing
} from 'react-native'

const timing = 4000

class animations extends Component {
  constructor () {
    super()
    this.spinValue = new Animated.Value(0)
  }
  componentDidMount () {
    this.spin()
  }
  spin () {
    this.spinValue.setValue(0)
    Animated.timing(
      this.spinValue,
      {
        toValue: 1,
        duration: timing,
        easing: Easing.linear
      }
    ).start(() => this.spin())
  }
  render () {
    /* This also works, to show functions instead of strings */
    // const getStartValue = () => '0deg'
    // const getEndValue = () => '360deg'
    // const spin = this.spinValue.interpolate({
    //   inputRange: [0, 1],
    //   outputRange: [getStartValue(), getEndValue()]
    // })
    const spin = this.spinValue.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 1],
      outputRange: ['0deg', '360deg']
    })
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Animated.Image
          style={{ width: 227, height: 200, transform: [{rotate: spin}] }}
          source={{uri: 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/images/1198519/reactjs.png'}}/>
      </View>
    )
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    alignItems: 'center'
  }
})

AppRegistry.registerComponent('animations', () => animations)

Note that – Use own image url for example code testing.

The output of the above example is :


1.2 Animated.timing multiple animation Example

Now that we know the basics of Animated.timing, let’s take a look at a few more examples of how to use Animated.timing along with interpolate and declare some other animations.

In the next example, we will declare a single animation value, this.animatedValue, and use the single animated value along with interpolate to create multiple animations, animating the following style properties:

  1. marginLeft
  2. opacity
  3. fontSize
  4. rotateX

To get started, either begin with a new branch or clear out our old code from the last project.

The first thing we will do is create the animated value that we will be using for these animations in the constructor:

constructor () {
  super()
  this.animatedValue = new Animated.Value(0)
}

Next, we create the animate method and call it in componentDidMount() :

componentDidMount () {
  this.animate()
}
animate () {
  this.animatedValue.setValue(0)
  Animated.timing(
    this.animatedValue,
    {
      toValue: 1,
      duration: 2000,
      easing: Easing.linear
    }
  ).start(() => this.animate())
}

In the render method, we create 5 different interpolated value variables:

render () { 
  const marginLeft = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 1],
    outputRange: [0, 300]
  })
  const opacity = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1],
    outputRange: [0, 1, 0]
  })
  const movingMargin = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1],
    outputRange: [0, 300, 0]
  })
  const textSize = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1],
    outputRange: [18, 32, 18]
  })
  const rotateX = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1],
    outputRange: ['0deg', '180deg', '0deg']
  })
...
}

interpolate is a very powerful method, allowing us to use this.animatedValue , a single animated value, in many ways. Because the value simply changes from zero to one, we are able to interpolate this property for styling opacity, margins, text sizes, and rotation properties.

We then return Animated.View and Animated.Text components implementing these new variables:

return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <Animated.View
        style={{
          marginLeft,
          height: 30,
          width: 40,
          backgroundColor: 'red'}} />
      <Animated.View
        style={{
          opacity,
          marginTop: 10,
          height: 30,
          width: 40,
          backgroundColor: 'blue'}} />
      <Animated.View
        style={{
          marginLeft: movingMargin,
          marginTop: 10,
          height: 30,
          width: 40,
          backgroundColor: 'orange'}} />
      <Animated.Text
        style={{
          fontSize: textSize,
          marginTop: 10,
          color: 'green'}} >
          Animated Text!
      </Animated.Text>
      <Animated.View
        style={{
          transform: [{rotateX}],
          marginTop: 50,
          height: 30,
          width: 40,
          backgroundColor: 'black'}}>
        <Text style={{color: 'white'}}>Hello from TransformX</Text>
      </Animated.View>
    </View>
)

We also update our container styling:

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    paddingTop: 150
  }
})

That’s it, the animation should be working now!

The final code for this animation with a working example is :

index.js

import React, { Component } from 'react'
import {
  AppRegistry,
  StyleSheet,
  Text,
  View,
  Animated,
  Image,
  Easing
} from 'react-native'

class animations extends Component {
  constructor () {
    super()
    this.animatedValue = new Animated.Value(0)
  }
  componentDidMount () {
    this.animate()
  }
  animate () {
    this.animatedValue.setValue(0)
    Animated.timing(
      this.animatedValue,
      {
        toValue: 1,
        duration: 2000,
        easing: Easing.linear
      }
    ).start(() => this.animate())
  }
  render () {
    const marginLeft = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 1],
      outputRange: [0, 300]
    })
    const opacity = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1],
      outputRange: [0, 1, 0]
    })
    const movingMargin = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1],
      outputRange: [0, 300, 0]
    })
    const textSize = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1],
      outputRange: [18, 32, 18]
    })
    const rotateX = this.animatedValue.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 0.5, 1],
      outputRange: ['0deg', '180deg', '0deg']
    })
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Animated.View
          style={{
            marginLeft,
            height: 30,
            width: 40,
            backgroundColor: 'red'}} />
        <Animated.View
          style={{
            opacity,
            marginTop: 10,
            height: 30,
            width: 40,
            backgroundColor: 'blue'}} />
        <Animated.View
          style={{
            marginLeft: movingMargin,
            marginTop: 10,
            height: 30,
            width: 40,
            backgroundColor: 'orange'}} />
        <Animated.Text
          style={{
            fontSize: textSize,
            marginTop: 10,
            color: 'green'}} >
            Animated Text!
        </Animated.Text>
        <Animated.View
          style={{
            transform: [{rotateX}],
            marginTop: 50,
            height: 30,
            width: 40,
            backgroundColor: 'black'}}>
          <Text style={{color: 'white'}}>Hello from TransformX</Text>
        </Animated.View>
      </View>
    )
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    paddingTop: 150
  }
})

AppRegistry.registerComponent('animations', () => animations)

The output of the above example is :


2. Animated.decay()

Decay used to animate the value from its initial velocity down to zero using the deceleration option.

state = {
  animation: new Animated.Value(-150)
}

componentDidMount() {
  Animated.decay(
    this.state.animation,
    {
      toValue: 200,
      duration: 2000,
      velocity: 0.95,
      deceleration: 0.998 // By default equals to 0.997
    }
  ).start();
}

To demonstrate that we are going to use Motion example. In this example, we are moving the box down the screen. Once the box reaches the finishing line at 200 points below the center, the decay effect applies. The box keeps moving, but its speed is slowing down until it stops.

The final code for this animation with a working example is :

import React from 'react';
import { Animated, View } from 'react-native';

export default class App extends React.Component {
  state = {
    animation: new Animated.Value(-150)
  }

  componentDidMount() {
    Animated.decay(
      this.state.animation,
      {
        toValue: 200,
        duration: 2000,
        velocity: 0.95,
        deceleration: 0.998
      }
    ).start();
  }

  render() {
    const animationStyles = {
      transform: [
        { translateY: this.state.animation }
      ]
    };

    return (
      <Animated.View style={[objectStyles.object, animationStyles]}>
      </Animated.View>
    );
  }
}

const objectStyles = {
  object: {
    backgroundColor: 'orange',
    width: 100,
    height: 100
  }
}

The output of the above example is :


3. Animated.spring()

Next, we will be creating an animation using the Animated.spring() method.

// Example implementation:
Animated.spring(
    someValue,
    {
      toValue: number,
      friction: number
    }
)

We can keep going from the same project, we just need to update a few things. In our constructor, let’s create a value called springValue and set it’s value to .3:

constructor () {
  super()
  this.springValue = new Animated.Value(0.3)
}

Next, let’s delete the animate() method and componentDidMount() method and create a new method called spring():

spring () {
  this.springValue.setValue(0.3)
  Animated.spring(
    this.springValue,
    {
      toValue: 1,
      friction: 1
    }
  ).start()
}

Here, this spring() method does the following steps:

  1. We set the springValue to .3 if it’s not already set to .3
  2. We call Animated.spring, passing in two arguments: a value to animate and a config object. The config object can take any of the following arguments: toValue (number), overshootClamping (boolean), restDisplacementThreshold (number), restSpeedThreshold (number), velocity (number), bounciness (number), speed (number), tension (number), and friction (number). The only required value is toValue, but friction and tension can help us get more control over the spring animation.
  3. We call start() to start the animation.

Now that the animation is set up, let’s attach the animation to a click event in our view, and the animation itself to the same React logo we used before:

<View style={styles.container}>
  <Text
    style={{marginBottom: 100}}
    onPress={this.spring.bind(this)}>Spring</Text>
    <Animated.Image
      style={{ width: 227, height: 200, transform: [{scale: this.springValue}] }}
      source={{uri: 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/images/1198519/reactjs.png'}}/>
</View>

Here, click event code do the following steps :

  1. We return a Text component attached to the spring() method to an onPress event.
  2. We return the Animated image and attach this.springValue to the scale property.

The spring animation should be working now!

The final code for this animation with a working example is :

import React, { Component } from 'react'
import {
  AppRegistry,
  StyleSheet,
  Text,
  View,
  Animated,
  Image
} from 'react-native'

class animations extends Component {
  constructor () {
    super()
    this.springValue = new Animated.Value(0.3)
  }
  spring () {
    this.springValue.setValue(0.3)
    Animated.spring(
      this.springValue,
      {
        toValue: 1,
        friction: 1,
        tension: 1
      }
    ).start()
  }
  render () {
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Text style={{marginBottom: 100}} onPress={this.spring.bind(this)}>Spring</Text>
        <Animated.Image
          style={{ width: 227, height: 200, transform: [{scale: this.springValue}] }}
          source={{uri: 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/images/1198519/reactjs.png'}}/>
      </View>
    )
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    alignItems: 'center'
  }
})

AppRegistry.registerComponent('animations', () => animations)

Note that – Use own image url for example code testing.

The output of the above example is :


4. Animated.parallel()

Animated.parallel() starts an array of animations all at the same time.

Let’s take a look at the api and see how this works:

// API
Animated.parallel(arrayOfAnimations)
// In use:
Animated.parallel([
  Animated.spring(
    animatedValue,
    {
      //config options
    }
  ),
  Animated.timing(
     animatedValue2,
     {
       //config options
     }
  )
])

To get started, let’s go ahead and create the three animated values we will need in our constructor:

constructor () {
  super()
  this.animatedValue1 = new Animated.Value(0)
  this.animatedValue2 = new Animated.Value(0)
  this.animatedValue3 = new Animated.Value(0)
}

Next, we create our animate method and call it in componendDidMount() :

componentDidMount () {
  this.animate()
}
animate () {
  this.animatedValue1.setValue(0)
  this.animatedValue2.setValue(0)
  this.animatedValue3.setValue(0)
  const createAnimation = function (value, duration, easing, delay = 0) {
    return Animated.timing(
      value,
      {
        toValue: 1,
        duration,
        easing,
        delay
      }
    )
  }
  Animated.parallel([
    createAnimation(this.animatedValue1, 2000, Easing.ease),
    createAnimation(this.animatedValue2, 1000, Easing.ease, 1000),
    createAnimation(this.animatedValue3, 1000, Easing.ease, 2000)        
  ]).start()
}

In the animate method, we set the values of all three animated values back to zero. We then create a function called createAnimation() which returns a new animation , taking in the value, duration, easing, and delay as arguments. If no delay is passed in, we set it to zero.

We then call Animated.parallel() passing in the three animations we want to create using createAnimation().

In our render method, we next need to set up our interpolated values:

render () {
  const scaleText = this.animatedValue1.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 1],
    outputRange: [0.5, 2]
  })
  const spinText = this.animatedValue2.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 1],
    outputRange: ['0deg', '720deg']
  })
  const introButton = this.animatedValue3.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 1],
    outputRange: [-100, 400]
  })
  ...
}

Here, the render () method code do the following steps :

1. scaleText — We interpolate our values to be output as a range from 0.5 to 2, we will use this value to scale our text from .5 to 2.

2. spinText — We interpolate our values to be output as a range of 0 degrees to 720 degrees, essentially spinning the item two times.

3. introButton — We interpolate out values to be output as a range of -100 to 400, and will use this as a margin property in our View.

Finally, we render a main View with three Animated.Views:

<View style={[styles.container]}>
  <Animated.View 
    style={{ transform: [{scale: scaleText}] }}>
    <Text>Welcome</Text>
  </Animated.View>
  <Animated.View
    style={{ marginTop: 20, transform: [{rotate: spinText}] }}>
    <Text
      style={{fontSize: 20}}>
      to the App!
    </Text>
  </Animated.View>
  <Animated.View
    style={{top: introButton, position: 'absolute'}}>
    <TouchableHighlight
      onPress={this.animate.bind(this)}
      style={styles.button}>
      <Text
        style={{color: 'white', fontSize: 20}}>
        Click Here To Start
      </Text>
   </TouchableHighlight>
  </Animated.View>
</View>

We use scaleText to scale the first View, spinText to spin the second View, and introButton to animate the margin of the third View.

When animate() is called, all three animations run in parallel. The parallel animations should be working now!

The final code for this animation with a working example is :

import React, { Component } from 'react'
import {
  AppRegistry,
  StyleSheet,
  Text,
  Animated,
  View,
  Easing,
  TouchableHighlight,
  Dimensions
} from 'react-native'

const { width } = Dimensions.get('window')

class animations extends Component {

  constructor () {
    super()
    this.animatedValue1 = new Animated.Value(0)
    this.animatedValue2 = new Animated.Value(0)
    this.animatedValue3 = new Animated.Value(0)
  }

  componentDidMount () {
    this.animate()
  }

  animate () {
    this.animatedValue1.setValue(0)
    this.animatedValue2.setValue(0)
    this.animatedValue3.setValue(0)
    const createAnimation = function (value, duration, easing, delay = 0) {
      return Animated.timing(
       value,
        {
          toValue: 1,
          duration,
          easing,
          delay
        }
      )
    }
    Animated.parallel([
      createAnimation(this.animatedValue1, 2000, Easing.ease),
      createAnimation(this.animatedValue2, 1000, Easing.ease, 1000),
      createAnimation(this.animatedValue3, 1000, Easing.ease, 2000)
    ]).start()
  }

  render () {
    const scaleText = this.animatedValue1.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 1],
      outputRange: [0.5, 2]
    })
    const spinText = this.animatedValue2.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 1],
      outputRange: ['0deg', '720deg']
    })
    const introButton = this.animatedValue3.interpolate({
      inputRange: [0, 1],
      outputRange: [-100, 400]
    })
    return (
      <View style={[styles.container]}>
        <Animated.View style={{ transform: [{scale: scaleText}] }}>
          <Text>Welcome</Text>
        </Animated.View>
        <Animated.View style={{ marginTop: 20, transform: [{rotate: spinText}] }}>
          <Text style={{fontSize: 20}}>to the App!</Text>
        </Animated.View>
        <Animated.View style={{top: introButton, position: 'absolute'}}>
          <TouchableHighlight onPress={this.animate.bind(this)} style={styles.button}>
            <Text style={{color: 'white', fontSize: 20}}>Click Here To Start</Text>
          </TouchableHighlight>
        </Animated.View>
      </View>
    )
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    alignItems: 'center'
  },
  button: {
    width: width - 40,
    height: 70,
    marginLeft: 20,
    marginRight: 20,
    backgroundColor: 'blue',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    alignItems: 'center'
  }
})

AppRegistry.registerComponent('animations', () => animations)

The output of the above example is :


5. Animated.sequence()

Let’s take a look at the api and see how this animation works:

// API
Animated.sequence(arrayOfAnimations)
// In use
Animated.sequence([
  Animated.timing(
    animatedValue,
    {
      //config options
    }
  ),
  Animated.spring(
     animatedValue2,
     {
       //config options
     }
  )
])

Like Animated.parallel()Animated.sequence() takes an array of animations. Animated.sequence() runs an array of animations in order, waiting for each to complete before starting the next.

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import {
  AppRegistry,
  StyleSheet,
  Text,
  View,
  Animated
} from 'react-native'

const arr = []
for (var i = 0; i < 500; i++) {
  arr.push(i)
}

class animations extends Component {

  constructor () {
    super()
    this.animatedValue = []
    arr.forEach((value) => {
      this.animatedValue[value] = new Animated.Value(0)
    })
  }

  componentDidMount () {
    this.animate()
  }

  animate () {
    const animations = arr.map((item) => {
      return Animated.timing(
        this.animatedValue[item],
        {
          toValue: 1,
          duration: 50
        }
      )
    })
    Animated.sequence(animations).start()
  }

  render () {
    const animations = arr.map((a, i) => {
      return <Animated.View key={i} style={{opacity: this.animatedValue[a], height: 20, width: 20, backgroundColor: 'red', marginLeft: 3, marginTop: 3}} />
    })
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        {animations}
      </View>
    )
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    flexDirection: 'row',
    flexWrap: 'wrap'
  }
})

AppRegistry.registerComponent('animations', () => animations);

Because the apis for Animated.sequence() and Animated.parallel() are so similar, taking an array of animations, we are not going to repeat the walkthrough of each method.

The main thing to notice here that is different is that we are creating our Animated.Values with a loop since we are animating so many values. We are also rendering our Animated.Views with a map function returning a new Animated.View for each item in the array.

The sequence of animations should be working now! The output of the above example is :


6. Animated.stagger()

Let’s take a look at the api and see how this animation works:

// API
Animated.stagger(delay, arrayOfAnimations)
// In use:
Animated.stagger(1000, [
  Animated.timing(
    animatedValue,
    {
      //config options
    }
  ),
  Animated.spring(
     animatedValue2,
     {
       //config options
     }
  )
])

Like Animated.parallel() and Animated.sequence(), Animated.Stagger also takes an array of animations, but these animations are started in sequence with successive delays.

The main difference here is the first argument, the delay that will be applied to each animation.

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import {
  AppRegistry,
  StyleSheet,
  Text,
  View,
  Animated
} from 'react-native'

const arr = []
for (var i = 0; i < 500; i++) {
  arr.push(i)
}

class animations extends Component {

  constructor () {
    super()
    this.animatedValue = []
    arr.forEach((value) => {
      this.animatedValue[value] = new Animated.Value(0)
    })
  }

  componentDidMount () {
    this.animate()
  }

  animate () {
    const animations = arr.map((item) => {
      return Animated.timing(
        this.animatedValue[item],
        {
          toValue: 1,
          duration: 4000
        }
      )
    })
    Animated.stagger(10, animations).start()
  }

  render () {
    const animations = arr.map((a, i) => {
      return <Animated.View key={i} style={{opacity: this.animatedValue[a], height: 20, width: 20, backgroundColor: 'red', marginLeft: 3, marginTop: 3}} />
    })
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        {animations}
      </View>
    )
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    flexDirection: 'row',
    flexWrap: 'wrap'
  }
})

AppRegistry.registerComponent('animations', () => animations);

The staggered animations should be working now! The output of above example is :

That’s all about in this article.


Conclusion

In this article, We understood about Animation Animation Animated API in React Native. Animation is an important part of user experience design. It serves as feedback on user actions, informs users of system status, and guides them on how to interact with the interface. We discussed how to implement Animations using Animated Api in React native with some example.

Thanks for reading ! I hope you enjoyed and learned about the Animation Animated API Concepts in React Native. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe us on this blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow official website and tutorials of React Native as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, feel free to leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING!!???

React Native – Understanding Animations In React Native

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in this article (Understanding Animations In React Native).

In this article, We will learn about Animations in React Native. Animations are very important to create a great user experience. Stationary objects must overcome inertia as they start moving. Objects in motion have momentum and rarely come to a stop immediately. Animations allow us to convey physically believable motion in our interface.

A famous quote about learning is :

” Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”

So Let’s begin.


Animation Systems

React Native provides two complementary animation systems: 

  • Animated for granular and interactive control of specific values. It is a built-in API for animating component styles.
  • LayoutAnimation for animated global layout transactions. It is a built-in API for animating between 2 component hierarchies (think “magic move”), although still considered experimental.

Most animations will use Animated.


1. Animated

The Animated API is designed to concisely express a wide variety of interesting animation and interaction patterns in a very performant way. Animated focuses on declarative relationships between inputs and outputs, with configurable transforms in between, and start/stop methods to control time-based animation execution.

Animated exports six animatable component types: ViewTextImageScrollViewFlatList and SectionList, but we can also create own using Animated.createAnimatedComponent().

The Animated API lets us animate component styles.

For example, a container view that fades in when it is mounted may look like this:

import React, { useRef, useEffect } from 'react';
import { Animated, Text, View } from 'react-native';

const FadeInView = (props) => {
  const fadeAnim = useRef(new Animated.Value(0)).current  // Initial value for opacity: 0

  React.useEffect(() => {
    Animated.timing(
      fadeAnim,
      {
        toValue: 1,
        duration: 10000,
      }
    ).start();
  }, [fadeAnim])

  return (
    <Animated.View                 // Special animatable View
      style={{
        ...props.style,
        opacity: fadeAnim,         // Bind opacity to animated value
      }}
    >
      {props.children}
    </Animated.View>
  );
}

// You can then use your `FadeInView` in place of a `View` in your components:
export default () => {
  return (
    <View style={{flex: 1, alignItems: 'center', justifyContent: 'center'}}>
      <FadeInView style={{width: 250, height: 50, backgroundColor: 'powderblue'}}>
        <Text style={{fontSize: 28, textAlign: 'center', margin: 10}}>Fading in</Text>
      </FadeInView>
    </View>
  )
}

Let’s break down what’s happening here.  In the FadeInView constructor, a new Animated.Value called fadeAnim is initialized as part of state. The opacity property on the View is mapped to this animated value. Behind the scenes, the numeric value is extracted and used to set opacity.

When the component mounts, the opacity is set to 0. Then, an easing animation is started on the fadeAnim animated value, which will update all of its dependent mappings (in this case, only the opacity) on each frame as the value animates to the final value of 1.

This is done in an optimized way that is faster than calling setState and re-rendering. Because the entire configuration is declarative, we will be able to implement further optimizations that serialize the configuration and runs the animation on a high-priority thread.


Configuring animations

Animations are heavily configurable. Custom and predefined easing functions, delays, durations, decay factors, spring constants, and more can all be tweaked depending on the type of animation.

Animated provides several animation types, the most commonly used one being Animated.timing(). It supports animating a value over time using one of various predefined easing functions, or we can use own. Easing functions are typically used in animation to convey gradual acceleration and deceleration of objects.

By default, timing will use an easeInOut curve that conveys gradual acceleration to full speed and concludes by gradually decelerating to a stop. We can specify a different easing function by passing an easing parameter. Custom duration or even a delay before the animation starts is also supported.

For example, if we want to create a 2-second long animation of an object that slightly backs up before moving to its final position:

Animated.timing(this.state.xPosition, {
  toValue: 100,
  easing: Easing.back(),
  duration: 2000
}).start();


Composing animations

Animations can be combined and played in sequence or in parallel. Sequential animations can play immediately after the previous animation has finished, or they can start after a specified delay. The Animated API provides several methods, such as sequence() and delay(), each of which take an array of animations to execute and automatically calls start()/stop() as needed.

For example, the following animation coasts to a stop, then it springs back while twirling in parallel:

Animated.sequence([
  // decay, then spring to start and twirl
  Animated.decay(position, {
    // coast to a stop
    velocity: { x: gestureState.vx, y: gestureState.vy }, // velocity from gesture release
    deceleration: 0.997
  }),
  Animated.parallel([
    // after decay, in parallel:
    Animated.spring(position, {
      toValue: { x: 0, y: 0 } // return to start
    }),
    Animated.timing(twirl, {
      // and twirl
      toValue: 360
    })
  ])
]).start(); // start the sequence group

If one animation is stopped or interrupted, then all other animations in the group are also stopped. Animated.parallel has a stopTogether option that can be set to false to disable this.


Combining animated values

We can combine two animated values via addition, multiplication, division, or modulo to make a new animated value.

There are some cases where an animated value needs to invert another animated value for calculation. An example is inverting a scale (2x –> 0.5x):

const a = new Animated.Value(1);
const b = Animated.divide(1, a);

Animated.spring(a, {
  toValue: 2
}).start();


Interpolation

Each property can be run through an interpolation first. An interpolation maps input ranges to output ranges, typically using a linear interpolation but also supports easing functions. By default, it will extrapolate the curve beyond the ranges given, but we can also have it clamp the output value.

A basic mapping to convert a 0-1 range to a 0-100 range would be:

value.interpolate({
  inputRange: [0, 1],
  outputRange: [0, 100]
});

For example, we may want to think about our Animated.Value as going from 0 to 1, but animate the position from 150px to 0px and the opacity from 0 to 1. This can be done by modifying style from the example above like so:

style={{
    opacity: this.state.fadeAnim, // Binds directly
    transform: [{
      translateY: this.state.fadeAnim.interpolate({
        inputRange: [0, 1],
        outputRange: [150, 0]  // 0 : 150, 0.5 : 75, 1 : 0
      }),
    }],
  }}

interpolate() supports multiple range segments as well, which is handy for defining dead zones and other handy tricks. For example, to get a negation relationship at -300 that goes to 0 at -100, then back up to 1 at 0, and then back down to zero at 100 followed by a dead-zone that remains at 0 for everything beyond that, we could do:

value.interpolate({
  inputRange: [-300, -100, 0, 100, 101],
  outputRange: [300, 0, 1, 0, 0]
});

Which would map like so:

Input | Output
------|-------
  -400|    450
  -300|    300
  -200|    150
  -100|      0
   -50|    0.5
     0|      1
    50|    0.5
   100|      0
   101|      0
   200|      0

interpolate() also supports mapping to strings, allowing us to animate colors as well as values with units. For example, if we wanted to animate a rotation we could do:

value.interpolate({
  inputRange: [0, 360],
  outputRange: ['0deg', '360deg']
});

interpolate() also supports arbitrary easing functions, many of which are already implemented in the Easing module. interpolate() also has configurable behavior for extrapolating the outputRange. We can set the extrapolation by setting the extrapolateextrapolateLeft, or extrapolateRight options. The default value is extend but we can use clamp to prevent the output value from exceeding outputRange.


Tracking dynamic values

Animated values can also track other values by setting the toValue of an animation to another animated value instead of a plain number. For example, a “Chat Heads” animation like the one used by Messenger on Android could be implemented with a spring() pinned on another animated value, or with timing() and a duration of 0 for rigid tracking. They can also be composed with interpolations:

Animated.spring(follower, { toValue: leader }).start();
Animated.timing(opacity, {
  toValue: pan.x.interpolate({
    inputRange: [0, 300],
    outputRange: [1, 0]
  })
}).start();

The leader and follower animated values would be implemented using Animated.ValueXY()ValueXY is a handy way to deal with 2D interactions, such as panning or dragging. It is a basic wrapper that contains two Animated.Value instances and some helper functions that call through to them, making ValueXY a drop-in replacement for Value in many cases. It allows us to track both x and y values in the example above.


Tracking gestures

Gestures, like panning or scrolling, and other events can map directly to animated values using Animated.event. This is done with a structured map syntax so that values can be extracted from complex event objects. The first level is an array to allow mapping across multiple args, and that array contains nested objects.

For example, when working with horizontal scrolling gestures, we would do the following in order to map event.nativeEvent.contentOffset.x to scrollX (an Animated.Value):

onScroll={Animated.event(
   // scrollX = e.nativeEvent.contentOffset.x
   [{ nativeEvent: {
        contentOffset: {
          x: scrollX
        }
      }
    }]
 )}

The following example implements a horizontal scrolling carousel where the scroll position indicators are animated using the Animated.event used in the ScrollView.

import React, { useRef } from "react";
import {
  SafeAreaView,
  ScrollView,
  Text,
  StyleSheet,
  View,
  ImageBackground,
  Animated,
  useWindowDimensions
} from "react-native";

const images = new Array(6).fill('https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1556740749-887f6717d7e4');

const App = () => {
  const scrollX = useRef(new Animated.Value(0)).current;

  const { width: windowWidth } = useWindowDimensions();

  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={styles.container}>
      <View style={styles.scrollContainer}>
        <ScrollView
          horizontal={true}
          style={styles.scrollViewStyle}
          pagingEnabled
          showsHorizontalScrollIndicator={false}
          onScroll={Animated.event([
            {
              nativeEvent: {
                contentOffset: {
                  x: scrollX
                }
              }
            }
          ])}
          scrollEventThrottle={1}
        >
          {images.map((image, imageIndex) => {
            return (
              <View
                style={{ width: windowWidth, height: 250 }}
                key={imageIndex}
              >
                <ImageBackground source={{ uri: image }} style={styles.card}>
                  <View style={styles.textContainer}>
                    <Text style={styles.infoText}>
                      {"Image - " + imageIndex}
                    </Text>
                  </View>
                </ImageBackground>
              </View>
            );
          })}
        </ScrollView>
        <View style={styles.indicatorContainer}>
          {images.map((image, imageIndex) => {
            const width = scrollX.interpolate({
              inputRange: [
                windowWidth * (imageIndex - 1),
                windowWidth * imageIndex,
                windowWidth * (imageIndex + 1)
              ],
              outputRange: [8, 16, 8],
              extrapolate: "clamp"
            });
            return (
              <Animated.View
                key={imageIndex}
                style={[styles.normalDot, { width }]}
              />
            );
          })}
        </View>
      </View>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    alignItems: "center",
    justifyContent: "center"
  },
  scrollContainer: {
    height: 300,
    alignItems: "center",
    justifyContent: "center"
  },
  card: {
    flex: 1,
    marginVertical: 4,
    marginHorizontal: 16,
    borderRadius: 5,
    overflow: "hidden",
    alignItems: "center",
    justifyContent: "center"
  },
  textContainer: {
    backgroundColor: "rgba(0,0,0, 0.7)",
    paddingHorizontal: 24,
    paddingVertical: 8,
    borderRadius: 5
  },
  infoText: {
    color: "white",
    fontSize: 16,
    fontWeight: "bold"
  },
  normalDot: {
    height: 8,
    width: 8,
    borderRadius: 4,
    backgroundColor: "silver",
    marginHorizontal: 4
  },
  indicatorContainer: {
    flexDirection: "row",
    alignItems: "center",
    justifyContent: "center"
  }
});

export default App;

The output of the above example is :

When using PanResponder, we could use the following code to extract the x and y positions from gestureState.dx and gestureState.dy. We use a null in the first position of the array, as we are only interested in the second argument passed to the PanResponder handler, which is the gestureState.

onPanResponderMove={Animated.event(
  [null, // ignore the native event
  // extract dx and dy from gestureState
  // like 'pan.x = gestureState.dx, pan.y = gestureState.dy'
  {dx: pan.x, dy: pan.y}
])}


Responding to the current animation value

We may notice that there is no clear way to read the current value while animating. This is because the value may only be known in the native runtime due to optimizations. If we need to run JavaScript in response to the current value, there are two approaches:

  • spring.stopAnimation(callback) will stop the animation and invoke callback with the final value. This is useful when making gesture transitions.
  • spring.addListener(callback) will invoke callback asynchronously while the animation is running, providing a recent value. This is useful for triggering state changes, for example snapping a bobble to a new option as the user drags it closer, because these larger state changes are less sensitive to a few frames of lag compared to continuous gestures like panning which need to run at 60 fps.

Animated is designed to be fully serializable so that animations can be run in a high performance way, independent of the normal JavaScript event loop. This does influence the API, so keep that in mind when it seems a little trickier to do something compared to a fully synchronous system. We need to check out Animated.Value.addListener as a way to work around some of these limitations, but use it sparingly since it might have performance implications in the future.


Using the native driver

The Animated API is designed to be serializable. By using the native driver, we send everything about the animation to native before starting the animation, allowing native code to perform the animation on the UI thread without having to go through the bridge on every frame. Once the animation has started, the JS thread can be blocked without affecting the animation.

Using the native driver for normal animations is straightforward. We can add useNativeDriver: true to the animation config when starting it.

Animated.timing(this.state.animatedValue, {
  toValue: 1,
  duration: 500,
  useNativeDriver: true // <-- Add this
}).start();

Animated values are only compatible with one driver so if we use native driver when starting an animation on a value, make sure every animation on that value also uses the native driver.

The native driver also works with Animated.event. This is especially useful for animations that follow the scroll position as without the native driver, the animation will always run a frame behind the gesture due to the async nature of React Native.

<Animated.ScrollView // <-- Use the Animated ScrollView wrapper
  scrollEventThrottle={1} // <-- Use 1 here to make sure no events are ever missed
  onScroll={Animated.event(
    [
      {
        nativeEvent: {
          contentOffset: { y: this.state.animatedValue }
        }
      }
    ],
    { useNativeDriver: true } // <-- Add this
  )}>
  {content}
</Animated.ScrollView>

Not everything we can do with Animated is currently supported by the native driver. The main limitation is that we can only animate non- layout properties: things like transform and opacity will work, but Flexbox and position properties will not. When using Animated.event, it will only work with direct events and not bubbling events. This means it does not work with PanResponder but does work with things like ScrollView#onScroll.

When an animation is running, it can prevent VirtualizedList components from rendering more rows. If we need to run a long or looping animation while the user is scrolling through a list, we can use isInteraction: false in our animation’s config to prevent this issue.


2. LayoutAnimation API

LayoutAnimation allows us to globally configure create and update animations that will be used for all views in the next render/layout cycle. This is useful for doing Flexbox layout updates without bothering to measure or calculate specific properties in order to animate them directly, and is especially useful when layout changes may affect ancestors, for example a “see more” expansion that also increases the size of the parent and pushes down the row below which would otherwise require explicit coordination between the components in order to animate them all in sync.

Note that although LayoutAnimation is very powerful and can be quite useful, it provides much less control than Animated and other animation libraries, so we may need to use another approach if we can’t get LayoutAnimation to do what you want.

Note that in order to get this to work on Android, we need to set the following flags via UIManager:

UIManager.setLayoutAnimationEnabledExperimental &&
  UIManager.setLayoutAnimationEnabledExperimental(true);

This example uses a preset value, we can customize the animations as we need,

import React from 'react';
import {
  NativeModules,
  LayoutAnimation,
  Text,
  TouchableOpacity,
  StyleSheet,
  View,
} from 'react-native';

const { UIManager } = NativeModules;

UIManager.setLayoutAnimationEnabledExperimental &&
  UIManager.setLayoutAnimationEnabledExperimental(true);

export default class App extends React.Component {
  state = {
    w: 100,
    h: 100,
  };

  _onPress = () => {
    // Animate the update
    LayoutAnimation.spring();
    this.setState({ w: this.state.w + 15, h: this.state.h + 15 })
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <View style={[styles.box, { width: this.state.w, height: this.state.h }]} />
        <TouchableOpacity onPress={this._onPress}>
          <View style={styles.button}>
            <Text style={styles.buttonText}>Press me!</Text>
          </View>
        </TouchableOpacity>
      </View>
    );
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    alignItems: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
  },
  box: {
    width: 200,
    height: 200,
    backgroundColor: 'red',
  },
  button: {
    backgroundColor: 'black',
    paddingHorizontal: 20,
    paddingVertical: 15,
    marginTop: 15,
  },
  buttonText: {
    color: '#fff',
    fontWeight: 'bold',
  },
});

The output of the above example is :

That’s all about in this article.

Related Other Articles / Posts


Conclusion

In this article, We understood about Animations in React Native. Animation is an important part of user experience design. It serves as feedback on user actions, informs users of system status, and guides them on how to interact with the interface. 

Thanks for reading ! I hope you enjoyed and learned about the Animations Concepts in React Native. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe us on this blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow official website and tutorials of React Native as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, feel free to leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING!!???

React Native – How To Use Touchable Components In React Native ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in this article (React Native – How To Use Touchable Components In React Native?).

In this article, we will understand about how to use Touchable Components in React Native. Users interact with mobile apps mainly through touch. They can use a combination of gestures, such as tapping on a button, scrolling a list, or zooming on a map. React Native provides components to handle all sorts of common gestures, as well as a comprehensive gesture responder system to allow for more advanced gesture recognition, but the one component we will most likely be interested in is the basic Button. This article demonstrates the kinds of touchable with examples in React Native.

A famous quote about learning is :

” Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. “

So Let’s begin.


Displaying a basic button

Button provides a basic button component that is rendered nicely on all platforms. The minimal example to display a button looks like this:

<Button
  onPress={() => {
    alert('You tapped the button!');
  }}
  title="Press Me"
/>

This will render a blue label on iOS, and a blue rounded rectangle with light text on Android. Pressing the button will call the “onPress” function, which in this case displays an alert popup. If we like, we can specify a “color” prop to change the color of our button.

We can see the Button component using the example below. We can select which platform our app is previewed in by clicking on the toggle in the bottom right, then click on “Tap to Play” to preview the app.

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Button, StyleSheet, View } from 'react-native';

export default class ButtonBasics extends Component {
  _onPressButton() {
    alert('You tapped the button!')
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <View style={styles.buttonContainer}>
          <Button
            onPress={this._onPressButton}
            title="Press Me"
          />
        </View>
        <View style={styles.buttonContainer}>
          <Button
            onPress={this._onPressButton}
            title="Press Me"
            color="#841584"
          />
        </View>
        <View style={styles.alternativeLayoutButtonContainer}>
          <Button
            onPress={this._onPressButton}
            title="This looks great!"
          />
          <Button
            onPress={this._onPressButton}
            title="OK!"
            color="#841584"
          />
        </View>
      </View>
    );
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
   flex: 1,
   justifyContent: 'center',
  },
  buttonContainer: {
    margin: 20
  },
  alternativeLayoutButtonContainer: {
    margin: 20,
    flexDirection: 'row',
    justifyContent: 'space-between'
  }
});

The result of above example is displayed below :


Touchables

In React Native, most “buttons” are actually implemented using Touchable components. Like Button, these components support an onPress prop. However, unlike Button, these components support custom styling – essentially a Touchable is a View that can be pressed.

Touchables have a variety of other props, like onPressIn and onPressOut, which give us more control over the behavior of the button. We can use these props to run custom animations.


Kinds of Touchable

Although we can run custom animations, most of the time, we use one of 2 built-in animations: a fade in opacity, or a change of color. There are preconfigured touchable components for each of these: TouchableOpacity and TouchableHighlight.

Which “Touchable” component we use will depend on what kind of feedback we want to provide:

  • Generally, we can use TouchableHighlight anywhere we would use a button or link on web. The view’s background will be darkened when the user presses down on the button.
  • We may consider using TouchableNativeFeedback on Android to display ink surface reaction ripples that respond to the user’s touch.
  • TouchableOpacity can be used to provide feedback by reducing the opacity of the button, allowing the background to be seen through while the user is pressing down.
  • If we need to handle a tap gesture but we don’t want any feedback to be displayed, use TouchableWithoutFeedback.

In some cases, we may want to detect when a user presses and holds a view for a set amount of time. These long presses can be handled by passing a function to the onLongPress props of any of the “Touchable” components.


Example

Let’s see all of these in action:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Platform, StyleSheet, Text, TouchableHighlight, TouchableOpacity, TouchableNativeFeedback, TouchableWithoutFeedback, View } from 'react-native';

export default class Touchables extends Component {
  _onPressButton() {
    alert('You tapped the button!')
  }

  _onLongPressButton() {
    alert('You long-pressed the button!')
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <TouchableHighlight onPress={this._onPressButton} underlayColor="white">
          <View style={styles.button}>
            <Text style={styles.buttonText}>TouchableHighlight</Text>
          </View>
        </TouchableHighlight>
        <TouchableOpacity onPress={this._onPressButton}>
          <View style={styles.button}>
            <Text style={styles.buttonText}>TouchableOpacity</Text>
          </View>
        </TouchableOpacity>
        <TouchableNativeFeedback
            onPress={this._onPressButton}
            background={Platform.OS === 'android' ? TouchableNativeFeedback.SelectableBackground() : ''}>
          <View style={styles.button}>
            <Text style={styles.buttonText}>TouchableNativeFeedback {Platform.OS !== 'android' ? '(Android only)' : ''}</Text>
          </View>
        </TouchableNativeFeedback>
        <TouchableWithoutFeedback
            onPress={this._onPressButton}
            >
          <View style={styles.button}>
            <Text style={styles.buttonText}>TouchableWithoutFeedback</Text>
          </View>
        </TouchableWithoutFeedback>
        <TouchableHighlight onPress={this._onPressButton} onLongPress={this._onLongPressButton} underlayColor="white">
          <View style={styles.button}>
            <Text style={styles.buttonText}>Touchable with Long Press</Text>
          </View>
        </TouchableHighlight>
      </View>
    );
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    paddingTop: 60,
    alignItems: 'center'
  },
  button: {
    marginBottom: 30,
    width: 260,
    alignItems: 'center',
    backgroundColor: '#2196F3'
  },
  buttonText: {
    textAlign: 'center',
    padding: 20,
    color: 'white'
  }
});

The result of above example is displayed below :


Scrolling and swiping

Gestures commonly used on devices with touchable screens include swipes and pans. These allow the user to scroll through a list of items, or swipe through pages of content. 

That’s all about in this article.


Conclusion

In this article, We understood about how to use Touchable Components in React Native.

Thanks for reading ! I hope you enjoyed and learned about the Touchable Components Concepts in React Native. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe us on this blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow official website and tutorials of React Native as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, feel free to leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING!!???

React Native – How To Use Hooks In React Native ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in this article (How To Use Hooks In React Native ?).

In this article, we will understand about how to use Hooks in react native. Hooks are specially-implemented functions that let us add functionality to React components beyond just creating and returning React elements. This article demonstrates the built-in hooks usage in react native application.

A famous quote about learning is :

” Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. “

So Let’s begin.


React Hooks

” React Hooks are a new addition in React 16.8 that let you use state and other React features without writing a class component. In other words, Hooks are functions that let you “hook into” React state and lifecycle features from function components. (They do not work inside class components.)”

Hooks are a new addition in React 16.8. They let you use state and other React features without writing a class. It mainly uses to handle the state and side effects in react functional component. React Hooks are a way to use stateful functions inside a functional component. Hooks don’t work inside classes — they let you use React without classesReact provides a few built-in Hooks like useState and useEffect. The React hooks do :

  • Best practices
  • Easy to under understand
  • Easy to test
  • Increases the performance and so on.


Rules and Linting

Hooks aren’t regular functions; they have to be written in a certain way. To dive deeper into this topic, check out:

ReactJS – How to Effectively Think In React Hooks ?

When using hooks, we typically want to use eslint and the react-hooks plugin. Hooks are powerful, but can be unintuitive at first, and this tool catches a lot of mistakes before we ever run our code.


In-built React Hooks APIs

We’ll look at the following built-in hooks in more detail:

  • useState – Persist state within a component function
  • useReducer – Similar to useState, but for state that involves multiple sub-values
  • useEffect – Perform side effects within our component functions
  • useRef – Wrap a mutable value


1. useState

The useState hook lets us “remember” a value within a component function. Since our component function may be called many times throughout the lifecycle of the component, any variable we declare normally (i.e. with let myVar = ...) will get reset. With useState, React can remember a state variable for us, making sure it gets passed into our component instance correctly.


API

The useState hook takes a single argument, our initial state, and returns an array containing two elements:

  • state – the current state
  • setState – a function to update our state

Syntax –  const [state, setState] = useState(initialValue)


Example

In this example, we’ll use useState to append to an array.

The useState hook can store any type of value: a number, a string, an array, an object, etc.

import React, { useState } from 'react'
import { View, Text, Button } from 'react-native'

const randomDiceRoll = () => Math.floor(Math.random() * 6) + 1

export default function App() {
  const [diceRolls, setDiceRolls] = useState([])

  return (
    <View>
      <Button
        title="Roll dice!"
        onPress={() => {
          setDiceRolls([...diceRolls, randomDiceRoll()])
        }}
      />
      {diceRolls.map((diceRoll, index) => (
        <Text style={{ fontSize: 24 }} key={index}>
          {diceRoll}
        </Text>
      ))}
    </View>
  )
}

The result of above example is displayed below :


Updating mutable state values

Note how when we call setDiceRoll, we’re not pushing the integer returned from randomDiceRoll() into the diceRolls array. Instead, we return a new array containing the destructured diceRolls array and the newly randomized dice roll. Why?

Hooks can tell React to re-run our component function and update the UI. The useState hook tells React to re-run our component function whenever we call setDiceRolls with a different value. Internally, useState then compares the current value of diceRolls with the value we passed to setDiceRolls using ===. If we’re using a mutable value like an array, and we only change its contents, useState won’t detect that change and won’t tell React to re-run our component function. This will result in our UI displaying old/stale data. To avoid this problem we need to create a new array, so that useState will detect that our data changed and display the newest data.


2. useReducer

The useReducer hook is similar to useState, but gives us a more structured approach for updating complex values.

We typically use useReducer when our state has multiple sub-values, e.g. an object containing keys that we want to update independently.


API

The useReducer hook requires 2 arguments, and has an optional 3rd argument:

  • reducer – a pure function that takes a state and an action, and returns a new state value based on the action
  • initialState – any initial state value, just like useState
  • initializer (optional) – a function called to lazily instantiate the initialState (this is uncommon)

The useReducer hook returns the current state, and a dispatch function to update the state.


Example

In this example, we store both a first and last name in a single state object with useReducer.

When we type a new first name, dispatch is called with { type: 'first', value: text } as its argument. This argument gets passed to the reducer as action. Then the reducer follows the switch case logic case 'first' and returns the new state: the current last name (from ...state) and the new first name contained in the action as action.value.

import React, { useReducer } from 'react'
import { View, Text, TextInput } from 'react-native'

function reducer(state, action) {
  switch (action.type) {
    case 'first':
      return { ...state, first: action.value }
    case 'last':
      return { ...state, last: action.value }
  }
}

export default function App() {
  const [state, dispatch] = useReducer(reducer, { first: '', last: '' })

  return (
    <View>
      <TextInput
        style={{ fontSize: 32 }}
        placeholder="First"
        value={state.first}
        onChangeText={(text) => {
          dispatch({ type: 'first', value: text })
        }}
      />
      <TextInput
        style={{ fontSize: 32 }}
        placeholder="Last"
        value={state.last}
        onChangeText={(text) => {
          dispatch({ type: 'last', value: text })
        }}
      />
      <Text style={{ fontSize: 32 }}>
        Hello {state.first} {state.last}
      </Text>
    </View>
  )
}

The result of above example is displayed below :


3. useEffect

We use the useEffect hook to call functions with side effects within our components.


API

The useEffect hook takes 2 arguments:

  • callback – a function with side effects
  • dependencies – an optional array containing dependency values

When our component function runs, the callback will be called if any dependencies have changed since the last time the component function ran.


Example

In this example, we’ll log to the console any time the count is a multiple of 3. The callback is called every time the countEvery3 changes, since countEvery3 is listed as a dependency.

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react'
import { Button } from 'react-native'

export default function App() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)
  const countEvery3 = Math.floor(count / 3)

  useEffect(() => {
    console.log(countEvery3)
  }, [countEvery3])

  return (
    <Button
      title={`Increment ${count}`}
      onPress={() => {
        setCount(count + 1)
      }}
    />
  )
}

The result of above example is displayed below :


Undefined or empty dependency array

If the dependency array is empty or undefineduseEffect will have a different behavior:

  • [] – the callback is called only once, right after the component renders for the first time.
  • undefined – the callback is called on every component render (every time the component function runs).


undefined dependencies

Here the dependency array is undefined, so our callback will run every time our component function runs, e.g. any time we click the button and useState tells our component to re-run.

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react'
import { Button } from 'react-native'

export default function App() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)

  useEffect(() => {
    console.log('Incremented!')
  })

  return (
    <Button
      title={`Increment ${count}`}
      onPress={() => {
        setCount(count + 1)
      }}
    />
  )
}

The result of above example is displayed below :


Empty dependencies

Here the dependency array is empty, so our callback will only run once (and therefore only log one time).

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react'
import { Button } from 'react-native'

export default function App() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)

  useEffect(() => {
    console.log('Only once!')
  }, [])

  return (
    <Button
      title={`Increment ${count}`}
      onPress={() => {
        setCount(count + 1)
      }}
    />
  )
}

The result of above example is displayed below :


4. useRef

With useRef, we can create and update a single mutable value that exists for the lifetime of the component instance.

After assigning the ref to a variable, we use .current to access the mutable value.


Example

In this example, we store the return value of setInterval, which is an interval id, so that we can later call clearInterval.

import React, { useState, useEffect, useRef } from 'react'
import { View, Text, Button } from 'react-native'

export default function App() {
  const intervalRef = useRef()
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)

  useEffect(() => {
    intervalRef.current = setInterval(
      () => setCount((count) => count + 1),
      1000
    )

    return () => {
      clearInterval(intervalRef.current)
    }
  }, [])

  return (
    <View>
      <Text style={{ fontSize: 120 }}>{count}</Text>
      <Button
        title="Stop"
        onPress={() => {
          clearInterval(intervalRef.current)
        }}
      />
    </View>
  )
}

The result of above example is displayed below :


5. Custom Hooks

We can compose built-in hooks to create new ones. We should still use the use prefix for our function name.


Example

import React, { useState, useEffect, useRef } from 'react'
import { Text } from 'react-native'

function useInterval(callback, delay) {
  const savedCallback = useRef()

  // Remember the latest callback.
  useEffect(() => {
    savedCallback.current = callback
  }, [callback])

  // Set up the interval.
  useEffect(() => {
    if (delay !== null) {
      let id = setInterval(() => {
        savedCallback.current()
      }, delay)
      return () => clearInterval(id)
    }
  }, [delay])
}

export default function App() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)

  useInterval(() => {
    setCount(count + 1)
  }, 1000)

  return <Text style={{ fontSize: 120 }}>{count}</Text>
}

That’s all about in this article.


Conclusion

In this article, We understood about how to use Hooks in React Native. This article demonstrated In-built Hooks APIs Usage with examples in React Native application.

Thanks for reading ! I hope you enjoyed and learned about the Hook Concepts in React Native. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe us on this blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow official website and tutorials of React Native as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, feel free to leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING!!???

React Native – How To Make Conditional Rendering Safer In React Native ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in this article (How To Make Conditional Rendering Safer In React Native ?).

In this article, We will learn how to use conditional rendering safer in react native. Sometimes, depending on the conditions, we need to perform various actions or present the particular view. To do this, we will use the conditional statements.

Very soon after start of creating first app every developer needs to render component in one way or another depending on props. When one start searching, the first answer is inside React documentation. The answer is “Conditional Rendering”. But after a while many of us starts facing errors in React Native (or wrong rendering in React for web) that seems to jump on occasionally to reappear some time later. This article will explain what is happening and how to prevent further mistakes.

A famous quote about learning is :

” That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.”

So Let’s begin.


Conditional Rendering

Conditional rendering using inline If with logical && (AND) operator as React docs says:

You may embed any expressions in JSX by wrapping them in curly braces. This includes the JavaScript logical && operator. It can be handy for conditionally including an element — React docs: Conditional Rendering


Example 1Text Example

{someValue && (
  <View style={styles.field}>
    <Text>{someValue}</Text>
  </View>
)}

This handy solution is used by many and it’s nothing new for our community to see in the code. How and why it can crash your React Native app?

When using it widely in our App without proper attention sooner or later we will see this error (or worse scenario our users will see that the app crashed):

Invariant Violation: Text strings must be rendered within a <Text> component.

Then we see such an error in our logs and scratch our head because usually it works, it may crash for one particular data entry or after some small API change. What happened? Hint: someValue type matters.


Example 2 – Array Example

Another common example of javascript operator wrong usage is rendering something is array contains any elements:

// Sooner or later this code will surprise users.
// Just wait for an empty array.
{dataEntries.length && (
  <View>
    <Text>Visible only when array is not empty</Text>
  </View>
)}

Above example looks fine at a first glance. Array’s length will be 0 which is falsy thus condition is not satisfied and following component is not rendered — simple. This reasoning is partially good but author might forgot about one little fact that will surprise users at some point. Let’s take a closer look.


How logical AND && operator in JavaScript works?

Let’s see the docs again:

OperatorSyntaxDescription
Logical AND (&&)expr1 && expr2If expr1 can be converted to true, returns expr2; else, returns expr1.

If a value can be converted to true, the value is so-called truthy. If a value can be converted to false, the value is so-called falsy.

Examples of expressions that can be converted to false are:

  • null;
  • NaN;
  • 0;
  • empty string ("" or '' or ``);
  • undefined.


String Variable

Boolean('hello world')
// -> true

Boolean('')
// -> false

Boolean(' ')	// space
// -> true

'' && 'conditionally returned string'
// -> ''

'hello world' && 'conditionally returned string'
// -> 'conditionally returned string'

Empty string is falsy so AND operator will return '' because the condition is not fulfilled. Returning '' directly into ReactNative JSX will produce error Text strings must be rendered within a <Text> component and cause crash.


Numeric Variable

Boolean(-1)
// -> true

Boolean(0)
// -> false

Boolean(1)
// -> true

0 && 'conditionally returned string'
// -> 0

1 && 'conditionally returned string'
// -> 'conditionally returned string'

Zero is falsy so logical AND operator will return 0 as the condition is not met. Returning 0 into ReactNative JSX will cause crash with Invariant Violation error again.


Other Variable Types

Boolean(null)
// -> false

Boolean(undefined)
// -> false

Boolean({})
// -> true

Boolean([])		// worth noting!
// -> true

From the above examples the most interesting from React Native developer’s point of view is array. Usually when we put array into conditional render we would like not to render anything if array is empty. Passing an empty array into logical expression without any preparation will mislead us. What one would need to do is to check whether length exists and is equal to 0.


Why React Native crashes?

Rendering string in React Native must be wrapped with <Text>...</Text> component. But when we want to hide entire component when variable is empty with conditional rendering it may return an empty string directly into JSX. For example:

let optionalStr = ''

// [...] some logic that leaves `optionalStr` empty

{optionalStr && <Text>{optionalStr}</Text>} // crash

Now we know that above condition is not fulfilled therefore logical AND operator will return optionalStr directly into main JSX.


What about a numeric variable?

Normally, JavaScript expressions inserted in JSX will evaluate to a string, a React element, or a list of those things. […] — React docs: JSX in Depth

React tries to convert results of our expressions into a string, React element or array. This is why we see Invariant Violation: Text strings must be rendered within a <Text> component even if our variable was Number. It may be misleading while searching for this bug in a production code.


Why Is It Hard To Find React Native Conditional Render Error?

This error is sneaky because it may take a long time before it shows up. Our code may be working like a charm without any issues for months and suddenly something changes on API and type of that nullable variable changes suddenly to empty string or 0.

Why it works with variables that are null or undefined then? It will also work for booleans. React creators make our life easier and by default such variables are ignored in a JSX tree. It is special case and it will not be rendered.

React will also not crash when we put empty array directly into JSX as arrays can render multiple elements.

// below expressions will not crash your React Native app
<View>
  {false}
  {true}
  {null}
  {undefined}
  {[]}
</View>


Different Options To Make Conditional Rendering Safer

We just make sure to convert every variable into Boolean before using logical AND && operator.

We can do it multiple ways:

  • Double negation — !!dangerousData
  • Classic conversion — Boolean(dangerousData)
  • Rethink components architecture


1. Double negation — !!dangerousData

It’s an easy quick fix that will work and some experiments says that it’s execution time is faster than Boolean(dangerousData). We do not recommend it though.

This solution’s main pitfall is a human factor. Someone in our team could think that it is pointless to do double negation as it goes from true -> false -> true. It may lead to “refactor” that will create potential crashes in the future as this error may not reveal itself at first. My number one principle while coding is readability.


2. Classic conversion — Boolean(dangerousData)

This seems readable but as we mentioned above some say that it is slower in execution time so make our own research and decide if it is OK for our particular case. We can find news that in modern browsers it is optimized. We may also use some transpilers to change it before it goes to final code.


3. Rethink components architecture

Maybe we don’t need as many conditional renders in the component. Every component should be small and have simplified logic as much as it can. We have seen many overly complicated components with nested conditional renders and believe me it’s not something easy to maintain as our code grows.


3.1. Use Element Variable

In simple components sometimes we can use trick from React documentation with if and variable assignment preceding return.

// ...
  let message = <Text>'Hello there!'</Text>
  if (isVillain) {
    message = <Text style={styles.deepVoice}>'General React'oni!'</Text>
  }

  return <View>{message}</View>


3.2. Component Is A Function (IF ELSE In Render)

In class components it would be — render method is a function.

In function, we can call return inside if statement and it will not execute further on. It will have the same result as with Element variable above. We don’t need else here because when condition is satisfied execution will go on, otherwise it will be stopped on first render.

import React from 'react'
import { View, Text } from 'react-native'

const Card = ({ loading, error, title }) => {
  let content

  if (error) {
    content = <Text style={{ fontSize: 24, color: 'red' }}>Error</Text>
  } else if (loading) {
    content = <Text style={{ fontSize: 24, color: 'gray' }}>Loading...</Text>
  } else {
    content = (
      <View>
        <Text style={{ fontSize: 60 }}>{title}</Text>
      </View>
    )
  }

  return <View style={{ padding: 24 }}>{content}</View>
}

export default function App() {
  return (
    <View>
      <Card error={true} />
      <Card loading={true} />
      <Card loading={false} title="Title" />
    </View>
  )
}


3.3 Conditional (Ternary) Operator

Another common case: rendering a different React element for when a prop exists and when it doesn’t. We can accomplish this with the ternary operator. Note that a buttonTitle equal to the empty string, "", won’t render, since the empty string is a falsy value. If we did want it to, we could use buttonTitle === undefined to check for that case.

import React from 'react'
import { View, Text, Button } from 'react-native'

const Card = ({ title, buttonTitle }) => (
  <View>
    <Text style={{ fontSize: 60 }}>{title}</Text>
    {buttonTitle ? <Button title={buttonTitle} /> : null}
  </View>
)

export default function App() {
  return (
    <View>
      <Card title="Title" />
      <Card title="Title with button" buttonTitle="Press me!" />
    </View>
  )
}


Explaining The Array Example Solutions

In Previous example, we show that

dataEntries.length && (
  <View>
    <Text>Visible only when array is not empty</Text>
  </View>
)}

Now we understand that what really happens in above code is returning length to directly into JSX. It happens when length is falsy and it comes from logical operator implementation.

To simplify the example and make things more visible let’s assume that dataEntries.length is 0 and following View with Text component is <Component />. Now we have:

{0 && <Component />}

This expression returns 0 which is converted to string '0' and we can see it as an error in React Native or as an extra character on the web.

The quickest fix possible is to make sure that we don’t depend on falsy value but on boolean false.

Here are multiple fix scenarios:


Double Negation

{!!dataEntries.length && <Component />}


Classic Conversion

{Boolean(dataEntries.length) && <Component />}


Inline Condition

{(dataEntries.length > 0) && <Component />}


Ternary Operator

{dataEntries.length ? <Component /> : null}


Refactor, Rethink, Make It Safe

let coditionalComponent = null

if(dataEntries.length > 0){
	coditionalComponent = <Component />
}

That’s all about in this article.


Conclusion

In this article, We understood how to make conditional rendering safer in react native. We also explained what is happening and how to prevent further mistakes when we use Conditional Rendering .

Thanks for reading ! I hope you enjoyed and learned about Conditional Rendering concepts in React Native. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe us on this blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow official website and tutorials of React Native as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, feel free to leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING !!???

React Native – How To Translate A Design To A Flexible React Native App ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in this article (How To Translate A Design To A Flexible React Native App ?).

In this article, We will learn how to translate a design to a flexible React Native application. React Native is one of many cross-platform frameworks that assist a developer in creating an app that utilises native UI and has a high level of code reuse between platforms. It accomplishes this by acting as a renderer on both iOS and Android for the React framework, which itself has the advantage of allowing web developers to get started in the world of mobile development using familiar concepts. We will discuss the ability to take a static design from a designer and turn it into React native code.

A famous quote about learning is :

” One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things. “

So Let’s begin.


The Layout System

React Native utilises a very web-like layout system, making heavy use of Flexbox to control the flow and sizing of individual elements on-screen. This gives a head-start to web developers as they already conceptually understand the Flexbox system, however it is totally new to native mobile developers who may be used to visually creating screen layouts in iOS Storyboards or working with XML in Android Layout files. 

A component can specify the layout of its children using the Flexbox algorithm. Flexbox is designed to provide a consistent layout on different screen sizes. We will normally use a combination of flexDirectionalignItems, and justifyContent to achieve the right layout.

Flexbox works the same way in React Native as it does in CSS on the web, with a few exceptions. The defaults are different, with flexDirection defaulting to column instead of row, and the flex parameter only supporting a single number.


Design to Code

An important skill to have when developing a cross-platform application is the ability to take a static design from a designer and turn it into code, ensuring that it will adapt correctly to any supported screen size. Typically, this is done by focusing on margins/paddings rather than widths and heights, unless of course a component should have a set width or height, such as a title bar or a button. For example, we envisioned a simple feed item from a social app.

The first step of converting the above design to code is to break it down into its component parts. We infer which elements align with which other elements and which parts should expand to fit either content or container. For example, when we break the design down into Flexbox rows (blue outline) and columns (green outline). Now let’s split these parts out into individual components so that we can define their behaviour more easily, starting with the lowest level components.


1. TitleTextContainer

This is a column view that contains two Text elements. It should match the height of the container it will be put into (in this case, a row with the user image) so we don’t need to add any height values to it. As for the text, it needs to float in the vertical centre of the container and be pinned to the horizontal start. This will be relatively simple:

TitleTextContainer.js

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { StyleSheet, Text, View } from 'react-native';

export default class TitleTextContainer extends React.Component {
    render() {
        return (
            <View style={styles.container}>
                <Text style={styles.title}>Jordan Duncan</Text>
                <Text style={styles.subtitle}>2 hours ago</Text>
            </View>
        );
    }

}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
    container: {
        flexDirection: 'column',
        justifyContent: 'center',
    },
    title: {
        fontSize: 20,
        fontWeight: 'bold',
        color: '#000'
    },
    subtitle: {
        fontSize: 14,
        fontWeight: 'normal',
        color: '#333'
    }
});


2. ActionContainer

This is a fixed-height row view that contains two Text elements. Each element should take up half of the width of the parent, so we will use flex: 1. Again, this is a simple component:

ActionContainer.js

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { StyleSheet, Text, View } from 'react-native';

export default class ActionContainer extends React.Component {
    render() {
        return (
            <View style={styles.container}>
                <View style={styles.textContainer}>
                    <Text style={styles.text}>Like</Text>
                </View>
                <View style={styles.textContainer}>
                    <Text style={styles.text}>Comment</Text>
                </View>
            </View>
        )
    }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
    container: {
        flexDirection: 'row',
        backgroundColor: '#951754',
        height: 40,
        borderRadius: 5,
    },
    textContainer: {
        flex: 1,
        justifyContent: 'center',
        alignItems: 'center',
    },
    text: {
        fontSize: 18,
        fontWeight: 'normal',
        color: '#FFF'
    }
});

Now we can move up a level in our design and use these components.


3. FullTitleContainer

As we have already created our TitleTextContainer view, we can ignore its internal layout and when we do that, it becomes clear that all that is necessary is a row view that contains a fixed size Image and the TitleTextContainer that will flex to fit the remainder of the FullTitleContainer:

FullTitleContainer.js

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { StyleSheet, Text, View } from 'react-native';

import TitleTextContainer from './TitleTextContainer';

export default class FullTitleContainer extends React.Component {
    render() {
        return (
            <View style={styles.container}>
                <View style={styles.image} />
                <TitleTextContainer />
            </View>
        );
    }

}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
    container: {
        flexDirection: 'row',
        paddingLeft: 5,
    },
    image: {
        height: 60,
        width: 60,
        borderRadius: 30,
        backgroundColor: '#0099FF',
        marginRight: 10,
    },

});


4. PostContentContainer

Similarly to the FullTitleContainer, now that we have dealt with the ActionContainer, all we are left with is a column view that contains a dynamic height Text component and our ActionContainer. As the container will expand to fit its contents (the contents will not expand to fit the container), we do not need to apply flex values to any content:

PostContentContainer.js

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { StyleSheet, Text, View } from 'react-native';

import ActionButtonContainer from './ActionButtonContainer';

export default class PostContentContainer extends React.Component {
    render() {
        return (
            <View style={styles.container}>
                <Text style={styles.text}>I wish there was an easy way to make cross platform layouts :(</Text>
                <ActionButtonContainer />
            </View>
        );
    }

}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
    container: {
        flexDirection: 'column',
        paddingLeft: 70,
        paddingBottom: 10,
        paddingRight: 10,
    },
    text: {
        fontSize: 18,
        fontWeight: 'normal',
        color: '#000',
        marginVertical: 10,
        paddingBottom: 10,
    },

});

One thing to note here is that we have added a paddingLeft of 70 (image width 60 + padding 10) to the container. This is in order to bring it in line with the title text when we add it to the main component.


5. Putting it all together

Now that we have produced all the component parts, it is clear that the full component just consists of a column view that contains the FullTitleContainer and the PostContentContainer.

App.js

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { StyleSheet, Text, View } from 'react-native';
import Constants from 'expo-constants';
import { Card } from 'react-native-paper';
import FullTitleContainer from './FullTitleContainer';
import PostContentContainer from './PostContentContainer';

export default class App extends Component {

  render() {
    return (
      <View style={styles.container}>
        <Card>
          <FullTitleContainer />
          <PostContentContainer />
        </Card>

      </View>
    );
  }
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    paddingTop: Constants.statusBarHeight,
    backgroundColor: '#EEE',
    padding: 20,
    margin: 20,
  },
});

As we can see, it only requires an understanding of Flexbox to allow us to create a flexible, cross-platform layout that will look and perform great on a range of different devices.

That’s all about in this article.


Conclusion

In this article, We understood how to translate a design to a flexible React Native application.

Thanks for reading ! I hope you enjoyed and learned about translate a design To a flexible React Native app. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe us on this blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow official website and tutorials of React Native as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, feel free to leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING !!???

iOS – How To Prepare UI To Run In The Background In iOS ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in this article (How To Prepare UI To Run In The Background In iOS ?).

In this article, we will learn about how to prepare UI to run in the background in iOS. We will discuss how to prepare our app to be suspended.

A famous quote about Learning is :

” You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way. “

So Let’s begin.


Overview

Apps move to the background state for many reasons. When the user exits a foreground app, that app moves to the background state briefly before UIKit suspends it. The system may also launch an app directly into the background state, or move a suspended app into the background, and give it time to perform important tasks.

When our app is in the background in iOS, it should do as little as possible, and preferably nothing. If our app was previously in the foreground, use the background transition to stop tasks and release any shared resources. If our app enters the background to process an important event, process the event and exit as quickly as possible.

All state transitions result in UIKit sending notifications to the appropriate delegate object:

  • In iOS 13 and later—A UISceneDelegate object.
  • In iOS 12 and earlier—The UIApplicationDelegate object.

We can support both types of delegate objects, but UIKit always uses scene delegate objects when they are available. UIKit notifies only the scene delegate associated with the specific scene that is entering the background.


Quiet App upon Deactivation

The system deactivates apps for several reasons. When the user exits the foreground app, the system deactivates that app immediately before moving it to the background. The system also deactivates apps when it needs to interrupt them temporarily—for example, to display system alerts. In the case of a system panel, the system reactivates the app when the user dismisses the panel.

During deactivation, UIKit calls one of the following methods of our app:

  • For apps that support scenes—The sceneWillResignActive(_:) method of the appropriate scene delegate object.
  • For all other apps—The applicationWillResignActive(_:) method of the app delegate object.

Use deactivation to preserve the user’s data and put our app in a quiet state by pausing all major work; specifically:

  • Save user data to disk and close any open files.
  • Suspend dispatch and operation queues.
  • Don’t schedule any new tasks for execution.
  • Invalidate any active timers.
  • Pause gameplay automatically.
  • Don’t commit any new Metal work to be processed.
  • Don’t commit any new OpenGL commands.


Release Resources upon Entering the Background

When our app transitions to the background, release memory and free up any shared resources our app is holding. For an app transitioning from the foreground to the background, freeing up memory is especially important. The foreground has priority over memory and other system resources, and the system terminates background apps as needed to make those resources available. Even if our app wasn’t in the foreground, perform checks to ensure that it consumes as few resources as possible.

Upon entering the background, UIKit calls one of the following methods of our app:

  • For apps that support scenes—The sceneDidEnterBackground(_:) method of the appropriate scene delegate object.
  • For all other apps—The applicationDidEnterBackground(_:) method of the app delegate object.

During a background transition, perform as many of the following tasks as makes sense for our app:

  • Discard any images or media that we read directly from files.
  • Discard any large, in-memory objects that we can recreate or reload from disk.
  • Release access to the camera and other shared hardware resources.
  • Hide sensitive information (such as passwords) in our app’s user interface.
  • Dismiss alerts and other temporary interfaces.
  • Close connections to any shared system databases.
  • Unregister from Bonjour services and close any listening sockets associated with them.
  • Ensure that all Metal command buffers have been scheduled.
  • Ensure that all OpenGL commands, we previously submitted have finished.

We don’t need to discard named images that we loaded from our app’s asset catalog. Similarly, we don’t need to release objects that adopt the NSDiscardableContent protocol or that we manage using an NSCache object. The system automatically handles the cleanup of those objects.

Make sure our app is not holding any shared system resources when it transitions to the background. If it continues accessing resources like the camera or a shared system database after transitioning to the background, the system terminates our app to free up that resource. If we use a system framework to access a resource, check the framework’s documentation for guidelines about what to do.


Prepare UI for the App Snapshot

After our app enters the background and our delegate method returns, UIKit takes a snapshot of our app’s current user interface. The system displays the resulting image in the app switcher. It also displays the image temporarily when bringing our app back to the foreground.

Our app’s UI must not contain any sensitive user information, such as passwords or credit card numbers. If our interface contains such information, remove it from our views when entering the background. Also, dismiss alerts, temporary interfaces, and system view controllers that obscure our app’s content. The snapshot represents our app’s interface and should be recognizable to users. When our app returns to the foreground, we can restore data and views as appropriate.

For apps that support state preservation and restoration, the system begins the preservation process shortly after our delegate method returns. Removing sensitive data also prevents that information from being saved in our app’s preservation archive.


Respond to Important Events in the Background

Apps don’t normally receive any extra execution time after they enter the background. However, UIKit does grant execution time to apps that support any of the following time-sensitive capabilities:

  • Audio communication using AirPlay, or Picture in Picture video.
  • Location-sensitive services for users.
  • Voice over IP.
  • Communication with an external accessory.
  • Communication with Bluetooth LE accessories, or conversion of the device into a Bluetooth LE accessory.
  • Regular updates from a server.
  • Support for Apple Push Notification service (APNs).

Enable the Background Modes capability in Xcode if our app supports background features.

That’s all about in this article.


Conclusion

In this article, We understood how to prepare UI to run in the Background in iOS. We also discussed how to prepare our app to be suspended.

Thanks for reading ! I hope you enjoyed and learned about UI Preparation concepts during Background in iOS. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe us on this blog and and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow other website and tutorials of iOS as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, feel free to leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING !!???

React Native – How To Create Custom Buttons In React Native ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in this article (How To Create Custom Buttons In React Native ?).

In this article, We will learn about how to create custom buttons in React Native. React Native is an excellent framework for building native mobile applications. It allows us to build apps that will work on both iOS and Android platforms. Core UI components such as <Button /> look different on each platform, and there are limited styling and customization options. For this and many other reasons, it’s critical to know how to create buttons that look consistent regardless of the operating system. In this article, we’ll walk through how to create various types of custom buttons in React Native.

A famous quote about learning is :

” Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

So Let’s begin.


Create Button Using Stylesheet

A basic button component that should render nicely on any platform. Supports a minimal level of customization.

For Example – App.js

import React from "react";
import { View, Button, StyleSheet } from "react-native";

const App = () => {
  return (
    <View style={styles.screenContainer}>
      <Button title="Press Button" />
    </View>
  );
};

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  screenContainer: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: "center",
    padding: 16
  }
});

export default App;

In the above code block, a core <Button /> component is declared and wrapped inside a container. StyleSheet, is an API provided by the React Native framework as an abstraction to CSS StyleSheets.


The Custom Button Component

Now that we’ve set up the main screen, it’s time to turn our attention to the custom button component.

const AppButton = props => (
    // ...
)

Name the custom button component AppButton.

Import the <TouchableOpacity /> and <Text /> components from react-native. To create custom buttons, we need to customize the <TouchableOpacity /> component and include the <Text /> component inside of it to display the button text. Next, create the StyleSheet properties to style the button.

<TouchableOpacity />, as the name suggests, is a touchable component, which means it can respond to the user’s touch. When we press the button, the opacity decreases. We can control the opacity by passing an activeOpacity prop to the <TouchableOpacity /> component.

If we want to change the opacity for all the custom buttons in our app, use the defaultProps property. defaultProps is a property in a React component that sets default values for the prop argument.

After we’ve imported TouchableOpacity, The onPress props expect a function or a function reference that will execute when the user presses the button. The full code for this section is as follows.

For Example App.js

import React from "react";
import { View, Button, StyleSheet, TouchableOpacity, Text } from "react-native";

TouchableOpacity.defaultProps = { activeOpacity: 0.8 };

const AppButton = ({ onPress, title }) => (
  <TouchableOpacity onPress={onPress} style={styles.appButtonContainer}>
    <Text style={styles.appButtonText}>{title}</Text>
  </TouchableOpacity>
);

const App = () => {
  return (
    <View style={styles.screenContainer}>
      <AppButton title="Hey there!" size="sm" backgroundColor="#007bff" />
    </View>
  );
};

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  screenContainer: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: "center",
    padding: 16
  },
  appButtonContainer: {
    elevation: 8,
    backgroundColor: "#009688",
    borderRadius: 10,
    paddingVertical: 10,
    paddingHorizontal: 12
  },
  appButtonText: {
    fontSize: 18,
    color: "#fff",
    fontWeight: "bold",
    alignSelf: "center",
    textTransform: "uppercase"
  }
});

export default App;

The custom button should look like this:


Adding More Props In Custom Button Component

Since it’s a custom button component, we have the liberty of piling on additional props. For example, we can add a prop to change the button size or change the background color.

const AppButton = ({ onPress, title, size, backgroundColor }) => (
  <TouchableOpacity
    onPress={onPress}
    style={[
      styles.appButtonContainer,
      size === "sm" && {
        paddingHorizontal: 8,
        paddingVertical: 6,
        elevation: 6
      },
      backgroundColor && { backgroundColor }
    ]}
  >
    <Text style={[styles.appButtonText, size === "sm" && { fontSize: 14 }]}>
      {title}
    </Text>
  </TouchableOpacity>
);

// ...
<AppButton title="Hey there!" size="sm" backgroundColor="#007bff" />;

We’ll see the following result on our screen.


Styling the button using Linear gradient background

By default, React Native doesn’t have an API to create a linear gradient background in a container. Luckily, there’s another expo utility library for React Native that we can use to create linear gradient colors.

We need to create project and import the <LinearGradient /> component from the expo-linear-gradient library. we ‘ll need to make some adjustments in the <AppButton /> component. Wrap the <TouchableOpacity /> component around the <LinearGradient /> component and add the style prop to the <LinearGradient /> component. The colors prop in LinearGradient accepts an array, which contains the color values that will be used to create the linear gradient.

The full code for this section is as below:

For Example – App.js

import React from "react";
import { View, StyleSheet, TouchableOpacity, Text } from "react-native";
import { LinearGradient } from "expo-linear-gradient";

TouchableOpacity.defaultProps = { activeOpacity: 0.8 };

const AppButton = ({ onPress, title }) => (
    <TouchableOpacity onPress={onPress}>
        <LinearGradient
            colors={["#004d40", "#009688"]}
            style={styles.appButtonContainer}
        >
            <Text style={styles.appButtonText}>{title}</Text>
        </LinearGradient>
    </TouchableOpacity>
);

const App = () => {
    return (
        <View style={styles.screenContainer}>
            <AppButton title="Hey there!" size="sm" backgroundColor="#007bff" />
        </View>
    );
};

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
    screenContainer: {
        flex: 1,
        justifyContent: "center",
        padding: 16
    },
    appButtonContainer: {
        elevation: 8,
        backgroundColor: "#009688",
        borderRadius: 10,
        paddingVertical: 10,
        paddingHorizontal: 12
    },
    appButtonText: {
        fontSize: 18,
        color: "#fff",
        fontWeight: "bold",
        alignSelf: "center",
        textTransform: "uppercase"
    }
});

export default App;

We’ll see the following result on our screen.


Controlling button styles using state

As in any React application, we can add styles to our component based on the current value of the state. For example, if we want to disable a button for a certain period of time after it’s pressed, the button must have a disabled background color so that the user knows it’s temporarily inactive.

Add a style property inside the StyleSheet object to represent the disabled color. For this example,  we’ll use black.

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  // ...
  appButtonDisabled: {
    backgroundColor: "#000"
  }
});

Next, refactor the <AppButton /> component and use the useState hook to change the disabled state.

const AppButton = ({ title }) => {
  const [isDisabled, setDisabled] = useState(false);

  const handlePress = () => {
    setDisabled(true);
    setTimeout(() => setDisabled(false), 3000);
  };

  return (
    <TouchableOpacity
      onPress={handlePress}
      style={[
        styles.appButtonContainer,
        isDisabled && styles.appButtonDisabled
      ]}
      disabled={isDisabled}
    >
      <Text style={styles.appButtonText}>{title}</Text>
    </TouchableOpacity>
  );
};

We can pass a disabled prop to the TouchableOpactiy component to disable the onPress behavior. We can pass an array of style objects to the style prop. So when isDisabled is set to true, we can add the appButtonDisabled property to the style prop array using the && operator.


Styling the button using styled-components

styled-component is a CSS-in-JS library that enables us to write each component with its own style and encapsulate the code in a single location.

React Native follows a certain specification for styling these components. For example, all CSS property names must be written in camelCase — background-color should be specified as backgroundColorborder-width as borderWidth, etc.

This can be a little disorienting for a developer who is approaching mobile app development from a web development background. The styled-components library enables us to write native CSS for styling a React Native component. Under the hood, styled-components simply converts the CSS text into a React Native StyleSheet object.

 We need to install styled-components using npm or yarn package manager. Replace the TouchableOpacity and Text components with ButtonContainer and ButtonText, respectively. These new components will be created using the syntax from styled-components.

const AppButton = ({ onPress, title }) => (
  <ButtonContainer onPress={onPress}>
    <ButtonText>{title}</ButtonText>
  </ButtonContainer>
);

styled-components uses tagged template literals to style the components using backticks (`). Each styled component must have a React Native component attached to it.

const ButtonContainer = styled.TouchableOpacity``;

const ButtonText = styled.Text``;

Inside the backticks, add CSS rules.

const ButtonContainer = styled.TouchableOpacity`
  elevation: 8;
  border-radius: 10px;
  padding-vertical: 10px;
  padding-horizontal: 12px;
  background-color: #951754;
`;

const ButtonText = styled.Text`
  font-size: 18;
  color: #fff;
  font-weight: bold;
  align-self: center;
  text-transform: uppercase;
`;

Putting everything together, our code should look like this:

import React, { useState } from "react";
import { View, StyleSheet, TouchableOpacity, Text } from "react-native";
import styled from "styled-components";

TouchableOpacity.defaultProps = { activeOpacity: 0.8 };

const ScreenContainer = styled.View`
    flex: 1;
    justify-content: center;
    padding: 16px;
`;

const ButtonContainer = styled.TouchableOpacity`
  elevation: 8;
  border-radius: 10px;
  padding-vertical: 10px;
  padding-horizontal: 12px;
  background-color: #951754;
`;

const ButtonText = styled.Text`
  font-size: 18px;
  color: #fff;
  font-weight: bold;
  align-self: center;
  text-transform: uppercase;
`;

const AppButton = ({ onPress, title }) => (
  <ButtonContainer onPress={onPress}>
    <ButtonText>{title}</ButtonText>
  </ButtonContainer>
);

const App = () => {
  return (
    <ScreenContainer>
      <AppButton title="Hey there!" size="sm" />
    </ScreenContainer>
  );
};

export default App;

That’s all about in this article.


Conclusion

In this article, We understood that how to create various types of custom buttons in React Native. As a developer, we must build UI components to match whatever reference or design our design team comes up with. We must make the UI components look precisely as they’re outlined in our client’s plan or prototype.

Thanks for reading ! I hope you enjoyed and learned about creating Custom Buttons in React Native. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe us on this blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow official website and tutorials of React Native as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, feel free to leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING !!???

A Short Note – How To Control Component Size In React Native ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in A Short Note Series (How To Control Component Size In React Native ?).

In this note series, we will learn how to control component size in React Native. A component’s height and width determine its size on the screen.

So Let’s begin.


Fixed Dimensions

The general way to set the dimensions of a component is by adding a fixed width and height to style. All dimensions in React Native are unitless and represent density-independent pixels.

Height and Width

import React from 'react';
import { View } from 'react-native';

const FixedDimensionsBasics = () => {
    return (
      <View>
        <View style={{width: 50, height: 50, backgroundColor: 'powderblue'}} />
        <View style={{width: 100, height: 100, backgroundColor: 'skyblue'}} />
        <View style={{width: 150, height: 150, backgroundColor: 'steelblue'}} />
      </View>
    );
};

export default FixedDimensionsBasics;

Setting dimensions this way is common for components that should always render at exactly the same size, regardless of screen dimensions.

The Preview of the above example is :


Flex Dimensions

We use flex in a component’s style to have the component expand and shrink dynamically based on available space. Normally we will use flex: 1, which tells a component to fill all available space, shared evenly amongst other components with the same parent. The larger the flex given, the higher the ratio of space a component will take compared to its siblings.

A component can only expand to fill available space if its parent has dimensions greater than 0. If a parent does not have either a fixed width and height or flex, the parent will have dimensions of 0 and the flex children will not be visible.

Flex Dimensions

import React from 'react';
import { View } from 'react-native';

const FlexDimensionsBasics = () => {
    return (
      // Try removing the `flex: 1` on the parent View.
      // The parent will not have dimensions, so the children can't expand.
      // What if you add `height: 300` instead of `flex: 1`?
      <View style={{flex: 1}}>
        <View style={{flex: 1, backgroundColor: 'powderblue'}} />
        <View style={{flex: 2, backgroundColor: 'skyblue'}} />
        <View style={{flex: 3, backgroundColor: 'steelblue'}} />
      </View>
    );
};

export default FlexDimensionsBasics;

The Preview of the above example is :


Conclusion

In this note series, we understood how to control component size in React Native. This note series showed Fixed Dimensions and Flex Dimensions to control the component size in react native.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed and learned about Fixed Dimensions and Flex Dimensions concepts in React Native. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe to the blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

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Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING !!???

A Short Note – How To Prepare UI To Run In The Foreground In iOS ?

Hello Readers, CoolMonkTechie heartily welcomes you in A Short Note Series (How To Prepare UI To Run In The Foreground In iOS ?).

In this note series, we will learn about how to prepare UI to run in the foreground in iOS. This note series shows how to configure our app to appear on-screen.

So Let’s begin.


Overview

We use foreground transitions to prepare our app’s UI to appear on-screen. An app’s transition to the foreground is usually in response to a user’s action. For example, when the user taps the app’s icon, the system launches the app and brings it to the foreground. We use a foreground transition to update our app’s UI, gain resources, and start the services we need to handle user requests.

All state transitions result in UIKit sending notifications to the delegate object:

  • In iOS 13 and later—A UISceneDelegate object.
  • In iOS 12 and earlier—The UIApplicationDelegate object.

We can support both types of delegate objects, but UIKit always uses scene delegate objects when they are available. UIKit notifies only the scene delegate associated with the specific scene that is entering the foreground.


Update Our App’s Data Model when Entering the Foreground

At launch time, the system starts our app in the inactive state before transitioning it to the foreground. We use our app’s launch-time methods to perform any work needed. UIKit moves our background app to the inactive state by calling one of the following methods:

  • For apps that support scenes — The sceneWillEnterForeground(_:) method of the scene delegate object.
  • For all other apps — The applicationWillEnterForeground(_:) method.

When transitioning from the background to the foreground, we use these methods to load resources from disk and fetch data from the network.


Configure User Interface and Initial Tasks at Activation

The system moves our app to the active state immediately before displaying the app’s UI. Activation is a good time to configure our app’s UI and runtime behavior; specifically:

  • Show our app’s windows if needed.
  • Change the currently visible view controller, if needed.
  • Update the data values and state of views and controls.
  • Display controls to resume a paused game.
  • Start or resume any dispatch queues that you use to execute tasks.
  • Update data source objects.
  • Start timers for periodic tasks.

We can put our configuration code in one of the following methods:

  • For a scene-based UI—The sceneDidBecomeActive(_:) method of the scene delegate object.
  • For all other apps—The applicationDidBecomeActive(_:) method of our app delegate object.

Activation is also the time to put finishing touches on our UI before displaying it to the user. Don’t run any code that might block our activation method. Instead, make sure we have everything, we need in advance. For example, if our data changes frequently outside of the app, we use background tasks to fetch updates from the network before our app returns to the foreground. Otherwise, be prepared to display existing data while we fetch changes asynchronously.


Start UI-Specific Tasks when View Appears

When our activation method returns, UIKit shows any windows that we made visible. It also notifies any relevant view controllers that their views are about to appear. We use our view controller’s viewWillAppear(_:) method to perform any final updates to our interface. For example:

  • Start user interface animations, as appropriate.
  • Begin playing media files, if auto-play is enabled.
  • Begin displaying graphics for games and immersive content at their full frame rates.

Don’t show a different view controller or make major changes to our user interface. By the time our view controller appears on-screen, our interface should be ready to display.


Conclusion

In this note series, we understood how to prepare UI to run in the foreground in iOS. We also discussed how to configure our app to appear on-screen.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed and learned about UI Preparation concepts during foreground in iOS. Reading is one thing, but the only way to master it is to do it yourself.

Please follow and subscribe to the blog and support us in any way possible. Also like and share the article with others for spread valuable knowledge.

You can find Other articles of CoolmonkTechie as below link :

You can also follow other website and tutorials of iOS as below links :

If you have any comments, questions, or think I missed something, leave them below in the comment box.

Thanks again Reading. HAPPY READING !!???

Exit mobile version