Building Cross-Platform Component Libraries for Web and Native with React

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Building products for multiple platforms such as web and mobile often requires separate code-based despite most of the components being identical in look and feel. Is there a way where we could use shared React component library on different platforms and save time? In this presentation I'll demonstrate one way to build truly cross-platform component library with a unique approach of using React & React Native in combination.

This talk has been presented at React Advanced 2021, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

FAQ

The slides for Perttu Lähtenalahti's presentation can be found on his website, perttu.dev, along with other resources and projects related to cross-platform component development.

Perttu Lähtenalahti is a professional who specializes in building cross-platform component libraries for React and React Native. He is originally from Finland and currently resides in Helsinki.

The main focus of Perttu Lähtenalahti's presentation is on building cross-platform components that can be used in both React and React Native projects, aiming for a single code base and maximum code reuse between platforms.

Styled components are a CSS-in-JS solution that allows developers to write CSS code in JavaScript. This method is used by Perttu to style cross-platform components easily, ensuring consistency across web and native platforms.

The challenge was to build a new feature that would work seamlessly across three React Native apps and one web app, maintaining a unified user experience and a single codebase, despite the platform differences.

Storybook is a tool for building UI components and pages in isolation. It helps developers visualize components independently from the application. Perttu uses separate Storybook instances for web and React Native to demonstrate components in different environments.

Perttu's project involved an existing large React web app, making it impractical to integrate React Native Web without overhauling the entire system. Additionally, specific HTML tags like H1, H2, H3 were needed for SEO benefits, which required proper HTML rendering.

In React Native, platform-specific extensions like .ios or .android before the .js extension allow the React Native Bundler to automatically identify and use the correct component for each platform. Perttu also mentions a .native extension to differentiate components used in web apps from those in native apps.

Perttu Lähteenlahti
Perttu Lähteenlahti
21 min
25 Oct, 2021

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Video Summary and Transcription
This Talk discusses building cross-platform component libraries for React and React Native, based on a successful project with a large government-owned news organization. It covers the requirements for React Native knowledge, building cross-platform components, platform-specific components, styling, and the tools used. The Talk also highlights the challenges of implementing responsive design in React Native.

1. Introduction to Cross-Platform Component Libraries

Short description:

Today, I'm going to talk about building cross-platform component libraries for React and React Native. We will discuss the requirements for React Native knowledge, building cross-platform components, platform-specific components, styling, and the tools we'll use. This approach is based on a successful project with a large government-owned news organization.

Hello, everybody! My name is Perttu Lähtenalahti, and today I'm going to talk about how to build cross-platform component libraries for React and React Native. Before I dive into that subject, I just want to introduce myself briefly. My name, as mentioned, is Perttu Lähtenalahti. Don't worry, it's a really difficult one. I had it wrong once even in my passport. The reason for the difficult name is because I'm originally from Finland, currently living in beautiful Helsinki, Finland.

I have a website, perttu.dev. You can find this presentation as an article there. And a bunch of other stuff as well. You can also find me on GitHub and Twitter using this handle here. And the slides for this presentation, you can find them at this address. You can also find this project there. Which will allow you to test it out and build your own components using the way I'm going to show you. So, yeah. Let's dive into the subject of today's talk.

So, what this is going to be about is, of course, how to build cross platform components so that you can actually use them in both React and React Native projects. My idea is that the requirements for React Native knowledge are going to be pretty slim. Just knowing the basics of difference between React Native and React is supposed to be enough in this case and I hope that's going to be it. And using React Native, we're going to look into how to actually use that to build cross platform components that we can use on both web and native, in this case iOS and Android, and also how to build these platform specific components so that we can have the same components but the code being different between these two platforms. The reason for this, we're going to talk more later about it, but the basic idea is that we want to have a single code base and share as much code as possible. Towards the end of the talk, I'm going to dive a little bit into the styling and the pros and cons of this approach that I'm going to show you. Then, a few additional points. We're not going to use React Native web, which I think I'm going to mention soon, and we're also going to use styled components and storybook. For those who haven't used styled components, it's a really awesome CSS in JS solution that allows us to style our cloche platform components really easily in this case. Storybook is just something that I'm now using to show the components in a separate context from building a real application. So, yeah. This project or this approach that I'm going to show you is actually based on a customer approach that I did a little bit of time ago. So, that customer, I can't mention the name, but it was a big government-owned news organization and they actually had three React native apps and one web app that was powered by React. Basically their main website. And they were serving, I'd say, cloche, maybe even over a million people every day, so the user amounts were huge.

2. Building a Unified Cross-Platform Feature

Short description:

My team was asked to build a new feature that would allow live content on their platform. They wanted a single codebase for all their different apps and platforms. The feature needed to work in all four projects and have a unified experience. Despite the tight schedule, we managed to deliver a good version.

And they asked, my team was asked to build a new feature that would allow live content on their platform. This would mean video, polls, chats, and of course, live, updated articles about different things. And there were a few requirements, so despite having these three or four different platforms, four different apps, they actually wanted a single codebase. So this feature that we would build as a separate component library, it would need to work in all of these four projects, which was quite the requirement. And it also needed to have a unified experience so that it looks and feels the same despite you using it on a different app, different native app, different web app, and so on. And the time schedule was also really tight, so I think they wanted to get an MVP out in less than three months or so, which for a company of their size was quite a big undertaking, but we managed to get a pretty good version out.

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