Building for Web & Mobile with Expo

React Native Web is a technology that allows developers to use React Native codebase and target the Web as a runtime environment. It enables the same React Native components and code to be executed on web platforms, effectively allowing for a unified codebase that can target both native mobile platforms and web browsers.

Expo provides a framework built on top of React Native that simplifies the development process by managing the underlying infrastructure and allowing developers to focus on writing JavaScript code. It supports React Native Web by default, helping developers to deploy the same application across iOS, Android, and web platforms using a single codebase.

React Navigation provides a seamless way to handle navigation in a React Native application, which can also be applied to React Native Web. It supports deep linking and helps in managing navigation stacks, including handling transitions, backstack, and passing parameters between screens, making it easier to manage complex navigation needs in a unified application.

Yes, React Native Web supports TypeScript, which allows developers to benefit from type-checking and other features of TypeScript to write more robust and maintainable code. Many parts of the React Native ecosystem, including Expo, have adopted TypeScript, providing good support for it in their libraries and tools.

Deploying a React Native Web application involves compiling the application into web-compatible assets using tools like Webpack. Expo provides commands such as 'expo export web' which prepares the build directory with all static files needed for deployment. The output can then be deployed to any web hosting service like Netlify, Vercel, or AWS.

EAS Build is a service provided by Expo that allows developers to build and compile their applications in the cloud. While primarily used for building native iOS and Android apps from a React Native codebase, EAS Build can also be configured to handle builds for React Native Web, facilitating continuous integration and deployment across all platforms.

When considering React Native Web, important factors include the need for a unified codebase across web and mobile, the similarity in functionality and UI between web and mobile versions, and the level of control required over the web platform's HTML and CSS. Projects that benefit most from React Native Web typically require consistent functionality and branding across platforms without needing highly customized web-specific features.