Issue 31 May 23rd 2018

Libraries & Tools

Using Sensors in React Native

One of React Native's biggest strengths is how easy it is to create native modules to bridge native APIs. This is what Daniel Schmidt did with device sensors, and now we got a neat new library available to access sensor data such as Accelerometer, Gyroscope and Magnetometer 🎉

Fluid Transitions with React Navigation

Feel like your React Native apps need some spicing up? react-navigation-fluid-transitions's got you covered. It takes advantages of React Navigation's extensibility and allows you to do some pretty amazing things that will undoubtedly make your app stand out 👌🏼

Open Source

react-native-reanimated

Announced at React Europe, react-native-reanimated provides a declarative approach to animations in React Native and much more, definitely on my try-out list!
react-native-input-prompt

A cross-platform user input prompt component for React Native with Native UI.
react-native-draggable-calendar

A pretty cool calendar component that supports dragging!
react-native-touchable-graph

I sure wished something like this would have been around back when I was implementing graphs in a previous project! It fixes a major issue with other svg based alternatives.

Design

The Illusion of Speed: Skeleton Screens with React

While this article is talking about React, all the concepts are transferrable to React Native using rn-placeholder. We need to get rid of all these spinners!

Videos

Talks from React Amsterdam 2018 are now on YouTube

React Amsterdam was awesome this year, with great talks all around! If you didn't get the chance to attend, the talks are now officially out and ready to be binge watched 🎉

Comment

I know, I know, this issue is a day late 🙈

Things have been pretty crazy on my side in the last few weeks. I came back from Europe, started a new job, quit that job after a few days because it wasn't working out, started a React & React Native consulting company, got into a biking accident... and that was all within the last 3 weeks! Move fast and break things, right? (I don't think Facebook meant break limbs, but well... 😁).

Either way, I think I made you guys wait long enough for this, so let's get to it, shall we?

Engineering

Thoughts about React Native after a few months working with it

If you've been thinking about taking the plunge, but haven't yet started working with React Native, I found this article to be a super good write up on what it's really like to get started with RN. 👌🏼

Caching images in React Native

If you value your user's data, you should seriously start considering caching the images displayed in your apps, because that can be super expensive! The React Native core team recently added a cache property to images, but it doesn't work consistently on iOS and doesn't work at all on Android. react-native-cached-image is a great alternative, and on top of that it's super easy to use 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Signing React Native Android APKs on Microsoft App Center

Back when I first started with React Native, I was one of the lucky ones, I had a bunch of Android developer colleagues who helped me out and taught me how to work with Gradle, keystores and APK signings. But many developers don't have that luxury, and spend many hours trying to figure out something that should be simple: signing an APK. If you're currently dealing with this issue, Christian Bäuerlein,'s got you covered with this super straightforward guide. 👍🏼

Interactive Card Stack in React Native!

If you haven't noticed yet, sweet animations are the way to my ❤️. If you ever doubted React Native's ability to provide users with delightful experiences, this article by Rajat Soni is here to prove you wrong!

Business

The REAL Difference Between Managing and Leading

I've met many managers who fail at understanding the difference between managing and leading, and this can tremendously hurt a team and lead to a lot of turnover. This is a must-read if you're interested in transitioning to a leader role!