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Andrei Calazans

React Native Weekly - W27 2021

/ 4 min read

Welcome to the 16th edition of React Native Weekly = )

This a slow week with less commits than usual.

Specify whether DevMenu is bridgeless or bridge

The commit message mentions how the Facebook app can have both bridge and bridgeless surfaces in their app, and since the DevMenu for each are different it makes a better developer experience to tag which is which.

This teaches us that there will be a different DevMenu for Fabric mode with the DevMenu called React Native Debug Menu Bridgeless

+  NSString *debugMenuType = self.bridge ? @"Bridge" : @"Bridgeless";
+  NSString *debugMenuTitle = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"React Native Debug Menu (%@)", debugMenuType];

Fix CMD + OPT + R with Bridgeless mode only [iOS]

In this commit Ramanpreet Nara ramanpreet@fb.com adds a fix for the dev reload shortcut, the code that handles this shortcut in RCTDevSettings.mm only worked it was instantiated by the bridge which will no longer exist in Fabric mode.

The change adds a listener to it that gets setup when the RCTDevSettings is first instantiated.

Fix crash when PlatformColor is used as backgroundColor

When PlatformColor is used with backgroundColor, this line would throw, as the object type is not convertible to int.

Commit

Add mechanism to enforce certain Views always being visible in the View hierarchy [Android]

In this commit, Joshua Gross joshuagross@fb.com writes about this addition as an opt-in mechanism to allow native Android Views to be marked as “not clippable”, soft exceptions will be logged if these Views are clipped from the View hierarchy.

He notes how telemetry components might rely on the component lifecycle like onDraw to work properly and for this reason they can’t be clipped. This situation happened more often with Fabric and its View Flattening mechanism.

In JS the solution is to add collapsable=false to the parent component of the clipped view, and/or move the View higher up the hierarchy.

Added a Pressable Sticky Header Example to RNTester

Work from Kacie Bawiec kacieb@fb.com:

Add a test case showing off a pressable sticky header to RNTester.

All you have to do is set which index is the sticky item stickyHeaderIndices={[0]}

function StickyHeader() {
  const [backgroundColor, setBackgroundColor] = React.useState('blue');
  return (
    <View
      key={0}
      style={{
        backgroundColor: backgroundColor,
        margin: 10,
        width: 500,
        height: 100,
      }}>
      <Pressable
        style={{flex: 1}}
        onPress={() => {
          setBackgroundColor(backgroundColor === 'blue' ? 'yellow' : 'blue');
        }}
        testID="pressable_header">
        <Text>Press to change color</Text>
      </Pressable>
    </View>
  );
}

function renderComponent1(i) {
  return (
    <View
      key={i}
      style={{backgroundColor: 'red', margin: 10, width: 500, height: 100}}
    />
  );
}

export default function ScrollViewPressableStickyHeaderExample(): React.Node {
  const scrollRef = React.useRef(null);
  const components = [];
  for (var i = 1; i < 10; i++) {
    components.push(renderComponent1(i));
  }
  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <ScrollView
        nestedScrollEnabled={true}
        ref={scrollRef}
        style={{flex: 1}}
        stickyHeaderIndices={[0]}
        showsVerticalScrollIndicator={false}
        testID="scroll_pressable_sticky_header">
        <StickyHeader />
        {components}
      </ScrollView>
      <View>
        <Button
          title="scroll to top"
          onPress={() => {
            scrollRef.current?.scrollTo({y: 0});
          }}
          testID="scroll_to_top_button"
        />
        <Button
          title="scroll to bottom"
          onPress={() => {
            scrollRef.current?.scrollToEnd();
          }}
          testID="scroll_to_bottom_button"
        />
      </View>
    </View>
  );
}

Improvements to the RNTester app

The remaining work of week 27 was related to some clean up and improvements of the RNTester apd.

c06d8d01ca7 Support 3 levels of navigation 8765b93bae1 Generalize RNTPressableRow 9fb2659f56e Move SectionList examples together fd08255b0bc Refactor SectionListExample fa3243ad33c Rename things in RNTester

Transparent Status / Navigation bar for #ReactNative (Android) apps

From Max Thirouin, repo

Expo SDK 42 is here!

Highlights

  • Preview release of custom development clients
  • First-party Stripe support
  • Experimental support for Hermes on Android
  • Improved managed apps on EAS Build

Tweet

Tweet From Fernando Rojo on Coinbase’s Peformance Article

Fernando posted:

@coinbase Your article on optimizing React Native is a game changer. DeactivateContextOnBlur wildly improved performance for my search screen when editing search filters from global state.

The article is from last year and probably worth reading if Fernando said that.

That Is It!

That’s it for this week. If you want to see more checkout the previous week’s posts here. Subscribe to get notified when new posts are out = )