Develop a Progressive Web App (PWA) With React Native

Sept 29, 2020

Ever imagined how the combination of two emerging yet powerful technologies would look like? Well, even we didn’t! But yes, it is possible to combine ReactNative and PWA’s potential and have the best of both worlds.

Progressive web applications, aka PWA, is a web application that has the capacity to depict native-like features and user experience. React Native development, on the other hand, is a Javascript open-source, cross-platform framework developed by Facebook. Both of these technologies are completely fresh and assists in delivering A-one class user experience.

Developing a PWA with React Native offers a pool of benefits and convenience to the developers. PWA is popular for its characteristics like native-app-like feel, responsiveness, performance, progressiveness, offline storage, less storage occupancy, and more. The website applications open on mobile devices, and the screens get quite adjusted accordingly.

The browsing experience is not disturbed, and the user is engaged with the application throughout the period. It is a convenient way to offer the user access to information without any disturbance.

The role React Native plays here is, it makes PWA more progressive with minimum efforts. A fair example of PWA with react native application is Twitter lite. The application observed a rise of 75% in tweets, and its bounce rate got reduced by 20% once they released a version based on React progressive web application.

So, how to create PWA with React Native?

React native offers several inbuilt packages to the developers to build a React application. Combining its power with PWA helps in developing an application speedily and in real-time. You can easily configure the packages and install the packages to get started with the application development.

Also, you can add SW-Precache-Webpack-plugin that will assist in building a fully functional application.

Let’s get started by typing the following command.

npm install -g create-react-app

This command will download the tool required to build a progressive web app using React Native.

After the installation is completed, type the next command,

create-react-app KodyTech

Note: KodyTech is the reference name of the application here.

All the packages will be downloaded for the new KodyTech application. A new folder will be created by executing this command. The service worker file and the manifest.json file will also be available in the folder. However, the manifest.json file will be available in the public folder. This is because of the reason that you can control the look and feel of the application.

The service worker code generates a service worker. In the next step, the NPM run build will come together with React packages in order to build a React progressive web application. This will take the application in production mode, and you can see various file sizes in the application.

Furthermore, to run the application, you will need the help of a static server. You can set up a static server using the following command.

npm i serve –g

serve -s build

You can now open http://localhost:5000 and have access to the application. You can also open the “Application” tab in Developers tools to check the progressing web application. Additionally, open the Lighthouse tool to ensure its PWA development.

Since we are combining PWA and React Native, there are certain points that you need to consider for React components. The entire application can be divided into three parts.

It will have History.js and Today.js both;

All the recent prices of BTC, ETH, and LTC needs to appear in the code;

All the previous prices of BTC, ETH, and LTC also need to appear in the code.

JavaScript and CSS will help you in building engaging UI and add interesting components in the application. However, to implement it, you will be required to build the app shell that ensures you can carry out better implementation and good performance.

Once you are done with the UI, import ES6, and integrate the Axios. Now you are ready to deploy the application.

For initiating app deployment, type the following command:

“npm run build”

The next step is to install the packages for executing the written code.

“npm install express body-parser pusher.”

Now the application is live on the localhost server. We are now ready to go live with our progressive web application created with React Native.

Time to Move towards revolution:

In a general sense, it has been observed that people spend most of their time browsing on their mobile devices. They get pissed off if the application takes longer to load or ask them to install an app.

An easy solution to this problem is developing a progressive web application. A PWA behaves similarly to a native application without asking the user to download an application. PWA, when combined with React Native, becomes helpful in exceptionally robust building applications.

The application built using the two will surpass all your expectations and are compact in size. You do not have to worry about the application quality; it is a highly functional and effective app, online as well as offline. What are you waiting for? Initiate the app building process today? If you need any help, call us straight away!