This starter is a collection of libraries and approaches from my personal experience. No hard judgements ✌️

For more information, check out Why section.

Getting Started

Quick start with cli-rn

> npx cli-rn new App -t rnn

If you have any troubles running the app with yarn ios or yarn android, open XCode or Android Studio and run the project from there.

Manual setup

1. Clone the repo

> git clone https://github.com/kanzitelli/rnn-starter.git App && cd App

2. Remove .git file (if not planning to contribute)

> rm -rf .git

3. Install packages and pods

> yarn && yarn ios:pods

4. Run it!

Open XCode or Android Studio to run the project (recommended) or do

> yarn ios
> yarn android

If you need to rename the app, do the following (based on react-native-rename):

> yarn rename NewAppName
> yarn ios:pods

What's inside

• React Native Navigation - truly native navigation experience for iOS and Android.
• RNN Screens - simplifed and predictable Navigation for React Native. Built on top of React Native Navigation.
• Expo Modules - libraries and modules from Expo ecosystem.
• RN UI lib - amazing Design System, UI toolset & components library for React Native. Dark Mode is implemented using this library.
• Reanimated 2 - React Native's Animated library reimplemented.
• MobX - simple, scalable state management, with mobx-persist-store for persisting your stores.
• AsyncStorage MMKV - efficient, small mobile key-value storage framework developed by WeChat. ~30x faster than AsyncStorage!

Extra helpful libraries

• React Native Navigation Hooks - a set of hooks for React Native Navigation.
• React Native Vector Icons - customizable icons for React Native.
• React Native Gesture Handler - native touches and gesture system for React Native.
• Hermes Engine - a JavaScript engine optimized for running React Native apps.
• ESLint + Prettier - keep your code neat and structured.
• Patch Package - useful for fixing node modules instantly.
• Release It - automate versioning and publishing of your app.
• Typescript - strict syntactical superset of JavaScript.

Useful services/methods

• navigation - a service where some of navigation configuration takes place in (such as default options).
• translate - a service that brings an easy integration of localization for an app by using i18n-js and expo-localization. You can see an example of en and ru localizations in Example screen.
• onStart - a service where you can write your own logic when app is launched. For example, you can increment number of appLaunches there.
• configureDesignSystem() - a method where all settings for an app's design system is taking place. You can customize there colors, schemes, typegraphy, spacings, etc. Now you can add as much theme modes as you want.

RPReplay_Final1641606734.MP4

Advantages

Describe app screens in one place

All setup for your screens takes place in one file src/screens/index.ts:

import {generateRNNScreens} from 'rnn-screens';

import {Main} from './main';
import {Settings} from './settings';

export const screens = generateRNNScreens(
  {
    Main: {
      component: Main,
      options: {
        topBar: {
          ...withTitle('Main'),
          ...withRightButtons('inc', 'dec'),
        },
      },
    },
    Settings: {
      component: Settings,
      options: {
        topBar: { ...withTitle('Settings') },
      },
    },
    // ...
  },
  [withGestureHandler, withStores, withServices, withAnotherProvider],
);

Navigate with predictability

import {screens} from '.';

const Screen = ({componentId}) => {
  const {nav} = useServices();

  return (
    <View>
      <Button
        label="Open Settings"
        onPress={() => screens.push(componentId, 'Settings')}
      />
    </View>
  )
}

Build root component with ease

// single screen app
const App = () => Root(Screen(screens.get('Main')));

// tab based app
const TabsApp = () =>
  Root(
    BottomTabs([
      Screen(screens.get('Main')),
      Screen(screens.get('Settings')),
    ]),
  );

Simplified API for Shared Transitions

screens.push<ExampleScreenProps>(
  componentId,
  'Example',
  { value: randomNum() },
  withSharedTransitions([{ id: 'reanimated2', pop: true }]),
)

Correct Dark mode implementation

You can define modes in utils/designSystem.tsx.

Samples for new screens, services, stores and components.

So you have one structure within the project. You can find them in corresponding folders. Just copy&paste it and make the necessary changes.

Enhancements

There are still some things I would like to add to the starter:

General

• Shared transitions example
• Passing props to a screen example
• Constants: add Dimensions, Navigation (nav service)
• AsyncStorage stores persisting example
• API example + useEffect and start logic on a screen
• Example with theme modes change
• Move some services/scripts to separate libraries, e.g., rnn-screens. Done - kanzitelli/rnn-screens
• Better documentation/exlanation for project structure, stores, services, etc.

Production

• Auth flow
• Fast Image - DylanVann/react-native-fast-image
• Notifications — wix/react-native-notifications or/and invertase/notifee
• E2E tests - wix/Detox
• Permissions — zoontek/react-native-permissions
• FB SDK — thebergamo/react-native-fbsdk-next
• Appodeal — appodeal/react-native-appodeal
• In-app purchases — dooboolab/react-native-iap?

Feel free to open an issue for suggestions.

Known issues (warnings)

• Large title is not shown on 2nd+ tab. This issue exists. So you can find the patch file for fixing that in patches/react-native+0.65.1.patch. It will be autorun when you do yarn add/remove/etc.
• Over-The-Air Updates. They have been removed from the current version as I had some problems publishing one of the apps to AppStore. Check out my tweet and be aware of the issue if you'd like to use them anyways.

Worth checking

Other starters

• expo-starter - 🦥 Production-ready starter for Expo (React Native) App! Powered by cli-rn, React Navigation (v6), RN UI lib, Mobx, Reanimated 2, Dark Mode, Localization, and much more.
• rn-starter - 🦄 Production-ready starter for React Native App! Powered by cli-rn, React Navigation (v6), RN UI lib, Mobx, Reanimated 2, Dark Mode, Localization, Notifications, Permissions, and much more.

Articles

• Expo + React Native Navigation? Yes! - Medium, Dev.to
• cli-rn — making RN app developing experience as smooth as possible - Medium, Dev.to

Apps in production

• Wallpapers App - App Store, Twitter
• Rabbit App. Lite Reddit client - Github, App Store, Google Play
• Trip Music Radio - App Store, Google Play
• App for VK - App Store
• Messenger for VK - App Store
• Christmas Market - App Store

Why

...do we need yet another starter/boilerplate? Well, I work with React Native for more than 3 years and during the time I started having my own project structure which was a good fit for almost all of the delivered apps. Also, I have come up with some custom useful services/methods which simplify usage of React Native Navigation and other libraries. Check out Advantages section.

License

This project is MIT licensed