Mobile applications are now experiencing faster development along with the growing need for software with the emergence of many developers or mobile developers in making mobile applications for both Android and IOS. Currently, mobile developers have many choices in choosing the tools used to create mobile applications. such as Android studio, android ndk, unity3d, Qt for android, xamarin and what is currently on the rise is React Native, specifically for this article I will discuss React Native and Expo for building mobile applications.
What is React Native?
React Native is a Javascript framework developed by Facebook that has the ability to compile a mobile application into native code, both on Android and iOS.
The tools that need to be prepared for Learning React Native are:
1. Install Nodejs
The equipment that must be on our computer or laptop is Nodejs, Nodejs is a runtime that is used to run Javascript programs outside the browser.
The easiest way that you can use is to download the installer package on the official Node.js download site page according to the operating system you are using. Also make sure the installation process is on the LTS tab for free-users, please download the nodeJs installer here
For the next process, you only need to press the “Next” button until the installation process is completely finished. And finally, you just need to click the “Install” button and then wait for the installation to finish.
2. Install NPM or Yarn
The next tool is NPM or Yarn which we will use to manage Nodejs projects.
NPM or Yarn is in charge of creating projects, installing modules, running scripts, etc.
We can choose one, want to use NPM or Yarn. By default, NPM will be installed on our computer, if you have installed Nodejs. As for Yarn, we have to install it.
3. Install Java JDK
Because we need the Java JDK which will also be needed when we compile the application into an APK, please download it here and then follow the installation process to completion,
4. Install Expo CLI
The next tool we need to install is the Expo CLI, how to open the command prompt run as administrator then type “npm install -g expo-cli” then click enter, wait for the installation process to complete.
5. Install the Expo client app
The last tool is to install the Expo client application on your iOS or Android phone, please download Expo on Google Plaster via your cellphone and install it. this application is useful for scanning barcodes later in running your application later.
After we have installed all the equipment we need, it’s time for us to start making our first project.
please open a windows command prompt by typing CMD then Run As Administrator then type the command “expo init first Project” no spaces, yes, the first project is the name of our project, let the process of making our new project run to completion.
Next, we create the name of the project then we go into the project folder with the command “cd Projectpertama” after that type the command “npm start” this command will run the React Native application that we just created if successful it will look like the image below
after it appears like the picture above, take your cellphone that has been installed expo earlier then run the expo eat it will look like the picture below
then click scan QR code then navigate to the QR code that appeared on the laptop earlier.
if everything goes well it will appear like the image below
Congratulations, we have successfully installed the tools needed to build a mobile application with React Native and Expo and succeeded in making our first project, hopefully it will be useful.