React Native 0.61: All-New Fast Refresh And Other Value Additions For Developers

Whenever we discuss cross-platform development, we need to mention the React Native 0.61 framework as one of the leading frameworks. Before cross-platform development became popular, developers had to struggle with several native technologies. For every different platform, they had to code separately.

When a developer needs to build an app for both iOS and Android mobile platforms, they have to build two separate apps. They must develop everything separately from scratch for both platforms, even though they are building the same app. This used to make the mobile app development process lengthier and complicated.

React Native came as a cross-platform development technology to eliminate this time-consuming process. It uses the WORA (Write Once, Run Anywhere) protocol, which makes app development easier across platforms. No wonder, for years, it has been one of the top 10 cross-platform frameworks.

A Background of the Cross-platform App Development with React Native 0.61

React Native 0.61 All-New Fast Refresh And Other Value Additions For Developers 2
Image by Camilo Garcia from Pixabay

The emergence of the cross-platform app era presupposes all the challenges developers faced with conventional development methods. They had to use Native frameworks for developing native-looking hybrid apps.

They needed to code for each mobile OS platform separately.

When you hire React Native developers to build a mobile app across both iOS and Android platforms, they have to write the app’s code for both OS platforms from scratch while essentially developing a similar app.

WORA (Write Once Run Everywhere)

Thanks to React Native, this scenario took a complete turnaround. We got WORA (Write Once Run Everywhere) protocol to develop one app that can run on multiple OS platforms while still maintaining native user experience and features.

Who Developed React Native?

React Native 0.61 All-New Fast Refresh And Other Value Additions For Developers Developed by Facebook
Image Source: React Native

React Native was developed and is maintained by Facebook. It has instantly become famous thanks to its plethora of native features. It is also famous for its high-performance functionalities. The core strength of React Native is its ability to reuse maximum code for multiple OS platforms. It ensures a native user experience through a native platform-specific layer.

The acceptance and acclimation of React Native as a cross-platform technology was so outstanding. In just a year, it became one of the most loved frameworks in the thriving mobile app development scene.

Also Read: What Are The Benefits Of Using AngularJS For App Development

But React Native is Not Flawless

But despite all these advantages, React Native has its share of pitfalls and shortcomings. These drawbacks often pull down the performance of React Native apps and mess with the user experience.

Here we list some of the notable persistent issues of React Native.

  • The upgrade from one React Native version to another is troublesome and time-consuming. It is incredibly tedious when the React Native version is too backdated, several updates are rolled out, and one tries to avail multiple updates at once.
  • React Native makes it troublesome to detect the principal cause of an exception. Often you end up landing on the ExceptionManager, which is not the original source. Even the componentDidCatch does not help much.
  • React Native offers a hugely popular feature called Hot Reload. Quite unexpectedly, it may not work well with Stateless Functional Components (SFC).
  • There are many occasions when React Native remains non-resilient to app crashes. Moreover, React Native often fails to give many insights into the reasons for crashes.
  • The ram bundle of React Native doesn’t get support from the OTA platform like CodePush. This becomes an issue just because React Native does not offer a well-connected community.

Also Read: How To Make Dynamic Web Apps Using ReactJS

React Native 0.61: A Lot Of Value Additions For Developers

A Lot Of Value Additions For Developers
Image Source: React Native

We now have the all-new React Native 0.61. It’s the latest version of the framework with many new features and key-value additions. The latest React Native 0.61 version will help the Front-end Development Company to improve the existing React Native features from the preceding 0.60 version.

The new update also looks to be completely free of bugs besides offering some critical new features and enhancements. Here we are going to mention the key-value additions and features. For more detail, you can always see the React Native 0.61 documentation.

React Native 0.61 – Enhanced CocoaPods Support

React Native 0.60 offered valuable updates to integrate CocoaPods, but the move faced several issues in using frameworks. But, React Native 0.61 fixes these issues. The integration is much easier for developers to use React Native in iOS app development projects.

React Native 0.61 – Hook

The new React Native came with a new feature called Hook, which allows comfortable offering and subscriptions of dimension updates. The feature can also replace the Dimensions API.

ReactJS upgraded to 16.9

The underlying Javascript React has also been upgraded, allowing developers to access many improvements through the UNSAFE_lifecycle methods.

Also Read: React JS – A Popular Choice Of Web Development

React Native 0.61 and Fast Refresh

Fast Refresh
Image Source: React Native

As already hinted, this is the most important key feature of the new version. It is fundamentally a combination of two pre-existing features, such as live reloading and hot reloading.  In this respect, it is essential to understand the impact of the Fast Refresh feature to React Native developers.

The latest Fast Refresh feature of the React Native 0.61 provides the below-mentioned advantages to the developers.

  • Fast Refresh fully supports current React projects that use Hooks and function components.
  • The feature is capable of recovering from common typos and other coding mistakes common to the developers. The most important thing is that the Fast Refresh can switch to Full reload whenever it is essential.
  • Fast Refresh completely prevents code transformations from its practices to ensure optimum reliability of code in default settings.
  • The React developers have rigorously tested it. They found it to be genuinely reliable and tremendously flexible.
  • For the first time, Fast Refresh helped React Native developers to code appropriately for both functional components and class simultaneously.
  • Irrespective of the fact that Fast Refresh shares several attributes with hot reloading, it truly delivers better performance.

Also Check: What’s New In React 18?

How to Upgrade to React Native 0.61?

You can use a new React Native Upgrade Helper tool to upgrade to the new version. It clearly shows and guides you about which files require change. The only depressing thing is the tool is still in a very nascent stage and is undergoing improvement. Nevertheless, once it is fully exposed, it can be the best tool to update your React Native version.

Also Check: How To Make Dynamic Web Apps Using ReactJS

Conclusion

The React Native 0.61 version has key-value additions and excellent features. This is likely to have a tremendous positive impact on developers and React projects.

The new update to React Native 0.61 successfully addressed many persistent and common issues faced by React developers in more than one way. The new update is likely to make the development process more manageable and smooth than ever before.

Also Check: React MVC Training Course: How Can You Advance Your Career After Completing It?