Creating native mobile applications using Liferay Screens and React

As you probably know, in Liferay we are working on a new and exiting project, called Liferay Screens. In two words, the project allows creating complex native applications for iOS and Android in a blink of an eye. If you haven’t tried it already, go ahead, it is worth!

Show me, don't explain me!

Here is a video, which Jose Manuel, the lead of Liferay Screens project did. It shows creating a project from scratch which uses React Native to create an example application:

The story

A few months ago React team announced React Native, a project which allows creating native mobile applications using JavaScript and the well known and respected in the world of Frontend engineering React library.

As soon as I spotted the project, I thought - “Oh my God, but that is just awesome! We would be able to offer the Liferay developers the opportunity to create native applications using our screenlets but writing the code in JavaScript instead using different languages for iOS and Android”.

Jose Manuel accepted the idea very fast and we decided to work on a prototype. It turned that was relative easy - to prepare two of the already existing screenlets in order to be used from React Native and to create an example application took us both more or less one day.

What is the status of the project?

For now we have a prototype with two screenlets prepared to be used from React Native and an example application. They were open sourced and you may check them here.

What about Android?

React Native does not have version for Android yet, but it is on the way.

Okay, so what now?

Well, it depends on you, guys. If you like the project and you think it makes sense, tell us and we will continue with the other screenlets, with documentation and other example applications!

Isn’t all that cool? I honestly think this is pretty awesome!

Cheers!

[Travis Cory]

This is fantastic! I'd love to see more. This could very useful for customers who want native applications and developers who are more versed in JS rather than Swift or a C language

[Philip Teagle]

Just saw this great idea. Anything else come of it. React developer community would embrace it.

[Charalampos Chrysikopoulos]

Hi Iliyan! Is there any PoC for the android version?

[Luis Miguel Barco]

Hi Charalampos! Here you can find a new proof of concept with Android and iOS.

https://community.liferay.com/blogs/-/blogs/liferay-screens-meets-react-native-the-sequel?_com_liferay_blogs_web_portlet_BlogsPortlet_redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.liferay.com%3A443%2Fblogs%3Fp_p_id%3Dcom_liferay_blogs_web_portlet_BlogsPortlet%26p_p_lifecycle%3D0%26p_p_state%3Dnormal%26p_p_mode%3Dview%26_com_liferay_blogs_web_portlet_BlogsPortlet_cur%3D1%26_com_liferay_blogs_web_portlet_BlogsPortlet_delta%3D10

[Charalampos Chrysikopoulos]

Thanks, Luis. We will try this out asap.