On: React Native for Android

[harperlee]

This might be a stupid question, but, would it make sense to have React Native also for Windows, Linux, OS X, etc.?

[dcre → harperlee]

It's certainly possible, but for now you could just write an app in plain React and wrap it in a web-to-native app wrapper, using something like Electron or MacGap (which Slack uses for their Mac app).

http://electron.atom.io/

https://github.com/MacGapProject/MacGap1

[evv → harperlee]

That would totally make sense. At Fb, we're focused on iOS and Android, but the community is absolutely welcome to step up and implement RN for the desktop platforms.

Jordan Byron already contributed a port of React Native to Apple TV: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/2618#issueco...

[tuckerman → harperlee]

I think this is a potential use case of electron http://electron.atom.io/

Running in node, you already have pretty good access to native apis via native node libraries.

[entitycontext → harperlee]

At least for Windows 8/10, I'm not sure if something like React Native is really necessary, since the platform itself already has built-in support for making "native" apps in HTML/JS.

All you would need is a React wrapper around the UI controls, like this one: https://github.com/winjs/react-winjs

[RussianCow → harperlee]

There's no reason you couldn't implement it to work on desktop, but I doubt Facebook will spend the time. I hope the open source community implements this, though, because I'd love to have a truly native cross-platform framework that also works on desktop.

[swah → harperlee]

No please - Linux and Windows as dev environments first!

[lfender6445 → harperlee]

it probably makes most business sense for FB to only continue supporting web and mobile, as these are the platforms facebook runs on