Announcing our New React Native Plug-in
Some products you build because you want to. Others you build because you have to.
In the case of Bugfender’s brand-new plug-in for React Native, it was definitely the latter. Like the rest of the development world, we’ve come to rely on this cross-platform framework to build killer apps across Android, iOS and web.
But that’s not why we’ve built our plug-in. No, it’s because our users were building their own versions! People were creating their own Bugfender plug-ins for React Native, so it was clear we needed an official version to ensure full support to our users, and create a simple, universal product for everyone.
Now the plug-in is live, we wanted to give you a full explanation so you can access it — or replace your own version with ours!
What is React Native?
Ok, we know you’re probably familiar with this product. But, just in case you’re not, here’s everything you need to know about React Native:
- It was built by Facebook as an open-source solution for the creation of native mobile apps.
- Its key benefit is that developers can use the same codebase for different platforms.
- Its primary building material is JavaScript. Platform-specific languages are only required for a tiny proportion of each project.
- It builds each app using platform-specific UI components, adapting the user’s code to each platform they’re building towards.
- It allows components built with Java and Objective-C to be dropped into the app, on top of the JavaScript code.
- It’s already proved massively popular, having been adopted by world-famous brands including Bloomberg, Tesla and Airbnb — and gained 70,000 downloads on GitHub.
What Do We Need to Know about Bugfender’s Plug-in?
Essentially it’s the same Bugfender many people use already, but tailored to React Native.
With the RN-Bugfender plug-in, the users can write their logs once, using generic JavaScript code on top of their application, and they’ll get all the details for each of their devices, all visible from the same console. Reflecting React Native’s core attributes, it produces the exact same logging results across iOS and Android apps.
So, no matter which platform you’re building towards with React Native, you’ll get Bugfender’s full functionality.
The logger will provide logging information 24–7 and give you forensic insight into any issues, and you’ll be able to target problems in specific devices using Bugfender’s web-based console.
What Were the Main Challenges of the Development Process?
Naturally, one of the major challenges was to ensure total symmetry across iOS and Android. React Native developers know how annoying it can be to get different values for the same call in different platforms. For example, when you ask the locale and you get “en” in one platform and “en_US” in other.
Another major problem with React Native plug-ins is that they can get a bit messy; the functionality is usually extremely cool, but they don’t always work well across all operating environments.
So during the development we made a big effort to make the installation process as standard as possible, spending hours testing in different environments. We built example apps from scratch for Mac, Windows, Ubuntu and various others, and integrated the plug-in into apps which are already up and running, to ensure total reliability.
How Do We Install It?
Installation of the RN-Bugfender plug-in is quite easy; in fact it should be as straightforward as installing any other native plug-in. We’ve built the plug-in to follow Facebook’s official recommendations as closely as possible.
Developers will need to add the native SDKs and the React Native bridge, but there’s no need to this manually. It’s a three-step process.
For the full guide, you can click here. In the unlikely event that you have any problems during the installation process, just open an issue in GitHub and we will do our best to help.
After installation, you’ll be able to use the plugin as easily as this.
Upgrade Now
Bugfender keeps improving. We’ve increased the number of features but didn’t increase the price. So now’s a better time than ever to sign up.
Join Bugfender now and get 50% off your first purchase with our limited-time offer! Just use the code WELOVEREACT ;-)
