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Build a Realtime Chat App in React Native (tutorial for beginners) 🔴

notJust․dev・117 minutes read

The speaker focuses on building a real-time chat application in React Native, emphasizing practical learning and community interaction through a Discord channel for support and problem-solving. The creation process involves utilizing React Navigation, AWS Amplify for backend services, and TypeScript, with a focus on structuring components, styling elements, and integrating chat messaging features.

Insights

  • Practical learning through building applications is highly valued by the creator, who encourages viewers to follow along for hands-on experience and portfolio enhancement.
  • The creator emphasizes community interaction, support, and problem-solving by opening a Discord channel to foster a community where members can assist each other with app development challenges.
  • The speaker successfully demonstrates building a real-time chat application based on WhatsApp UI using React Native, Expo SDK, and TypeScript, showcasing the process from navigation setup to message display and interaction.

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Recent questions

  • How can I enhance my React Native skills?

    Building real-time chat applications in React Native can significantly enhance your skills. By following along with experienced creators and actively participating in project development, you can gain practical experience and improve your portfolio. Joining a community like the Discord channel mentioned in the summary can provide support, interaction, and problem-solving opportunities, fostering a collaborative learning environment. Additionally, utilizing tools like React Navigation for navigation, AWS Amplify for backend services, and TypeScript for type safety can further enhance your development skills and knowledge.

  • What tools are used for building a chat application?

    The chat application in the summary is built using React Native, Expo SDK, and TypeScript. React Navigation is employed for navigation within the application, while AWS Amplify powers the backend, offering services like AWS AppSync, S3, analytics, and authentication through AWS Cognito. These tools provide a robust foundation for developing real-time chat applications with efficient navigation, secure backend services, and type safety through TypeScript.

  • How can I style icons in a React Native application?

    Styling icons in a React Native application involves specifying attributes like name, size, color, alignment, and spacing. Icons can be sourced from directories like icons.expo.f and imported using libraries such as octicons and material community icons. To display icons in a row, a parent component style with flex direction row and space between justification is necessary. By adjusting these styling attributes, you can customize the appearance of icons in your application to align with your design preferences.

  • What are the benefits of using TypeScript in React Native?

    TypeScript offers several benefits when used in React Native development. By providing type safety, TypeScript helps prevent errors and enhances code reliability, ensuring accurate tab naming and preventing mistyped names. This can lead to more robust and maintainable code, reducing the likelihood of bugs and improving overall code quality. Additionally, TypeScript allows for better code organization, improved developer productivity, and enhanced collaboration in larger projects.

  • How can I effectively manage chat messages in a React Native app?

    Managing chat messages in a React Native app involves creating components for displaying messages, styling them based on incoming and outgoing messages, and ensuring a user-friendly interface. By utilizing conditional styling to differentiate between message types, styling names and messages appropriately, and organizing messages in a flat list, you can effectively manage and display chat conversations. Implementing features like displaying timestamps in a human-readable format, inverting message lists for better readability, and integrating emojis can further enhance the user experience in your chat application.

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Summary

00:00

Building Real-Time Chat App in React Native

  • The stream focuses on building a real-time chat application in React Native, following previous successful builds of Instagram, Twitter, and Spotify apps.
  • The creator emphasizes the value of practical learning through building applications, encouraging viewers to follow along for experience and portfolio enhancement.
  • Due to time constraints, the creator opened a Discord channel for community interaction, support, and problem-solving.
  • The Discord channel aims to foster a community where members can assist each other with app development challenges.
  • The creator announces the start of building a real-time chat application based on WhatsApp UI using React Native, Expo SDK, and TypeScript.
  • React Navigation will be used for navigation within the application.
  • The backend will be powered by AWS Amplify, providing access to services like AWS AppSync, S3, analytics, and authentication through AWS Cognito.
  • The process begins with installing Expo SDK, initializing a project with Expo, and setting up the necessary folders and files for the application.
  • The navigation structure is established, with adjustments made to the header style, background color, text color, and alignment.
  • Additional styling is applied to the header title, including font weight changes, and the title is updated to display "WhatsApp."

23:47

Creating Custom Icons and Top Tabs in React

  • Providing a title overrides the library's default screen naming convention.
  • Implementing a header right component involves creating a function to return a red component displayed on the right side of the header bar.
  • Icons like search and three dots need to be placed within a view component due to React's requirement of returning a single component.
  • Icons can be sourced from directories like icons.expo.f and imported using libraries like octicons and material community icons.
  • The directory contains various icon families, including viking, and offers guidance on importing and displaying icons.
  • Styling icons involves specifying attributes like name, size, and color, with adjustments made for alignment and spacing.
  • To display icons in a row, a parent component style with flex direction row and space between justification is necessary.
  • Installing the react-navigation-material-top-tabs library enables the creation of top tabs similar to WhatsApp's layout.
  • Styling the top tabs involves adjusting background colors, indicator styles, and label styles to match WhatsApp's design.
  • Custom types in TypeScript ensure accurate tab naming and prevent mistyped names, enhancing code reliability.

49:25

"Efficient icon sizing and component development"

  • Increasing the size of an icon to 20 or 18 is suggested.
  • The width of an icon needs adjustment.
  • Splitting components into smaller manageable parts is advised for easier development and bug fixing.
  • Developing a chat list component is the initial step, requiring user details like image, name, and last message.
  • The last message should include content and a timestamp.
  • Regularly committing to GitHub is recommended for tracking application progress.
  • Typescript (.tsx) is preferred for files containing JSX syntax.
  • Saving timestamps as Unix time is favored for consistency and ease of use.
  • Dummy data for chat rooms can be utilized for testing and development.
  • Displaying user avatars based on chat room data is essential, assuming the first user is the sender and the second user is the recipient.

01:16:55

Avatar display and chat room styling in React.

  • To display an avatar image, import styles from styles.avatar and declare the styles for the avatar with a width and height of 50 pixels each.
  • Check if the avatar URI is defined by console logging it and ensure it's present for the avatar component from React Native Elements.
  • Confirm the avatar image is displayed correctly by adjusting styles and ensuring the correct URI is used.
  • Include the user's name and the date of the last message in the chat room component.
  • Position the avatar and text elements in separate views, with the avatar on the right and text on the left.
  • Set the flex direction to row for the parent container to display elements in the same row.
  • Adjust spacing between elements using justify content: space between to align them properly.
  • Add padding to the container and margin to the avatar for proper alignment.
  • Style the username, last message, and timestamp components with font weight, size, and color.
  • Implement a flat list component to display chat rooms vertically and horizontally, ensuring each item has a unique key for re-rendering purposes.

01:45:56

"Developing Real-Time Chat Room Screen"

  • Displaying date in a specific format is discussed, focusing on month, date, and year.
  • Font size adjustment for time display is suggested to save space.
  • Moving on to developing a chat room screen with real-time messaging capabilities.
  • Creating a new screen named "chat room dot tsx" is initiated.
  • Utilizing the "useNavigation" hook to navigate to the chat room screen.
  • Implementing a touchable component for redirection to specific chat rooms.
  • Exploring the use of the "useRoute" hook to access parameters like chat room IDs.
  • Demonstrating how to display chat room names dynamically in the header.
  • Mentioning the potential inclusion of user images in the header.
  • Adding icons to the header for additional functionality, with the need for touchable components for interaction.

02:15:34

"Creating Stylish Chat Messages in React"

  • Testing in React Native is important for real job scenarios, despite being boring for live streams.
  • A separate video on React Native testing might be created if there is demand.
  • Creating a custom component to display messages starts with a simple text display.
  • Implementing styles and defining them in a flat list for multiple messages is the next step.
  • A new directory for chat messages is created with two files: index.esx and types.
  • The process involves declaring an array of users in GraphQL and TypeScript.
  • The chat message component is imported and used in the chat room screen to display messages.
  • Styling messages involves displaying the username, message content, and message time.
  • Conditional styling is used to differentiate between incoming and outgoing messages.
  • Names are styled with a tint color and bold font, while messages have vertical margin for spacing.

02:44:58

"Creating User-Friendly Chat Interface with Emojis"

  • The speaker aligns things online, achieving success without external help.
  • They set a color and display information in a human-readable format like "seven days ago."
  • The flat list in their application is inverted, displaying the latest messages at the top.
  • They plan to implement emojis in the next video and have been working for two and a half hours.
  • The speaker successfully displays a background image in their chat room screen.
  • They create a separate component for the chat input box, styling it with icons and text input.
  • The input box design includes a main container with round borders and icons for emojis, attachments, and the camera.
  • The microphone icon changes to a send icon when text is entered, following a WhatsApp-like design.
  • The speaker uses the useState hook to manage the message content in the input box.
  • They conditionally display different icons based on whether there is text in the input box, with a placeholder for guidance.

03:17:10

"Interactive messaging app with backend integration"

  • The message display changes from null to a microphone when typing and to "send" when the message is null, based on conditional rendering.
  • The camera is hidden when the message is not null, using a double negation to determine if the message has a value.
  • The view is placed in a touchable opacity to handle clicks, with functions declared for microphone and send presses.
  • Functions for microphone and send presses are defined to log messages and clear the message box for the next message.
  • The message is sent to the backend upon pressing "send," clearing the message box afterward.
  • The input box is developed and ready for integration with the backend in the next week.
  • A new message button is created with an icon and positioned absolutely on top of the chat list.
  • A contacts screen is added, redirecting users upon button press, displaying a list of users with their statuses.
  • The contact list item is modified to display user profiles and statuses instead of chat messages.
  • Users' statuses are added to the data array, showing up in the contact list items.

03:44:39

"Project updates user interface with new features"

  • The project involved removing certain icons from the screen, specifically the close contact screen and new message button, while also updating the user type to include a status field as a string.
  • Various components were set up in the project, including a header bar displaying icons and titles, a top bar navigator with tabs, chat list items, a chat page with customized message styles, and a contacts page with search and options icons.
  • The creator encouraged viewers to actively participate in building projects themselves to enhance learning, emphasizing the importance of practical application over passive observation, and promoted community collaboration through a Discord group for mutual support and learning.
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