Welcome to building React Native apps for Mac

Welcome to Building React Native Apps for Mac

Introduction

Walkthrough

What is React Native? The Mac and Mobile Web App Framework

React Native Pros and Cons for Building macOS Apps

How to Setup a New React Native Mac App

Getting started

State Management in React Native for Mac With MobX Library

How to Solve JavaScript Module Resolution with File Structure

How to Fetch Data From a REST API in a React Native Mac App

How to Create an API Store in React Native with Axios

How to Add Tailwind CSS to a React Native Mac App

How to Use and Customize Tailwind CSS in React Native

Behavior Encapsulation and React Native Reusable Components

Add React Native Navigation on macOS with React Navigation

Building bones of the application

Add Conditional Styles to React Native With Classnames

Optimize React Native with FlatLists and Native Webview

Advanced JavaScript topics

How React and macOS Communicate with React Native Bridge

How to Add React Native Vector Icons and Custom Fonts

How to Build a macOS Menu Bar App With React Native

How to Store Data on macOS Keychain with React Native Bridge

How to Expose macOS Native Modules to React JavaScript

How to Quit a React Native App on macOS

How to Add Hover and Focus States to a React Native Mac App

Limitations of Building Mac Apps With React Native

Build and Publish a React Native App on the Mac App Store

MacOS specific functionality

Advanced macOS functionality

How to Support Multiple Windows in React Native

Auto Launch a React Native Mac App With Swift Dependencies

How to Send macOS Notifications From a React Native App

Add macOS Drag and Drop Support to a React Native App

How to Handle Events in a React Native Mac App

Advanced topics

Good bye

Links and further reading

Links and references

react-native

node.js

typescript

tailwind-rn

In this course we will explore react-native as a framework for building macOS applications. Unlike web based tools, react-native offers a lot of benefits when it comes to performance and the ability to leverage native functionality.

React-native is not without its difficulties and the jump to a desktop environment requires not only novel technical solutions but also a different way of dealing with APIs and UI patterns.

In 30 lessons we cover setting up a scalable application architecture, connecting with native macOS APIs and exploring some workarounds. The course comes with a lot of new techniques, code samples and detailed instructions to develop React Native apps that are truly equal to native alternatives.

Taught by Oscar Franco, who has worked in several companies as team lead and CTO, released a bunch of React Native apps and has contributed many of the newest latest techniques for react-native-macos.

In this course we will learn how to create modern macOS applications using react-native, take advantage of all the goodies react-native provides on the mac.

Building React Native Apps for Mac

How to set up a scalable architecture for your application

How to leverage native APIs with JavaScript

How to create great desktop native experiences

So far we have toiled away on the JavaScript side of things, but we are now going to go a little deeper into creating custom functionality that interacts with the underlying OS.

But before we start writing code, we need to clarify some concepts - mainly how React Native works under the hood, and how it communicates with native code and modules.

At the start of the course we said that React Native works by translating your React components into native UI components, thereby achieving greater performance than web alternatives.

Although this is true, this is a high-level abstraction, so a more concrete definition is that React works with its own set of native components (usually prefixed with RCT). A brand-new React Native project will work within a 

, and this view contains your entire app.

However this view is just another iOS/macOS view, and it can be embedded within other native views and existing apps. As a matter of fact, large apps already do this, for example, Instagram embeds React Native views in several parts of their apps (mostly the non-performance critical parts). These type of apps are called 

---
title: How React and macOS Communicate with React Native Bridge
isPublicLesson: false
---

So far we have toiled away on the JavaScript side of things, but we are now going to go a little deeper into creating custom functionality that interacts with the underlying OS.

But before we start writing code, we need to clarify some concepts - mainly how React Native works under the hood, and how it communicates with native code and modules.

### React Native and native UI

At the start of the course we said that React Native works by translating your React components into native UI components, thereby achieving greater performance than web alternatives.

Although this is true, this is a high-level abstraction, so a more concrete definition is that React works with its own set of native components (usually prefixed with RCT). A brand-new React Native project will work within a `RCTRootView`, and this view contains your entire app.

However this view is just another iOS/macOS view, and it can be embedded within other native views and existing apps. As a matter of fact, large apps already do this, for example, Instagram embeds React Native views in several parts of their apps (mostly the non-performance critical parts). These type of apps are called `brownfield` apps.

### The React Native bridge

Now that explains how your React components are translated into the native layer, but there is one more mechanism we need to pay attention to - the React Native bridge.