Summary

Using UI libraries such as native-base or react-native-elements saves a lot of time and maintenance hassle when we need to build apps, but the results end up having a standard flavor, which is not always desirable in terms of user experience. That's why learning how to manipulate the style of our apps is always a good idea, especially on teams where the design is provided by UX specialists or app designers.

In this lesson, we took a deep look into the folders and files created by React Native's CLI when initializing a project. Moreover, we familiarized ourselves with the developer menu and its debugging functionalities. When building our app we set the focus on the layouts and component styling, but also on how to add and manipulate animations to make our interface more appealing to the user. We took a look at Flexbox layout system and how to stack and center elements in our components. API's such as dimensions were used to retrieve the device width and height to perform positioning tricks on some components. You learned how to add fonts and images into our app and how to show them to improve the user experience.

Now that we know how to build more custom interfaces, let's build in the next lesson an image sharing app in which design plays a key role.