Build a News App with React Native, GraphQL and TypeScript

When you’re developing a React Native app, it’s easy to forget the different ways and conditions your users can be experiencing it.

For instance, what happens when there’s no internet connection?

If you haven’t asked yourself this then the answer is… absolutely nothing ????

When your users click around, they’ll be stopped in their tracks by spinners and loading pages. They aren’t receiving any errors so they sit there, waiting…

Until they close and delete your app to never open it again because it’s broken.

But your app isn’t broken, you just need to have a plan for when the internet goes down.

It’s not just that the network connection is on or off— there are actually three levels of offline support:

You will incrementally build out a news application displaying a list of stories, story pages, and a bookmarks page.

As you start, you’ll learn how to query data for the application using GraphQL and import and call those queries in the components that need the data.

This project also uses TypeScript but the way it is used is fairly unique. You’ll see how we can have the safety of TypeScript in our app without having to write any types ourselves. Using the GraphQL schema that powers the data for your application, you’ll generate TypeScript types almost for free with a code generation.

By the end of this course, you’ll learn how to implement the first two levels of offline support and have the knowledge to implement the last level after this.

The videos are recorded on a Mac with an iPhone 13 Simulator using plain React Native, but you can do this course using Android, Windows and even the Expo managed workflow. See the lesson description for platform-specific instructions. The solutions repo has been verified to work on a Pixel 3a Emulator on Mac.

The completed app for this course is available

here

and each lesson will include a link to the commit that added the code so you can check your work.

This course will require you to run the API locally on your device. The API repo is available

here

.

More resources used in the course:

urql

Insomnia

Async Storage

React Native Netinfo

After this course, you’ll be able to apply this offline-first pattern to any app that you’re building.

If you’re looking for a deep dive on building a React Native app, you can follow along with Chris Achard and build a Restaurant Review app. This would be a great opportunity to implement offline support in another context.

→

Build a React Native Application for iOS and Android from Start to Finish

In the theme of building quality user experiences for your native applications, Kadi has produced a course teaching you how to implement a skeleton loader (vs just showing a spinner). You’ll learn how to display a static version of the content you want to show users.

→

Building a Customizable Animated Skeleton Loader in React Native

Course Content

Execute Queries and Mutations on a GraphQL API using Insomnia

Add urql to a React Native Project and Fetch Data With the useQuery Hook

Add Bottom Tabs to a React Native App with React Navigation v6

Add a Modal with Typed Navigation to a React Native App with React Navigation v6

Add GraphQL Query Args with urql’s useQuery Hook

Generate TypeScript Types for GraphQL Queries Using GraphQL Code Generator

Display Partial Data From Cache with GraphCache

Use GraphQL Fragments to Query Same Fields on Multiple Queries in React Native

Re-Execute a Query with Pull To Refresh in React Native

Use urql’s useMutation Hook in React Native to Execute a Mutation

Update GraphCache cacheExchange Directly After a urql Mutation

Use a GraphQL Fragment to Update Specific Item in urql GraphCache to Remove Items

Show a Full Screen Notification When the React Native App is Offline with useNetInfo Hook

Add Read-Only Offline Support Using the Offline Exchange from urql GraphCache

Create a Custom Exchange for urql to Filter Out Mutations when Offline