Hi developer There are a lot of articles on the Internet about React Native Development, but it is not clear with what message and for whom they were written, because they all carry the meaning like “Well, this is the same React as on the web, only on mobile phones.” But people who are engaged in native development for mobile devices in flight, after all, it is impossible to understand React Native and how it works with Android without deep study. The Setting up Android Emulator which is a software product that faithfully replicates the image and functionality of Android in other operating environments. The utility creates software conditions for launching applications and transposes the Android language into a language understandable to other operating systems, using their hardware. In the article ‘How to Setup Android Emulator for React Native’ I will tell you about React based not only on web development, but on Android. All interested are welcome!
I understand that Setting up Android Emulator the main audience of React Native is just the same web developers who wanted to poke them into mobile devices. But why should a mobile developer look towards React Native? Firstly, native development for Android is complex and full of a bunch of little things, the most common example is screen rotation, there are a bunch of different solutions and libraries, even I made my own crutches. And in the React everything is simple, the screen made, but you can forget about the turns out of the box, everything works (as I understand it) not in the main thread, basically only the view is redrawn, the screen rotation does not affect the life cycle of the react components in any way, and this is fine. For simple applications, the forces of the React are enough, when difficulties begin, you can resort to the main trump card – to write a module natively for the desired platform. Well, the icing on the cake is that the phrase: “Well, this is the same React as on the web, only on mobile phones” works in the opposite direction, while studying React Native I use the same tools and approaches as on the web, it will be much easier to change direction of development to the web. As for the development process itself, it is difficult to describe the feeling of freedom that you gain after native development for android. The Android SDK gives us tools that are tailored for something specific, and there is no way to get away from them. So it was thought that there should be an activity in which the class is hooked to the layout, and even though you do something, there should be an activity, even Google itself cannot do anything about it. So they gave us a data binding, and now using this activation library in 99% of cases it is used as a crutch, just to hook the layout and ViewModel, passing Model along the way, although we have already explicitly indicated both model and ViewModel in the layout. There is absolutely no logic in this case, but there is activity. To transfer information, you need an Intent, and it can transfer only simple types without any problems, and if you want to transfer an object, then hello Parcelable. And there are a lot of such examples. In the case of react native, there is only … JavaScript and that’s it. You decide how to make this or that element.
The Android emulator for a computer is necessary for software developers testing new applications for mobile devices, as well as for game lovers who lack the power and large screens of gadgets. The emulator allows professionals to test a new program or version of Android OS without the risk of harming a mobile device. Let’s see why you might need an Android emulator when working with open sources. Many people use their phones or web applications for this purpose, however, there are several reasons that speak in favor of the emulator:
- Confidentiality: Working with open sources from a smartphone, you can accidentally (or not accidentally) transfer your personal data. A virtual Android device helps you stay anonymous, so you don’t have to use your personal smartphone, accounts, or phone number to investigate.
- Fictitious GPS coordinates. Of course, the GPS location can be faked on both a smartphone and a tablet, but it is much easier to do this on an emulator. As described later in this guide, you can enter any coordinates you want to access information in various applications.
- Expenses. The most obvious reason for an Android emulator is that you don’t have to buy an additional smartphone for investigations because your primary device is an iPhone or because you need a second Android smartphone to avoid revealing your phone number and real accounts.
Genymotion is one of the most well-known Android emulator programs for Windows, mainly used by application developers. A significant advantage of the program is the low resource consumption due to the virtualization solution, which in this case is significantly simplified. And this is combined with a rich set of tools, including emulation of GPS coordinates, a shell that allows you to control sensors, and an unprecedentedly fast start-up. The emulator supports over 40 virtual devices, working with the Android SDK, Studio and Eclipse, simulating calls, SMS, battery power, Wi-Fi connections, and even front and rear cameras. Easily integrates with most well-known development environments. The product is paid, but it supports both Linux and Mac. However, there is also a free version of this program for personal use (mainly for games). It can be run through VirtualBox (developed by Oracle).
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How to install Genymotion?
First, let’s create a Genymotion account for personal use by going to https://www.genymotion.com/fun-zone/. Be sure to select Gaming in the Usage Type. To confirm your registration, you will need to enter a real email address. After completing the registration and verification process, click on the Download Genymotion for personal use link found below the buttons for downloading a 30-day free trial and purchasing a paid version of Genymotion. A couple more clicks after that – and you will be taken to the page where you can download the installation file. If you have not yet installed Oracle’s VirtualBox, then select the first file (larger with VirtualBox) because this program is required to run Genymotion. While installing the VirtualBox software, your computer may panic a little (this depends on your Windows security settings). To use Genymotion, give permission to install the program. With VirtualBox and Genymotion installed, select Personal Use in the Usage notice dialog box. You have installed Genymotion, congratulations! A little more, and the virtual Android device will be at your complete disposal.
Now, let’s move to the main issue of this article – how to set it up for React Native? On Windows 10 and Android Studio, you can go to Android Studio under “File” -> “Settings” in Settings, then under “Appearance & Behavior” -> “System Settings” -> “Android SDK”. Active on the “SDK Tools” tab: “Android SDK Build-Tools ..”, “Android Emulator”, “Android SDK Platform-Tools”, “Android SDK Tools”. If everything is installed, then you can start the emulator in Android Studio with “Tools” -> “Android” -> “AVD Manager”. If the emulator is running, you can try “react-native run-android”. Instead, you can quickly launch the android emulator from the “android avd” command line. After starting the emulator, you can check with adb devices if the emulator is visible. Then you can simply use “react-native run-android” to run the application on the emulator. Make sure you have installed platform tools to be able to use adb. Or you can use “brew install android-platform-tools”. That’s all!
Conclusion
In the article “How To Setting up Android Emulator for React Native” I highlighted the main problems in working with React Native in conjunction with Android, described why we need Android emulators and showed step-by-step instructions for installing one of the most popular, and of course now you know how to run this emulator for React Native. Hope it was interesting and useful for you. Thanks for reading!
